McDonnell Kinder & Associates

Pics of the The New Steelite Showroom at the MKA Center (Offices, Photo Studio and Kitchens) in Kansas City - completed last week with displays of their newest products. Exciting!!!

Announcing the addition of Kim Muller to the MKA Team MKA's relationship with Kim Muller started in 2014 and went into a direct mode on February 26th, 2021 Kim's career spans foodservice and retail operations across restaurants, hotels, markets and supermarkets, and her core areas of focus include Regional Mexican Cuisine, Southwestern Cuisine, Japanese Fast Casual Cuisine..... Her experience includes the renowned Border Grill in Los Angeles where she worked with Super Chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feininger; The Compound in Santa Fe where she worked with Southwestern Celebrity Chef Mark Kiffen (Coyote Cafe and Red Sage) and as Executive Chef of The Galisteo Inn and, Real Food Nation. Her retail experience includes becoming Culinary Director for Wild Oats Markets, where she immersed herself in developing Health and Wellness cuilinary programs In 2014 Kim went out on her own and developed Izanami at the renowned 10,000 Waves Mountain Spa, commuting between Santa Fe and Tokyo to studyi Izakaya and Robata and the history and the pairing of vintage Sake with Japanese inspired menus. Kim returned to Los Angeles in 2015 to focus on creative consulting across the restaurant and operational segments of the foodservice and retail industries.

Awaiting the magic of the staging director and the newest in design and functionality, Steelite International just installed a custom showroom as part of the McDonnell Kinder Culinary Center experience. For those who are not yet familiar with Steelite International, they are a world leading manufacturer and supplier of award winning tabletop and buffet solutions for the hospitality industry. Their innovation in china, metal, glass, wood and melamine products bring together functionality and design as they minimize their effect on our environment. For MKA this punctuates a partnership that goes back over a decade and it is an exciting progression forward, as we weather the chaos that this pandemic has wrought on our special industry.

Charles Mereday joined the MKA team in August of 2020, but has also and has collaborated with Patrick McDonnell on multiple occasions since 2001. An expert in new restaurant development. operational consulting and training, his range of experience includes restaurants, non-commercial operations, casinos and hotels. Charles's first executive chef position was in 1994 as the iconic Zanzibar Blue in Philadelphia, where he built a reputation as an exceptional young chef. As t...hat reputation grew it was inevitable that offers would follow, and in 1998 he was recruited by Lowe's Hotels to be the opening executive chef of their new Market Street Philadelphia flagship hotel, where he designed and developed all their food operations and implemented his special brand of Southern Haute Cuisine. In 2010 Charles relocated to Naples, Florida and partnered to open CM Restaurants. CM grew to encompass the award winning Merreday’s Fine Dining, Merreday’s Brasserie and Alto Jazz Kitchen and his own culinary TV Series Back of the House. Charles is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University in Charleston, SC with a BS in Foodservice Management , and his early experience included restaurants in Charleston, SC, Raleigh, NC , St. Thomas and St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. He also worked with Craig Shelton at the James Beard Award winning Ryland Inn in Whitehouse, New Jersey, Daniel Boulud and his team at Le Cirque in New York and Michel Troisgros at his 3 Michelin starred Restaurant Troisgros in Roanne in France. Credit Photograph to Yvonne Ayala McClellan - The News Press

Congrats to our very own GM/owner for winning Best Bartender via KC Magazine!

Bison & Hominy Tacos w/ Housemade Salsa and Spanish Rice. #TacoTuesday #FeedingOurElders

