“When we first met, we knew we wanted to open a restaurant, that it would be called Kindred—we just didn’t know where it was going to be.”
“We wanted to build a place that was woven into the fabric of the community.”
Joe & Katy Kindred
Chefs & Restaurateurs
Joe and Katy Kindred met in Chicago, moved to San Francisco, and worked in world-class restaurants before deciding to move back to Joe’s hometown of Davidson, North Carolina. There, they started a family, saved up and opened their first restaurant. After living a whole story, that was only the beginning. Joe’s now racked up multiple James Beard nominations, and Katy’s an accomplished sommelier, among many other things. Their focus on family and food has served them well.
Their restaurants speak to the couple’s ideals and exude familiarity: Kindred, a Southern-style diner with worldly inspiration woven into its walls, and Hello, Sailor, which they lovingly describe as “Mid-Century Southern meets Palm Springs.” Items like house-made pastas and squid-ink conchiglie sit happily side-by-side with milk-bread rolls and fried flounder. Like Joe and Katy, their food is a marriage of world travel and home-style community done right.