Nonprofit Designs Headquarters Built to Nourish

When Pappas Restaurants joined forces with Kids’ Meals in planning the latter’s next Houston headquarters, the result was more than a new building; it made a great leap forward in feeding the city’s most vulnerable, and youngest, residents. Five days a week, volunteers assemble and deliver 12,500 lunches, using 24 donated Kids’ Meals vans that fan out across two counties. During school breaks, deliveries surge to 20,000 a day to feed school-age siblings as well.

“Our mission goes beyond meal deliveries,” says CEO Beth Braniff Harp, who founded the organization in 2006. “We aim to empower families to break the cycle of poverty.” Houston’s need is high: Some 39% of Houston and Harris County households are food insecure, far exceeding the national average of 14%, according to a 2024 study by Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

Kids’ Meals’ ExxonMobil Campus, a 54,000-square-foot, $24 million facility, opened in September 2025. The nonprofit’s goal: to more than double its current reach by sending out 26,000 meals a day by 2031 to its young clients. The facility includes a cavernous warehouse and ample cold/dry storage, a meal assembly floor, a state-of-the-art loading dock, the Brown Bag Cafe (more on this in a bit), even an art room where volunteers can decorate lunch bags, along with offices, donor reception areas and multiple intentionally photogenic spots.

Sturdy custom-fabricated tables and racks, and well-organized supply stations, ensure long-term efficiency.

Getting Started

Kids’ Meals’ previous facility, shoehorned into a leased warehouse, had become too small. “We had to turn down large food donations due to lack of space,” Harp recalls with regret. The board decided to dream big with a capital campaign that would fund ground-up construction on five acres of land. Kids’ Meals tapped Kirksey Architecture in the fall of 2021 to design the project. By early 2022, the Kirksey team had prepared preliminary floor plans, elevations and layouts needed for fundraising and planning.

“We were creating a (foodservice and warehouse operation) that had to be flexible for how things would be done in the future, but in what format, we had no way of knowing,” says Kirksey’s President Wes Good of the early design challenges.

Enter Pappas Restaurants, the Houston-based chain that had designed and equipped the previous Kids’ Meals location. Founder Harris Pappas, a longtime supporter, offered to once again donate his company’s kitchen design expertise and cover half the foodservice equipment cost.

(Left to right) Beth Braniff Harp, Dennis Clark and Kim Brown shaped Kids’ Meals’ new facility.

Pappas Restaurants’ design contributions, led by Major Projects Kitchen Designer Dennis Clark, injected best-practice foodservice know-how (such as swapping less-durable equipment with top-line pieces) and an eye to future donors into the project. “We built in redundancies and capacity for the next generation that will be managing this facility,” Clark says. “Down the road, I predict that Kids’ Meals will be able to turn out up to 35,000 daily meals.”

By October 2023, plans for foodservice and storage areas had been completed. Construction began in April 2024.

“We were blown away by how quickly we were able to speed up the process and assemble so many more meals,” says Harp, recalling the whirlwind weeks after opening. “Dennis’ work really complemented what Kirksey had done.”

Practical Whimsy

Kirksey designers let their creativity fly for Kids’ Meals. One signature element is a two-story-tall brown bag sculpture made of perforated metal, framing the entrance. (“All we had said to Kirksey was, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if this building could tell our story from the street?’” Harp says with a laugh.)

The signature brown bag at the entrance is made of perforated metal.

Beyond the brown bag, exterior kid-themed elements include big red apples serving as concrete safety bollards; a giant juice box hiding the water tank at the building’s front; and a photo op-ready bread slice anchoring the building’s welcome sign. Inside, more fun touches abound. Playing off the idea of delivery vans, the Kirksey team refurbished an old VW bus and installed it next to the Brown Bag Cafe. Kids’ Meals’ logo colors (red, orange, lime green and turquoise blue) accent the walls, the lighting, the meal assembly room and beyond.

“When you can go to a space that is fun, full of light, color and has an inspiring feeling, it helps the mission, and it helps bring volunteers back,” Good says.

Sandwich Generation

Everything at Kids’ Meals revolves around sandwich-making, from the warehouse and receiving dock, which covers about a third of the total footprint, to the five coolers and one freezer holding food product as it moves through the system, to especially the volunteer floor where sandwich-making and lunch-packing takes place. A few design highlights include:

• The volunteer production floor serves as the heart of the facility. Featuring four work zones and 24 worktables (plus one accessible table), the space can accommodate up to 225 volunteers per shift (currently two shifts per weekday). The custom-designed worktables (made by Pappas Restaurants’ in-house fabricator) can withstand almost anything thanks to welded joints with reinforced channels. There are extra-sturdy bottom shelves for supply bins but the shelves also are strong enough for volunteers to rest their feet on them. The high under-shelf holds paper bags at the ready.

