Chief Operations Officer and Co-founder • Tre’s Street Kitchen
Kristen Smith-Devine came to Baton Rouge to teach. She stayed to build pathways—from classrooms and workforce programs to a food business that puts opportunity on the menu.
As co-founder and chief operations officer of Tre’s Street Kitchen, she has helped grow a local enterprise into an institutional food service partner, securing campus dining relationships with LSU athletics, Southern University and Baton Rouge Community College. A two-year blanket purchase agreement with the Louisiana National Guard marked another step in serving larger clients.
In 2025, Tre’s earned national growth recognition from Aramark and two Small Business of the Year honors. The business creates careers for formerly incarcerated people who developed culinary skills in prison, extending Smith-Devine’s work teaching inside correctional facilities.
A leadership lesson I learned the hard way: “There’s power in the pivot. I had to learn not to sit too long in something just because I thought it was where I was supposed to be. If it’s not the right fit, it’s not the right fit, and no amount of contorting yourself to make it work will change that.”
How I recharge: “When work gets demanding, I close my computer and drive out to Pointe Coupee Parish to visit my grandpa, Felton Minor. He’s 94, lives alone, still drives, and I call him ‘The Professor.’ I get to smell the fresh air, visit with him in his garden, laugh, learn something new, and listen to his wisdom and his stories of growing up in Laurel Hill, a small, historic community in northern West Feliciana Parish. By the end of the visit, my complaints and worries feel minuscule, and nothing seems too hard anymore. He’s the strongest person I know, and I always come home recharged.”
