Joe Scully and Kevin Westmoreland, the owners of The Corner Kitchen restaurant, are pleased to announce the 10th anniversary of The Corner Kitchen. There will be an open house on Monday, March 16, from 5PM until 8PM to commemorate the occasion and to show their heartfelt gratitude to their friends and patrons.
When Kevin and Joe got together to create Corner Kitchen, they were seeking to offer something special to their guests— an upscale restaurant experience including breakfast, lunch and dinner without any pretense or excess fussiness.
“As a novice restaurant owner,” Kevin said, “I was focused on giving our guests the things I looked for as a restaurant patron—fine food, well appointed atmosphere and bend over backwards customer service.”
Executive Chef and owner, Joe Scully, shared Kevin’s mindset saying, “Corner Kitchen is in the business of saying, yes. Yes to substitutions. Yes to special dietary needs. Yes to making our fine products accessible and priced lower than expected.”
And it worked.
However, their opening was not with out challenges. Six months after opening, the Biltmore Village area was subjected to severe flooding. The building was devastated. During the next three months, Joe and Kevin rebuilt the house from the inside out, eventually re-opening in December of 2004.
Executive Chef, Josh Weeks, joined the Corner Kitchen team soon after the flood and brought his own Southern flair to the table. Josh helped the Corner Kitchen grow from primarily a breakfast and lunch destination to becoming the forefront of the escalating dining scene in Asheville. Locals and tourists alike were attracted to the unique style that Corner Kitchen offered and word got out fast. This lead to write-ups in the local media, as well as national publications such as ‘Southern Living.’
From that time on they have continued to grow.
In 2010, President Obama surprised the Corner Kitchen staff by having dinner in one of their upstairs dinning rooms. Joe, Kevin and their staff enjoyed meeting President Obama and his wife, Michelle, and were ecstatic over the buzz it created—dubbing the increased business generated as “The Obama Effect”.
While they have served their share of other celebrities, statesmen, and sports figures— which is exciting— Joe and Kevin, along with their staff, are more focused on the regulars and their new customers. The Corner Kitchen firmly believes that what they are doing has value, from the food they create, the drinks they mix and even to the compost and recycling that they generate.
Through the years, Corner Kitchen has regularly ranked in the top-10 Asheville restaurants as reported by Trip advisor and Open Table. Kevin and Joe express their gratitude to the community and look forward to many more years of great service.