The food culture has always been a bustling place that has introduced the world to unique foods from all around the world. And although that is fulfilling on its own, many food enthusiasts are going all out in bringing about even more innovative approaches to improve the value of our food culture.
Kyle Noonan, an American restaurateur, entrepreneur, speaker, and T.V personality, is one of the few prominent figures in the food industry who has come up with some of the most unique ideas to implement within our current food culture.
Being the CEO of FreeRange Concepts – a restaurant development firm based in Dallas that specializes in creating innovative restaurant concepts – has allowed him to create some of the best restaurant establishments in the United States. Starting from only two employees, it only took four years until he had 100o employees in the company, operating and owning about 12 revenues in places like San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth.
The first venture under FreeRange Concepts was in 2012 under the name of ‘Bowl & Barrel.’ The restaurant has a boutique bowling alley with a full-service modern American tavern and house-made specialties made by Chef Sharon Hage. It took a few years, but it was once again launched in a different location; San Antonio, TX in 2015 and Houston in 2016.
2013 was a busy year for Noonan – FreeRange Concepts launched its second venture called ‘Mutts Canine Cantina,’ which was made specially made for dog lovers worldwide. The restaurant is a versatile space with an off-leash dog park. This way, dog lovers would be able to play with the dogs or spend their time in the beer garden. The first location for this restaurant was in Dallas and eventually had its second launch in Fort Worth in 2018, with eleven more units under process in Arizona.
In the fall of the same year, FreeRange Concepts started another unique business endeavor. It is a restaurant review show called Local Fare, which aired on CBS television station KTXA Channel 21 for about a year. The show had gained a massive positive response from the audience as each episode featured three random people from Dallas as guest restaurant critics, focusing all the attention on Dallas’s exquisite food culture.
In the same year, “The Rustic” was launched in partnership with Grammy-nominated country music artist Pat Green, making the establishment a full-service restaurant with live music. This was one of the most popular business ventures Noonan invested in, and the restaurant was even named the Busiest Restaurant & Bar in the State of Texas. Since then, the restaurant has been expanded to other locations like Houston Galleria, Houston Downtown, and San Antonio, with further expansion plans in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Colorado.
The expansion process took some time, and the company further worked on another restaurant in 2015 called “The General Public.” It is a spirited neighborhood bar and restaurant centered on serving their customers wholesome food and recreating popular recipes via their access to fresh ingredients from local farmers and suppliers.
Due to all of his restaurants gaining outstanding reputation from the public, Noonan became the president of the Greater Texas Restaurant Association in 2019. Moreover, he is also the recipient of several rewards, including the New Restaurant of the Year in 2016 and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in 2018.
And he doesn’t plan to stop now either – he still has many plans for his future restaurant establishments, so we can hope to see even better additions to our growing food culture..