In 1995 Kimbal co-founded a tech company with his brother Elon Musk. In 1999 they sold it for over $300 million he moved to NYC and enrolled in the French Culinary Institute. He tells Austin Lifestyle, “I sold a tech company and could do whatever I wanted. I decided I wanted to go learn to cook.” He opened his first restaurant, The Kitchen, in Boulder Colorado in 2004. Twenty years later, he’s opening The Kitchen in Austin, where he’s spent a lot of time since his brother moved here during the pandemic.
We had a chat with him about the restaurant, Austin, his philanthropic endeavors, his not without challenges journey to get here and more.
Why did you decide to open The Kitchen?
When we started we were one of the founders of the farm-to-table movement. Back in those days, 20 years ago, we couldn't get high-quality source ingredients, it wasn't actually a thing. Carrots were just carrots, there was no differentiation. From farm-to-table was an idea to bring local farmers online, get them to give us the kind of things you could only get in a farmers market, which was the best seasonal ingredients you can imagine. Now, all the farmers are online and it's easier, but our mission is just really extremely well-sourced food. We get to know our farmers and ranchers as best we can and we've grown into Chicago, Boulder and Denver and now Austin.
Why did you choose Austin to be your next location?
During the pandemic I spent a lot of time here and watched this town has come alive. I'm part of Tesla and would come out here and go to one restaurant after the other and was really impressed with the restaurant community. I like to be in towns where other restaurants are great.You want to be part of a great community and I was very impressed with Larry McGuire’s group, Liz Lambert, Jay Carver…they’re all really good and they care a lot about their product. They're really passionate about the food they produce and their service.
When you were growing up what did you want to do? I started cooking when I was a kid and I loved cooking. It was a beautiful way to bring my family together. Even though I was eleven or twelve, my family couldn't just sit down and focus and be present -but when I cooked, everyone would sit down and we would have a beautiful dinner. It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to do it for my career, I just loved it. Even when I went to cooking school, I didn't think about doing it as a career, I wasn't sure after selling a tech company what I would do, but I thought I would never regret going to cooking school, and I never have.
When did it become what you wanted to do? I graduated just before 9/11and that's really when I understood the power of cooking for people. After 9/11 I was one of the few people who was able to volunteer for the firefighters and for six weeks, cooking food at Ground Zero for 16 hours a day was one of the most powerful, beautiful experiences. It was traumatic, of course, but beautiful. Everyone was just driving themselves crazy in their apartments, so I went and worked and cooked for the firefighters instead. They converted a gymnasium to a cafeteria and I remember watching them walk into the gymnasium covered in dust. They would take off their shells and have a gray look about them. Then we would feed them. We were like this little submarine full of chefs that were just so psyched to be able to cook for the firefighters, so we put so much energy and love into it and this room would slowly start coming to life as the firefighters would start to eat their food and talk with each other. Being able to watch them refresh themselves in front of your eyes, going from completely downtrodden to ready to go was one of the most pivotal moments of my life. That’s when I decided I had to do a restaurant. I didn't want to do New York, so we did a road trip around the country. I love the mountains, so we started in Boulder in 2004.
How much of the menu do you create? I’m involved in every dish. My chef partner, Michael Bertozzi, moved to Austin to run this restaurant from the chef side and he's just such a talent. He and I go back and forth on dishes.
How would you describe the kitchen to someone who’s not familiar with it? It’s farm-to-table, seasonal shared plates. It’s food that is very well sourced, seasonal with some dishes that are on the menu all year. Tomato soup, for example, will always be on the menu. Garlic fries are always on the menu. We want to make sure there's some consistency so people can get their favorites and come back for those, but we love changing the menu as well. Half of it is the same and half of it changes seasonally.
Big Green, a non-profit you started to encourage growing food, also grew out of tragedy Yes.I went down a ski hill on a children's run in an inner tube. It was the same size tube for me, and I’m 6’5”. My kids were four and seven-years-old at the time and I thought it seemed too small for me, but I did it. I got to the bottom of the run, the tube flipped and I landed on my head going 35 miles/hour. I was paralyzed for three days in a blink of an eye. It was the most terrifying three days of my life. I was speaking to God and there was only one beautiful voice and it was saying, ‘You’re going to be fine and when you're fine, you're going to work with kids and food.’ It was really cool because I had a lot of success in my life and this was a message to say I was going to give back. It was beautiful.
And it led you to build Learning Gardens Yes, we built Learning Gardens in about 650 schools. We we did 100 in a city at a time in Denver, Chicago, Memphis, Indianapolis, Detroit, LA, Pittsburgh…and then when Covid hit.
And you had to pivot Because we weren't allowed to be in schools, we had to stop doing the Learning Gardens and we started to find nonprofits around America that we could fund and became like an angel investor for nonprofits working for our mission, which is growing food changes lives. We want to get everyone in America growing foods. It was cool to have that kind of death and rebirth. We reinvented our whole vision and now have 150 nonprofits that we work with around the country. We provide them garden equipment and funding and we have a big green bus that goes around the country delivering gardens.
What are you most passionate about right now? I’m very excited about Austin and the energy of the city. This city is like nothing else in America. It has a really great, palpable energy. Austin is having its moment right now and there’s not actually another city in the country that's having a moment.
Your style is intrinsically Austin, when did you adapt the cowboy style?
People tell me I tried to look like a Texan. I was in Texas an hour or so from Austin trying to figure out how to do outdoor farming and would go and work with farmers. It was very, very hot and I borrowed a hat from the farmers. They said it's really not cool to borrow a hat because it's sweaty, but also your hat is like your pet. They said I could do it once, but not again and they took me to Allen's Boots and helped me pick out a hat. I just kept wearing it ever since.
Quick Fire:
Last meal would be Roast chicken.
Favorite book Game of Thrones
Favorite restaurants in Austin I think Jay Carver’s is favorite, it’s always excellent. Then Jeffrey’s, Clarks and Red Ash and the restaurant on the fifth floor of The Proper Hotel are fun to go to
If you could share a meal with anyone Mick Jagger
Favorite quote The Picasso quote ‘The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.’
Best advice you received Everything comes in cycles, so know if you’re really low, you’ll be really high at some point, but if you're really high, know that you’re going to be really low at some point. It sort of calms the nervous system and helps manage things. I live a very interesting life from one day to the next so it’s good to know keep my knees bent and everything is going to be fine