Family is Always First

I was born in New Jersey, but have always considered the Valley of the Sun my home. This is where I was raised by the best parents in the world and spent the last 40 years of my life.

After graduating from Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, I attended and graduated from the University of Arizona. Then I set my sights on law school and received my law degree from the University of San Diego and then my Masters in Tax Law from Georgetown. It didn’t take long for me to once again return to Arizona, where I met the love of my life, my wife Jodi, and started our own family. We have three boys, all incredible and all nuts in their own way.

After practicing law for a few years, the restaurant business came calling and I went into business with my father and brother. Simply put, I am where I am today because of how much I was able to learn from my father and brother while we owned our first restaurants, Mastro’s Steakhouse and Mastro’s Ocean Club. We sold Mastro’s in 2007 and we now own and operate, along with our partner Scott Troilo, Dominick’s Steakhouse in the Scottsdale Quarter and Steak 44 in Phoenix. We also own and operate Steak 48 in Houston and Steak 48 in Chicago. Our next big restaurant opening is Ocean 44 on Goldwater Boulevard near Camelback Road in Scottsdale near Scottsdale Fashion Square.

I’m having the time of my life running a restaurant company, but most of all I’m enjoying being a husband and a father to three amazing boys. What hasn’t always been easy is learning to parent in the age of smartphones. We live in this ridiculous time in which our children have way too much access to way too much data.

It’s a constant struggle to get our boys to put down their phones. It is hard, but we’ve learned to put rules in place and we also use technology to manage the use of their phones. One app we use is Life 360, which tracks our boys’ locations and also monitors our 16-year-old’s driving patterns.

Through it all, we’ve learned you just have to be diligent and put family before everything else.

By // Jeff Mastro

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