How Dan-O’s Seasoning Went From a Bartender’s Idea to a National Sensation
While working as a bartender at the former Diamonds Pub in St. Matthews, Dan Oliver passed out chicken made with a special homemade seasoning. A regular customer loved the flavor so much he questioned why Oliver didn’t sell his secret recipe. The thought excited Oliver about the prospect of sharing his product with more people, leading him to create one of Louisville’s fastest-growing businesses, Dan-O’s Seasoning.
“I had the recipe for like 15 years,” says Oliver, a lifelong Louisville resident and Trinity High School alum. “Some people’s parents send them off to college with a spice rack, and I had one of those. I remember grabbing a few ingredients off that and mixing them together. It was phenomenal on chicken so it stuck with me. For years I would make this chicken for people and they would go crazy for it, but I never thought to package it. I was looking for something to do with my life because I didn’t want to bartend anymore. I had that aha moment when the guy tried the chicken. It hit me like a ton of bricks and everything made sense: sell the seasoning, and call it Dan-O’s.”
Oliver became determined to make Dan-O’s a success. After a year of modifying the recipe, registering the business, creating a logo and generating the beloved “Little Danny” mascot, the first bottle of Dan-O’s was sold in August 2016.
“I realized people didn’t want to buy Dan-O’s because there was a pinch of sugar in it,” Oliver says. “That’s when I leaned into having this better-for-you seasoning product that none of these big manufacturers were making. When I would go to the grocery store, all these other brands were full of salt, sugar and chemicals. I created the product because of the flavor but I realized it could change people’s lives since there isn’t seasoning being made the way it should be.”
Oliver began selling his product in local flea markets, festivals and trade shows, letting customers try samples. It was quickly a hit, and after moving nearly $4,000 of product in a single day, Oliver knew he was on to something.
“I was in the parking lot and called my dad to tell him I was pretty sure I was never going to work for anyone ever again,” Oliver says. “I was doing better than I was bartending and I could chase my own dreams and be in charge of things. Everything was falling in place with this business. I knew I could never give up on it.”
Oliver spent the next several years traveling around the country to various shows selling Dan-O’s Seasoning. He had big expectations headed into 2020, but had to change his strategy as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of events he relied on. Oliver turned his attention to social media, becoming more active on TikTok to promote the Dan-O’s brand and generating engagement with his cooking videos and other content. He also began a business partnership with Phil Crosby, who had worked in marketing for a number of years and later became the CEO of Dan-O’s.
“The way I operated my business and supported myself was these flea markets and festivals,” Oliver says. “In 2020, I was up in Michigan doing this hunting show and everything got canceled. I had to drive all the way home, thinking about what I was going to do. I saw something that said if you’re a brand, you need to be on TikTok, because that’s where all the attention is now. On the same day I met Phil, I had my first viral video, about a crab cake. I was a little discouraged and I wasn’t even going to bother. I just pulled my phone out and filmed with one hand and cooked with the other. It upset a lot of people in Maryland who didn’t like how I made the crab cake. I just kept responding, ‘You don’t know till you Dan-O.’ I made about $800 in sales because the post was controversial and people were loving what I was saying.”
From there, the attention and sales for Dan-O’s began to grow rapidly. In about a month, Oliver went from doing around $1,000 of sales per day to more than $10,000. The success led Oliver to expand the relationship with Crosby and move operations out of his home.
“I was a one-man show packaging all these orders out of my house,” Oliver says. “From March to May was the hardest two months I ever worked in my life. That’s when I realized I needed a business partner. The agreement was to change the world. I told him I wanted to put this product on every kitchen table across the country.”
Dan-O’s reach continued to escalate from there. In 2022, the product started to sell in Walmart and Kroger stores nationwide, and is currently present in more than 20,000 stores. It also caused a major expansion of the flavor lineup. Starting out initially with the original and spicy flavors, Dan-O’s now offers almost 20 different options, with more in production. This includes a new Outlaw brand that allows Dan-O’s to break away from its traditional rules and guidelines, featuring flavors like Sweet Caribbean, Spicy BBQ and Blackened Bloody Mary.
“We listened to what people wanted,” Oliver says. “We wanted to cater to our fans and make some special seasoning. The one thing we never want to do is make something just because of money. We want to make the best seasoning there is.”
Oliver credits much of his success with Dan-O’s to having a vision and working toward it every day.
“People say all the time I never imagined it getting this big but I’m pretty sure we’re here because that’s how I thought,” Oliver says. “I had a really large vision to put this product on everyone’s dinner table. One of the key assets toward being a successful entrepreneur is learning how to be resourceful and figuring things out. As you chase your dream and vision, people are going to come into your life at the right time. Things just happened for a reason, almost like there was a destiny for this product.”
Oliver is excited about expanding Dan-O’s headquarters on Terra Crossing Boulevard, including a studio for him to continue making videos and other content. He and his team are constantly thinking about new products they can offer to expand Dan-O’s reach while being grateful to the area that first made his product a hit.
“The product innovation runway is super long,” Oliver says. “There’s so many things we can do, but we can’t do it without people who believe what we believe.”
For more information on Dan-O’s Seasoning, visit danosseasoning.com.
