Darrell Byres
His name may not ring a bell in local culinary circles, but Gordon Ramsay sure does know the name Scott McKinnon.
McKinnon, a TCU grad and former Horned Frogs football player, was a competitor on the current season of competitive cooking television show, “MasterChef Generations,” in which the notoriously fickle Ramsay stars. Unlike a lot of the dishes that Ramsay eats on his television shows, he enjoyed the dish McKinnon prepared on “Generations,” but another judge did not, leading McKinnon to be dismissed from the competition.
Although McKinnon’s appearance on the show was shortly lived, it helped bring attention to the Southlake resident’s new career as a private chef, a career he launched in his mid-50s.
“Fifty-four feels like 24,” says the 54-year-old Houston native. “I’m finally getting to live out my passion, my dream. I don’t think about my age. I’ve got a lot of energy and passion for cooking. It’s in my blood.”
In McKinnon’s case, that’s not exactly a figure of speech. His great-grandfather, Billy McKinnon, after whom Scott is named (his first name is William, but he goes by Scott), was a well-known restauranteur who opened a string of restaurants throughout the state in the early part of the 20th century.
“He had five restaurants between Houston and Dallas from 1914 to 1930,” he says. “I still have a lot of his old menus. He owned restaurants that were fine dining — caviar service, chateaubriand-types of places. But he also owned buffet restaurants that catered to day laborers. He was astute at finding ways to serve people from all economic backgrounds.”
The city of Dallas honored Billy McKinnon by naming McKinnon Street near the Crescent Hotel after the popular restaurant owner.
Scott McKinnon’s love of food was born not necessarily out of interest but more out of necessity. As a proud Gen Xer whose parents worked long hours, McKinnon was often left home alone to fend for his own nutritional needs.
Darrell Byres
“I was your typical GenX latchkey kid,” he says. “I was heavily involved in athletics, and I’d come home to an empty house, always starving. I started figuring how to cook at an early age.”
This was life before the Internet, so he often turned to another technical staple for cooking tips: television. “I watched a lot of Emeril Lagasse shows, a lot of early Food Network shows, just learning the basics,” he says. “It was a lot of trial and error before I got pretty good.”
Athletics, he thought, presented more life opportunities, as did sales and marketing, which he studied at TCU where he also played football. After graduating in 1992 and marrying his college sweetheart Kimberly, he embarked on a 30-year career in the field of marketing — a career that would become vital to supporting his soon-to-be-born pair of daughters.
It was hard, in other words, to pursue the dice roll of a career in the volatile food and beverage industry over marketing and sales, a field in which he found stability and success.
Cooking for his wife and daughters provided a culinary outlet, he says. McKinnon was also the first to don an apron and cook for parties and social gatherings at the family’s home.
Over the years, as his daughters grew up and started their own lives and careers, his interest once again turned to food. Friends suggested he open his own restaurant. Knowing the risks, time, and money involved in such a venture, he decided instead to launch a business as a private chef.
“There’s a lot less overhead in buying food for a few people every day than buying food for a few hundred people every day,” he says. It was a slow-go at first, but after appearing on the four episodes of this season’s “MasterChef Generations,” business has been picking up. Like, really picking up, he says.
“I’ll be the guest celebrity chef for the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day game,” he says. “I’m very blessed and appreciative.”
McKinnon says it’s never too late to change your career, to delve into something new.
“Be the duck you see swimming on the surface but paddling like hell under the surface,” he says. “You gotta jump in and get after it.”
Scott McKinnon can be reached through his website, chefscottymac.com.
