Beloved chef Kevin Cronin is battling cancer. Here's how Lansing restaurants are stepping up
DELHI TWP. — More than a decade ago, before Matt Gillett teamed up with Travis Stoliker to open Saddleback BBQ's original location on South Washington Avenue in Lansing, chef Kevin Cronin encouraged him to try his hand at barbecue.
Gillett and his co-worker, who both worked for Cronin at Dusty's Cellar & Wine Bar in Okemos, bought a smoker from Georgia. Cronin, 61, cheered the decision. Gillett went on to open Saddleback in 2015 − which now operates two barbeque and two pizza eateries in the Lansing area.
"Entrepreneurship is kind of a fragile thing," Gillett said. "Kevin was just super supportive the entire time. He was interested and sometimes that’s really all it takes."
Cronin, 61, has been a creative force in the Lansing area restaurant scene for nearly 30 years. He was Dusty's executive chef for just shy of 20 years and ran Daddy's Little Grill, one of the area's first food trucks, from a parking lot in Meridian Township. He's also mentored many people in the industry, from cooks and bartenders to assistant managers.
Now a group of them is rallying around Cronin, who sold his house and maxed out credit cards amid battling his second diagnosis of colon cancer in three years.
Gillett, Stoliker and others will hold a fundraising dinner for him at Dusty's Cellar & Wine Bar on Nov. 5. They aim to raise $15,000, enough that Cronin can afford the time off he needs to complete 12 rounds of aggressive chemotherapy.
Not your stereotypical head chef
If anyone defies the stereotypes often associated with chefs, it's Cronin, said Bethany Morton, who owns Morton's Fine Catering in Lansing with her husband John.
They hired Cronin as their executive chef in 2018.
Morton said he was never the demanding, loud, often difficult figure typically associated with the job. Rather, he's calm and encouraging, a leader with unparalleled skills.
"He's just, I would say one of a few in our area that I would truly call a chef," she said. "He has the training, has the experience and really knows how to cook food."
Matt Rhodes, who owns Dusty's Cellar & Wine Bar where Cronin led the kitchen from 1996 to 2015, said Cronin never slammed pots around and made noise in an effort to motivate staff.
"If there was a time to be tough he was but he was not an overbearing, over-the-top chef," Rhodes said. "He understood how people needed to be treated. How you treat people, you get treated back the same way. He understood that give and take."
Cronin instilled a love for the industry in Billy Scheck, who worked with him at Dusty's and is now general manager at Wrought Iron Grill in Owosso.
"Kevin was absolutely crucial in my love for restaurants because he was such an amazing chef, but he also understood that you had to have fun while you're doing what you're doing," he said. "He loves what he does."
Cronin came to Dusty's after several years spent working in restaurants in New York. He was given creative freedom there to do what he wanted, he said. After he left the restaurant he opened Daddy's Little Grill, a food truck.
It's always been "gratifying when we see people move up and be successful and work their own operations," Cronin said.
'A godsend'
Cronin said cancer would have "taken down" his family financially if his daughter hadn't implored him to establish an online fundraising page through the platform GoFundMe.
By the time it was created last month the longtime chef and his wife Cathy, a nurse at E.W. Sparrow Hospital, had sold their home in Haslett, moved to an apartment in Holt, depleted their savings and maxed out their credit cards to cover bills and living expenses.
Cronin, who was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2020, got news in July that the cancer he'd been in remission from was back. Treating it meant undergoing a dozen rounds of aggressive chemotherapy.
"You're not going to be able to work," Cronin's doctor told him.
"It's been a rough ride so far," said Cronin, who stepped away from his role as a chef at Morton’s in Lansing to focus on the treatments.
The online fundraiser has made it easier, raising over $13,000 so far.
"It's just been a godsend," Cronin said. "It alleviated so much stress and all of a sudden, things started falling together and I think it was all about attitude and having the anxiety of not knowing if you're going to be able to pay your bills lifted off your shoulders."
Those in the food industry, many of whom say Cronin was a mentor and example to them early in their careers, weren't aware he was struggling until the fundraiser was shared on social media.
Rhodes said seeing it was all the motivation he needed to set plans in motion for a fundraising dinner to help Cronin's family.
"I didn't realize how dire things had gotten so it was an easy decision to call up Saddleback and Morton's and say, 'Hey, let's do something for Kevin.'"
The fundraiser, a joint effort between Saddleback BBQ, Dusty's and Morton's Fine Catering, is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 5 at Dusty's Cellar & Wine Bar at 1839 W. Grand River Ave. in Okemos. There will be food, wine and an auction.
Tickets are $100 each and can be purchased at https://dustysonline.myshopify.com/products/lets-help-chef-kevin .
Gillet hopes they sell out of tickets.
"Kevin's got a pretty big reach," said Gillett. "You could go to a lot of restaurants and just ask, 'Who's in your kitchen or who's at your front of the house?' and there's probably some ties back to Chef Kevin. It's really important to take care of those individuals and make sure that it's known that, 'Hey, this is a really supportive community. In the hospitality community, we're trying to look out for each other.'"
Contact Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @GrecoatLSJ .
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This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Beloved chef Kevin Cronin is battling cancer. Here's how Lansing restaurants are stepping up