Restaurant Recovery Thoughts Just to give you a quick overview of myself, Coral and our company MKA. We are a Consulting company that works across the foodservi...ce industry, and our relationships with culinary and marketing leaders in major casual dining, casual dining and fast food chains and hotel chains are key to our functionality, But the dominant side of our financial revenue stream comes through our work with food, beverage, CGS (china/glass and silver), packaging and foodservice equipment companies. So you can say we have a fairly broad perspective. Our major restaurant company relationships are in hiatus. Obviously, no one is travelling in or out. They are working from home, whether they are in operational support, marketing, finance, HR or any other support functions. Our manufacturing and equipment company clients are under the same restrictions. We ourselves went offline 3 weeks ago and are working from home by conference calls, email and telephone. On the bright side for us our manufacturers and packaging clients are thriving through their retail markets. But we like everyone else are going to have to wait and work our way through this. And that costs money and impacts the psyche! The Reactive Process. Remain Proactive!!!!! Over the last 3 weeks I made sure to talk to a slew of trusted associates in leadership roles across our industry. On the bad side 4 of them, top vp or senior director level development leaders, were fired almost immediately and thousands of their operational workers and others have also been let go. One regional company let go of 6,000 workers! On the good side, these guys are strategic thinkers who know and understand the national and regional and local front lines of our industry. So thanks to their knowledge and experience, along with our own, here is very basic breakdown of proactive tactical and strategic perspectives to refer to as you make your own plans. Workers: On the positive side the Feds have kicked in and getting unemployment is going to help those ex-workers who really need it. Go for it! For your home, Banks and Mortgage companies are going to have to give forbearance and rental companies as well. Don’t be afraid to call them and ask for it. But do not just stop payment without having that conversation. You need to show good faith. Ask for 3 months. Some will offer less, but do not bend to their terms too soon. Negotiate. If you need more time after that period, then you call and extend again. And mortgage forbearance needs to be paying on the other end of your 15 or 30 year mortgages, and NOT trying to make 3 payments all at once when you come back up for air. They may haggle and talk policy, but there is always someone up the ladder that can make a real decision. Ask for that person or work your way up until you reach them. Get the best deal. Make that clear and get it in writing. Trust me, Banks do not want millions of their properties in foreclosure so you have an Ace card. With rentals it is trickier, you may get them to extend your lease and cover the forbearance through that or do a staged repayment plan on the other end. Any company or individual who forecloses or tries to throw a renter out is going to have to answer for it in the form of litigation and financial penalties from the State they operate in, as some are already finding out. They cannot evict you without following the law. So rest assured that you have leverage over the process when you talk to them. Utility companies will not do turn offs and will allow you to stage payments on the other end. Those are essential services. Operators: Independents, Local and Small Regionals: There is money being made available through banks in the form of loans. The Small Business Administration is the main vehicle and they will guarantee loans for successful applicant to the banks. The interest rates are around 3.25 percent. I look at them as life support for the short term and for kicking it all back up on the other end. It is not an easy process but it is doable and the forms are on-line. But I would talk to your bank as soon as you can. You may also want to go independent of the SBA process and work with you bank on a line of credit if you can. That will have a higher rate but it may be faster to get and you will have more control. The only caveat I can see is being able to show documentation that you had a viable business before you were closed down. Recognize that this will be a very frustrating process and it takes hours on the phone and on the computer and leaving messages etc. Don't be discouraged and remember their people are way overloaded and stressed out. They will respond better to friendliness, respect and kindness like all of us. We have to persevere. Large Operators: They will have access to Federal loans and they have the support infrastructure to make things happen fast. The caveat here is that they will come through this with a very conservative lens. They have to pay back the loans too. Meaning that they will go lean on staff long term and they will close down what were previously underperforming locations and sharp pencil expenditures. Translation = there will be a shakeout and some jobs will be gone permanently. But many of your jobs will still be there once this is over because they will need you to make the money back! Independents: They are the hardest hit. Some independents who were already struggling or who had just started up will have already collapsed. Others will not see the percentage in continuing and will close down. Some more will struggle on for a while but close down in the shorter term. A lot will survive and thrive. I’m very sympathetic because I have actually been there and done that!! It is a risk we all take when we decide we want our own piece of the American Dream. But we are entrepreneurs and we are born survivors who re-invent themselves as they go through life. I know that doesn’t help much right now but it is an honest and I hope positive perspective. Majors: I believe that most major restaurant and hotel companies will close underperforming units and continue to operate lean and go on successfully. There will also be majors, who were already in trouble, who will use the shutdown to streamline operations and lay off debt. Whether they are just buying another year or two or they manage to survive long term, only time will tell. There will also be equity groups who do have capital and are looking for basement bargains. That is Capitalism. So - I drill it down to two critical Macro responses for the Independent and Regional Operators. Short Term and Long Term 1. Short Term: Offload all unnecessary debt and expenses and put negotiable debt off by working with your suppliers, banks, landlords and lenders. And make sure your critical employees are getting unemployment. They are your family, your lifeblood. They need to know you care and you need to know they will be there for you when it the chaos dies down. If you can supplement your own critical needs by doing Take Out and Home Delivery - do it. And stay clear of the sharks out there who will offer you loans at crazy rates! 2. Long Term: Find a way to communicate with your customers and let them know you are there. Be proactive - help the underserved in your community if you can. Same goes from Majors to Minors Your company and your customers are a partnership in doing the positive. Your plan is to survive through this and be there on the other end and your customers will appreciate that you were in this with them. And then plan a staged escalation with your suppliers and staff once you open your doors again. Based on my past experience, my interactions and my own knowledge of the industry, WE are way to important to the American economy not to be helped to full recovery, and I believe it will be a strong - but staged recovery. As soon as the stay at homes and the major concerns are lifted, people will start going out. It will be an immediate and direct reaction to having being restricted. That patronage will increase exponentially but it will level out as they satiate or get back to worrying about expenses. That is exactly what happened in 2008 and 2009. And we must also recognize that our business terrain will change. I look at that as an opportunity. We were reaching or had reached restaurant saturation before this all happened because of an overly strong economy. Too many restaurant, Too many choices. What we will all see in the rearview mirror after this is a very "real time" acceleration of the shakeout process. That happens under normal circumstances, but we don’t notice it because "normal" is an ebb and flow vs the white water timeline that we are navigating through right now. I know this is all Yada Yada common sense, but for the next 3 - 6 months (staging that because it depends where live and when your Covid-19 peak happens) this looks to be our new reality, but it is NOT a permanent situation. What goes up has to come down. There is so much misinformation out there that has put us all in panic mode. The National News channels are mostly doom and gloom at this point and it is so easy to loose heart if you watch too much of them. And politics should be taking a back seat for now. Look at your local nightly news for up to date information on your own location. Focus on that. If you read my thoughts above take the time to look at this video from Dr. David Price it should give you a far more encouraging perspective. He is the lead physician in charge of the Corona Virus unit at one of NYC’s top hospitals. He is right there seeing the situation first hand. He made the video for his friends and associates and it came to me from one of them, a top Washington DC epidemiologist whom I have known since we were 14. My friend is a pro and it helped him and I to put things in much better perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YitWZj9QhdQ Be Safe and Please Think Positive! Blessings, Patrick