Meet Founder Chef Katie Button

Katie Button was born in South Carolina, but grew up in New Jersey with a family that celebrated Southern cooking. When Liz Button, Katie’s mom, opened a catering company, Katie became immersed in the food world. She learned to cook and bake as a child, and by her twelfth birthday she was the family’s impressively meticulous cake-maker.

Katie earned a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, but her passion for food and travel ultimately guided her towards a culinary career due to this early exposure to the industry.  She honed her craft in the kitchens of some of the world’s best chefs –most notably Ferran Adrià and José Andrés – before launching award winning Cúrate.

Today, Katie serves as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of the Button Meana Group and directly oversees Katie Button Media, which includes her first-released cookbook, Cúrate (as well as upcoming cookbooks), the hit TV series on Magnolia Network – From The Source, events, and special appearances.  Katie is an active speaker on female empowerment and entrepreneurship, and serves as a mentor and champion for women in the Food and Beverage industry.

Katie is a leading advocate to challenge restaurant industry standards and steadily build comprehensive benefits that create a sustainable and healthy work environment, inclusive of living wage structures that better the lives of workers. As a mother, entrepreneur, chef and business owner, she is uniquely qualified to address these challenges that restaurant workers, management, and owners face.

Meet Founder Felix Meana

Felix Meana is a leading hospitality executive, Co-Founder and the Chief Experience Officer of the Button Meana Group.

Felix grew up in Roses, Spain, a city in Costa Brava in the Catalonia region, and home to three Michelin-starred El Bulli, which Restaurant magazine named the #1 restaurant in the world.

Felix’s first entrepreneurial and hospitality venture began in 1994 by running the bar L’Hort D´En Minguets with his brother, located in his hometown of Roses, Spain.  Passionate about hospitality centered around caring for people, he worked in various styles of restaurants, learning the ins-and-outs of the hospitality and restaurant industry.

In 2004, Felix became the front of house manager at Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli, an experience that introduced him to high-level fine dining and taught him how to create memorable moments for restaurant guests. Felix led the front-of-house team for all five years that El Bulli was named the #1 restaurant in the world.

After leaving El Bulli to further develop his fine dining and service experience, Felix worked in some of the top restaurants in the world, most notably, La Terraza del Casino in Madrid with Chef Paco Roncero and José Andrés and ThinkFoodGroup in Washington D.C., where he met his current business partner, Chef Katie Button. While at ThinkFoodGroup, Felix served as Director of Service and played an instrumental role in the opening and development of The Bazaar by José Andrés in Beverly Hills, California’s SLS Hotel. He has also contributed to many additional projects throughout the U.S.

Today, Felix serves as Founder, Chief Experience Officer, and “Chief Dreamer” at the Button Meana Group, focusing on setting and delivering the highest hospitality standards and experiences across all of the Cúrate businesses.