Written by Molly Mathews
Photo Courtesy of Katie Button

“Liz Button, who spoke at the Mitigate Partners’ “Demystifying Healthcare Costs” event, is a Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer for Katie Button Restaurants. Liz develops the benefits for the employees of the restaurant group with the support of Mitigate Partner Cristy Gupton. She is an advisor for the sustainability and philanthropic efforts of the restaurant group. Liz’s dream was to start a restaurant in Asheville, NC, and she co-founded the Katie Button Restaurant group with her family, including her daughter Katie Button, the CEO and Executive Chef of the Asheville, North Carolina locations.

Button was also Board Chair of the Asheville Independent Restaurants Association (AIR) from 2018 to 2020. With over a hundred members, AIR supports independent restaurants in the Asheville community. As chair of AIR, Liz was committed to finding solutions to problems faced by independent restaurants. Currently, she is on the board of directors for Thrive Asheville, an organization developed in 2020 to collaborate with residents and leaders from diverse perspectives to find the best approach for solutions in the Asheville community, currently with a focus on sustainable tourism and housing. She continued to advocate for independent restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting the NC Cocktails- to-go policy, which allowed restaurants to increase their takeout revenue. Her daughter Katie was instrumental in securing Senator Tom Tillis as a co-sponsor of the Restaurants Act to help fund independent restaurants coping with economic challenges due to the pandemic.

Since the dark day of March 15, 2020, when 160 employees were terminated due to the uncertainty of running a business during the pandemic; Katie and her husband Felix Meana, who is a co-founder and the Chief Experience Officer for KBR, developed new business models to help sustain the businesses after being forced to close their year-old Button Bagel shop during the pandemic while focusing on their acclaimed flagship restaurant, Curate.

The new businesses include La Bodega by Curate, a retail shop and restaurant providing authentic food and wine from Spain; Curate at Home, which ships food nationally to their many fans outside of Asheville; and The Curate Wine Club, which ships hand-selected wines to many states. A new wine bar is soon to open upstairs from La Bodega by Curate. There have been several new hires and positions created since May 2020, requiring the administrative headquarters to move to the former local newspaper warehouse. Additionally, a production kitchen and shipping area are located there, allowing for the growth of their shipping processes.