Andrea Shackelford
Chef/Owner, Harvest Seasonal Kitchen | McKinney, TX
December 2021
Andrea Shackelford always knew she wanted to be a chef. Born in Houston and raised in Dallas, she worked at bakeries, pastry shops, and little cafes through high school and college. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 2007, she got hired to work at the salad station at Hotel ZaZa under Chefs Tim Bevins and Graham Dodds. When Bevins took a job at Craft Dallas later that year, Shackelford followed. Over her five years there, Shackelford fell in love with the atmosphere and hustle of a restaurant kitchen and worked her way up to AM cook. In 2012, Shackelford and Bevins connected with McKinney, Texas Restaurateur Rick Wells, sharing a mutual passion for sustainability and locally sourced ingredients. Wells offered Shackelford and Bevins head chef roles at each of his two restaurants: Bevins at the Rick’s Chophouse and Shackelford at Sauce on the Square, a cozy neighborhood Italian restaurant.
In 2014, Wells and Shackelford closed Sauce and decided to open a restaurant that better fit their ethos. They wanted a place where they knew precisely where the food was coming from, where they could buy locally, support the McKinney community, and have an approachable, unfussy menu. Since opening, Harvest Seasonal Kitchen continues to meet and go beyond that mission. Almost all of their ingredients are sourced from farms within a 150-mile radius—a good chunk of which comes from the restaurant’s Water Boy Farms, overseen by Shackelford, a master gardener herself. In 2015, Shackelford and Wells started The Seed Project Foundation to support local growers and promote sustainable farming through educational, agricultural, and community initiatives.
