You probably still remember Dexter Jettster from Attack of the Clones – the big four-armed Besalisk who runs the cozy diner on Coruscant and helps Obi-Wan identify that mysterious Kamino saberdart. A lot of people liked him right away, but not everyone knows that Dex actually has a deep history across both canon and Legends stories. I went through the official material to see how much we really know about him, and it turns out, quite a lot.
The Adventurous Life Before the Diner
Before Dex ever wore an apron, he lived a full, wild life. He was a prospector and pirate during the High Republic era, exploring hyperspace routes and getting involved in adventures most beings would only hear about later.
He worked closely with Maz Kanata, joining her pirate crew and even fighting at her side during the Battle of Jedha. At one point, he helped defend her castle from a dark-side group called the Dank Graks. Those years on the move gave him a strong network and a reputation for knowing a little bit about everything.
Dex also earned a name as a storyteller, picking up legends from every system he visited and retelling them at Maz’s castle. His travels took him to places like Subterrel, where he worked as a black-market prospector. That’s actually where he learned about the Kaminoans and their cloning work, which explains how he recognized that dart years later when Obi-Wan brought it to him.
The Friendship With Obi-Wan Kenobi
Dex didn’t meet Obi-Wan for the first time in that diner. Their friendship goes way back to when Obi-Wan was still a Padawan. In the Padawan novel, Obi-Wan meets Dex while trying to protect a group of younglings stranded on a mining world. When things went bad, Dex stood up for them and helped the Jedi save the children from a corrupt crew leader. Afterward, he and Obi-Wan traveled together to Coruscant, forming a friendship that would last decades.
By the time of Attack of the Clones, that trust was solid. Obi-Wan turned to Dex because he knew his old friend had the kind of real-world experience no Jedi Archive could match. Dex looked at the dart, called it a Kamino saberdart, and explained exactly where it came from. I like how that moment shows their connection — Obi-Wan relying on someone outside the Order, and Dex sharing wisdom that came from living, not studying.
Dex’s Diner – More Than a Place to Eat
When Dex finally settled down, he opened Dex’s Diner in the CoCo Town district of Coruscant. The place served ordinary workers — mechanics, pilots, and anyone who needed a warm meal and friendly company. But it was more than a restaurant. The diner was a quiet information hub, where news and gossip from across the galaxy passed through the booths.
He sometimes used the black market to keep the kitchen stocked and even convinced Inspector Divo that his diner was completely legal.
During the Clone Wars, Dex’s problems were painfully practical. Supply lines collapsed, ingredients disappeared overnight, and he was forced to cut entire dishes from the menu just to keep the diner running. Queen’s Hope captures this perfectly in a conversation between Dex and Sabé, one of his regulars. When she asks why so much of the menu is missing, FLO explains the shortages, prompting Dex to weigh in from behind the counter:
“It’s a menace, this war. So many things we can’t get or are suddenly more expensive. The folk down here are going to notice the pinch long before those in the upper levels consider doing anything about it.”
“But they will eventually, right?”
“Oh, they’ll try. They’ll write a bill and talk about it for a week, and maybe it’ll pass or it won’t, but I’ll still be here, trying to run a restaurant.”
Dex vents to Sabé about how “this war” is a menace to ordinary people, pointing out that folks in the lower levels feel the pinch long before anyone in the upper tiers of Coruscant even notices. Even then, he hangs on to a simple belief: one small act of good can ripple outward in ways no one expects. That quiet philosophy ends up shaping what he does long after the Republic is gone.
From the Clone Wars to the Age of Empire
After the Republic fell, Dex didn’t disappear. He kept helping where he could, even under Imperial rule. In the Smuggler’s Guide, we learn that he investigated illegal experiments and brutal labor operations in the Tingel Arm. He documented everything, rescued a Rodian worker, and sent evidence back to Coruscant through a senator he trusted. That report reached the Imperial Senate’s Council of Labor Abuses, forcing some action against those responsible.
This part of his story shows how much he valued doing the right thing quietly, without making a scene. He wasn’t a soldier or rebel commander — just someone who refused to look away when others suffered.
Quiet Resistance Under the Empire
When the Republic turned into the Empire, Dex didn’t pick up a blaster and join the front lines. Instead, he went back to what he’d always done best: paying attention, asking questions, and helping people one at a time. At some point during the Imperial era, he picked up a worn book on the planet Pashvi — a little volume that would later be known as the Smuggler’s Guide — because he recognized Maz Kanata’s name written on the inside cover. That purchase pulled him straight into another mystery: rumors of miners being worked to death and illegal cyborg experiments on a remote world called Athus Klee, out in the stellar skirt of the Tingel Arm.
Dex took those rumors seriously. He flew out in a star-streamer, hacked his way through the jungle for days with a vibro-machete, got bitten by more than one local viper, and finally found the ore hub everyone was whispering about. From the shadows he scanned the workers with his macrobinoculars and confirmed the worst: a chop shop turning sentient beings into made-to-order bodies, and a mining operation so brutal that laborers were being worked to death. For a moment he almost gave in to the idea that he couldn’t do anything to fix it — then he remembered his own advice to Sabé about small acts of good.
Instead of trying to blow up the whole operation, Dex focused on what he could do. He managed to rescue a single Rodian worker from the facility and slip back into the jungle with them. On the long walk back to the spaceport, they spent hours lying under the stars and talking, the kind of quiet, human moment Dex always seems to find in the middle of galactic crises. Once they reached safety, he contacted a friendly politician on Coruscant and sent his surveillance scans along with the rescued Rodian. The case went before the Imperial Senate’s Council of Labor Abuses, forcing at least some attention on what was happening out in the Tingel Arm.
The Fall of an Empire and the Veteran’s Reflection
By the time the Emperor died in 4 ABY, Dex’s Diner was gone. The chrome booths and neon lights were dark, but Dex himself was still on Coruscant, watching the city tear itself apart over whether to cling to the shattered Empire or throw in with the Rebellion. Even without customers, the diner still mattered. A small rebel cell used an old smuggling tunnel connected to the building as a hidden route through the underworld — a little forgotten piece of infrastructure that turned into a decisive tool for hurting what remained of Imperial control on the planet.
In From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, the story “The Veteran” shows us Dex at this stage of his life: older, tired, and haunted by the idea that identifying the Kamino saberdart might have nudged the galaxy toward the Clone Wars and everything that came after. But guilt never quite outweighs his basic decency. When a furious crowd tries to throw two stormtroopers off a building during the chaos that follows Palpatine’s death, Dex is the one who steps in and hauls them back from the edge. He tells them to run before the mob realizes what happened. It’s a perfect final snapshot of who he is — someone who has seen every side of history, knows exactly how ugly it can get, and still chooses to save whoever’s in front of him, uniform or not.
Legacy
Even after his diner closed and the Empire fell, Dex never completely vanished from the galaxy’s memory. New Republic-era guides and survival manuals name him as one of the notable Besalisks in “Species From A to Z”, and holographic ads for Dex’s Diner even show up in the Coruscant Underworld battlefield of the game Star Wars: Hunters.
Long after the Jedi, the clones, and the emperors are gone, people still remember the big four-armed cook who knew everyone, helped where he could, and always had a story ready if you sat down at the counter.
Fun Fact: The Diner’s Retro Look
There’s a cool detail about Dex’s Diner that often goes unnoticed. The filmmakers designed it after 1950s American diners, complete with chrome booths and neon lights. George Lucas wanted something warm and familiar sitting right in the middle of Coruscant’s cold, crowded cityscape. That contrast made the scene feel more grounded and memorable.