Chef Joe Kindred is the chef/owner of Kindred in Davidson, NC, Hello, Sailor in Cornelius, NC, and milkbread in Davidson and Charlotte, NC with his wife, Katy Kindred.

After attending Johnson and Wales in Charleston, SC, Joe became the first intern for Nobles in Charlotte, NC, before moving to Chicago for the next chapter and challenge. His tenure in Chicago saw stints at Tru, one sixtyblue, and The Pump Room, where he met Katy. Before the couple got married, opening a restaurant had always been a dream of theirs. They moved to San Francisco together, where Joe worked at acclaimed restaurant Delfina under Chef Craig Stoll. Out of a desire to move closer to family, the Kindreds uprooted back to North Carolina, where he was hired again by Chef Jim Noble to be the Chef for Rooster’s Uptown and lead culinary manager for Noble’s four restaurants. With their roots back in North Carolina, they began to work on realizing their dream of a restaurant of their own. They did so with their namesake Kindred, housed in one of the city’s most historic downtown buildings, followed two years later by Hello, Sailor, located on Lake Norman at a location that he frequented growing up as a child, and in 2022 opened two locations of milkbread, their all-day cafe.
Chef Joe was a semi-finalist for the James Beard Best Chef: Southeast in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. He lives in his hometown of Davidson with Katy, their three kids Alba, Luca, and Graydon, and their dogs.