• Color-coded work zones map out the volunteer floor. Each of the four areas include a reach-in for sliced meats and cheeses, dry storage, supplies and a pair of three-faucet hand-washing stations. The stations provide a welcome contrast from the old facility, where, Harp says, “People had to wait forever to wash their hands, and when supplies were needed, they had to run all over to collect them.”

• A viewing room overlooking the volunteer floor gives potential donors a chance to observe operations.

The prep cooler includes a viewing window.

• Large, well-organized storage areas support the volunteer floor. A few highlights include the protein and prep coolers, and the receiving cooler. The protein cooler and prep cooler sit side by side. The first stores blocks of meats and cheeses, while the prep cooler features two automatic conveyor slicers and a window looking out into the main hall. “The automation allows a single person to slice and portion enough protein and cheese for the next day’s work,” Clark says. The window lets the worker feel connected with activities while allowing prospective donors to see the action.

Efficiency elements anchoring the facility’s back-of-house include:

• The receiving cooler features 27-foot-high ceilings and high-density shelving. The warehouse, and the various cold storage areas, rely on high-speed sliding doors and strip curtains to help keep tempered air in while keeping Houston’s heat and humidity out. An on-site industrial-grade laundry room keeps the insulated meal delivery bags clean. For moving product around, the facility uses custom-made welded aluminum rolling racks. The ice machine provides ice for the cafe but also is sized to provide for bagging of ice that will be stored in the walk-in freezer to aid community and first responders in the event of a disaster.

The loading dock’s canopy and fans help keep drivers cool.

• The loading zone earned extra attention. “Dennis thought through all aspects of the loading zone,” Harp says. “How high the shade canopy needed to be to accommodate semitrucks as well as our vans, industrial fans to keep the air moving, speakers playing music, lighting. It’s so efficient we can load 12 to 14 vans at a time.”

Last but hardly least, Kids’ Meals relies on one independent operator. The Brown Bag Cafe caffeinates and feeds Kids’ Meals’ employees, volunteers and drivers. The business is staffed by Belong Kitchen, a Houston nonprofit that employs young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The Brown Bag Cafe, featuring Katz Coffee, keeps everyone caffeinated.

“It was Dennis Clark who introduced us to Kids’ Meals and had the vision for Belong to run the cafe at their new facility,” says Belong founder Kim Brown. Clark laid out the 300-square-foot retail space with all the essentials: espresso maker (serving Katz Coffee), coffee and tea brewers, grab-and-go case, cookie oven, warming cabinet, refrigeration and a large reach-in refrigerator, holding take-home meals prepared at Belong.

A Look Ahead

“Truly, hats off to Pappas and Kirksey,” Harp says. Less than half a year into operations, “We’ve been able to send out 20,000 daily meals during the school break, and the warehouse still has space available. I really think we’ll be serving 26,000 meals a day by 2030—one year earlier than our goal.”

FACTS

KIDS’ MEALS
HOUSTON OPENED: September 2025
MEALS PER DAY: 12,500 (up to 20,000 during school breaks)
FACILITY SIZE: 54,000 square feet
KIDS’ MEALS: Beth Braniff Harp, CEO; John Day, COO, Curt Morgan, CFO; Ali Flanders Dodson, chief advancement officer, Earl Hesterberg, capital campaign co-chair, Houston
BROWN BAG CAFE/BELONG KITCHEN: Kim Brown, founder
FOODSERVICE CONSULTANT: Dennis Clark, major projects kitchen designer, Pappas Restaurants, Houston
ARCHITECT & INTERIOR DESIGN: Wes Good, president, Kirksey Architecture, Houston
CAPITAL CAMPAIGN: Ellen Cokinos, planning and fundraising consultant, Houston
FOODSERVICE EQUIPMENT SUPPLIER: Pappas Restaurants
REFRIGERATION INSTALLER: Coolers Inc., Houston
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Satterfield & Pontikes Construction, Houston
PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Pin Oak Interests, Houston
WEBSITE: kidsmealsinc.org

KEY EQUIPMENT

Throughout

Arctic walk-in coolers

Aero Mfg. hand sinks

Advance Tabco ADA hand sinks

Frank walk-in doors

Heatcraft Refrigeration coolers

Prep Cooler

Bizerba conveyor slicers

Warewashing

Aero Mfg. three-compartment sink

Hobart ventless dishmachine

Ice

Follett ice bin with cart

Manitowoc ice maker with remote condenser

Production Floor

Channel Mfg. staging and load-out racks

Arctic Air reach-in coolers

Brown Bag Cafe

Beverage-Air undercounter refrigerator, frozen merchandiser

Continental reach-in refrigerator

Federal Industries grab-and-go case

Eversys espresso machine

Bunn coffee, tea brewers

Moffat cookie oven, warming cabinet

T&S Brass is pleased to sponsor FER’s Kitchen Design feature. To learn more, visit tsbrass.com.