The owners of well-respected Davidson restaurant Kindred are launching a new line of business. Kindred Studio, launching this year, is an interior design firm working with both restaurants and residential customers. 

Katy Kindred designed both restaurants she and her husband, Joe, own: Kindred and lakefront restaurant Hello, Sailor in Cornelius. She also managed renovations of their Davidson home. Down time during the Covid-19 pandemic inspired her to turn her passion into a business. 

“It’s something I really have a passion for, but never really considered doing anything outside of our own projects,” Katy Kindred says. “But I think with Covid, we realized that it might not be a bad idea to diversify what we do.”

Her skills will be rounded out by Joe Kindred’s proficiency in designing kitchens, and Kindred Director of Arts & Culture Blake Pope’s branding and photography experience. The business will also include support for pro bono projects, something Kindred calls the Toms model, with 10 percent of profit from each project supporting another restaurant or public design project. 

Kindred Studio is already booked with projects in 2021, including both residential and restaurant design. Kindred says they’ve found a niche with restaurants, as most designers haven’t gone through the process of opening and operating a restaurant as the Kindreds have. They’ll be on hand not only to oversee the interior, but also as informal consultants throughout the opening process. 

“Sometimes you have to get scrappy when you’re renovating a restaurant, or let’s say you’ve run out of money and you have to make something work,” Kindred says. “I think we could be helpful in that sense because we’ve been through that. We can understand in a way that most design studios can’t.”

When it comes to helping add another layer of sophistication to Charlotte restaurants, Kindred says she doesn’t see lending her eye for design as helping competition. She points to larger cities such as New York that have a vibrant dining scene thanks to the number of restaurants striving for excellence in food, aesthetics, and service. If they can help make more of Charlotte’s restaurants beautiful, she believes it will benefit the entire city’s reputation. 

While Kindred says the restaurants remain her and Joe’s top priority, she hopes Kindred Studio will grow — both to diversify revenue, which became a higher priority during Covid-19, and for her own personal growth. 

“It was scary — everything we have is wrapped up in restaurants, and we thought it’s just never a bad idea to have like a little bit more diversity in what we do,” she says. “Plus, if I’m being honest with you, the whole quarantine experience which we all went through together, I just realized, too, that I’m a better version of myself for being creative and when we’re not working on something like a new restaurant, this is really great. That’s a good opportunity for me to continue to be creative.”

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