After Hours Immersive Dining Comes To Madrid
After Hours Global is an immersive dining experience operated by founder and owner Kevin Kelly, a 26-year-old Business Management and Entrepreneurship graduate from Babson College, who found a financially sustainable way to leverage local resources, creating high-scale pop-up dinners throughout the world. Alice Ellis finds out more.
What is After Hours Global
Running a restaurant is an expensive operation to maintain. At the outset, it’s common to need investments ranging from 200,000 to 1.5 million dollars. When faced with these daunting numbers and student loans, Kelly had to think outside the box to make it.
That’s where After Hours Global started, not just a restaurant but a movement that “transforms empty restaurant kitchens and quiet dining rooms into intimate, chef-driven pop-ups and collaborative culinary experiences”
The experience was originally based in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, his hometown: “a very seasonal area, where there’s maybe a month and a half to two months out of the year where businesses are really able to make their money.”
Still in his hometown, he believed he could change the unsustainable dynamic of the food industry and at the same time help support local businesses.
So far, it’s been a tremendous success, hosting about 250 events in the past 2 years, becoming profitable within nine months, and working with 150 local businesses, focusing on how to “collaborate, promote, and bring value” to everyone he worked with.
Leaving the Berkshires
What was as a wish to join the restaurant industry in an economically sustainable way has become “a traveling dining platform” seeking “people are hungry not just for food, but for connection and story.”
What is unique about Kelly’s model is that not only is he helping circulate the economy in the towns he passes through, but the twenty-year-old is also ethically popularizing local produce and venues that are usually overshadowed by dominant restaurant chains.
“Anywhere we go is very much focused and based on what is available locally. So farmers is the first step of learning what is available, what’s in season, what’s growing well, and being able to highlight that and support that ecosystem.”
Most recently, Kelly is hosting in Puerto Rico—everywhere he hosts he undergoes a process he calls immersion: “Spend one night or a week in a restaurant to get involved in what the industry looks like anywhere we are. We’ve done that in 3 or 4 different places in Puerto Rico, and it’s something that provides a perspective that you can’t manufacture”.
If interested in attending his dinners in Puerto Rico, he offers three experiences: Cuatro Noches en San Juan, Cena en los montañas, and After Hours x El Mas Alla —ranging from $35 to $115— a price that invites people from different economic backgrounds to partake in the event.
Going International: The Madrid Residency
Inspired by Spanish cuisine, Kelly now wishes to do the same immersion in Europe. Starting with Madrid and Barcelona, and eventually heading to New York City, Boston, Paris, and Torino.
His research team is already in town, and exploring the Spanish capital, “learning culturally through cuisine, different methods, and working directly with restaurants”.
For his two-week residency, he expects around 40-60 guests and will be providing a tasting menu with four to six courses.
“It’s a very similar kind of feeling to a traditional restaurant. But it travels, and it’s temporary.”
Dining with Kelly is partaking in his artwork. The dedication of this chef to bring something authentic, creative, and local to the places he visits is what makes his pop-up like no other.
While other businesses like Noma have done similar pop-up events, they’ve faced strong allegations of abusing their clients by charging outrageous prices, like $1,500 per ticket.
Kelly wishes to keep his art accessible, in his own words, “being able to provide something that is approachable and targets towards a local audience is really our goal.”
Details on the specifics of the Madrid residencies will be available in May, and tickets will be released one month before the event. Since spots are limited, to ensure a place in the dinner, one can register for Early Access through this link.
“I think it’s exciting, and the behind-the-scenes of being able to share creativity between chefs, cooks, or restaurant owners is incredible.“ – Kelly
Everyone should be able to experience nice food— meaning if you are a food lover who craves “more than a meal”, this is the event for you.
Madrileños watch this space for Madrid details or sign up for early bird ticketing here: After Hours Madrid 26
¡Que Aproveche!
Alice Ellis
