Kevin Plunkett is a small business owner, community leader, and entrepreneur, who has a strong drive towards community service. He supports various local non-profits including but not limited to the Child Advocacy Center, Boy Scouts, the local Library, and the Bastrop Opera House. His restaurants continually donate to our local schools, and various organizations in various fundraising capacities for better educational opportunities and child advocacy. Kevin volunteers on multiple community boards to improve Bastrop for both its residents and businesses while ensuring we keep the values and traditions of our small-town community. He realizes that for our community to be happy, fulfilled, and content, we need to provide our residents not only with needed services and good housing but with a diversity of exciting potential employers. This can be done while being responsible caretakers of Bastrop’s historic and unique environment and implementing a renewed sense of customer service in city government.
Kevin Plunkett can bring together this wide array of goals because he has a good eye for the big picture and is mindful of the unintended consequences of the policy. He strives to efficiently and without fanfare evaluate information and uncover the unintended consequences of policy and their potential ripple effects. He looks to alleviate and rectify contradictory policies that can cause unnecessary anger, confusion, and delay for the public.
This drive towards community service drove him to become a small business owner. Soon after Kevin and his family moved to Bastrop, he and his wife noticed the closing of many local businesses. One evening while dining out, they found out that two local restaurants were about to close, and their 25 or so employees would be out of work. Realizing how devastating this could be to the employees and the local economy, they realized something had to be done. With the help of a longtime friend, who knew the business, they bought the restaurants. Not only were they able to keep these restaurants open, and keep the employees, but they hired additional people (up to around 40 now,) and worked hard to improve the restaurants for the community. Kevin and his wife believe their investment in the community inspired others, and they have seen a revitalization of the downtown Bastrop area. They are grateful to have played a part in the revitalization of downtown Bastrop. They are proud of the fact that during the pandemic mandated shutdown, they were able to keep all their employees employed in other ways so that the business would be stronger when it reopened.
Kevin was born in Hillsboro, TX, is a graduate of Texas A&M, with a degree in Industrial Distribution, and holds a certificate in E-commerce from SMU. He spent 7 years working for a welding supply company as operations and IT manager out of college. Spent 4 years in Washington, DC as a branch manager for another large distribution company. In 2006 he moved back to Austin to advance his wife’s career and raise their children in Texas. He escaped to Bastrop in 2013 with his wife, Angela, and their children Ava, Anson, and Archer. He received recognition for exceptional service during the pandemic from Congressman Michael McCall. He was instrumental in the establishment of Visit Bastrop and currently serves as its Vice-Chair. He is the Vice-chair of the Bastrop Economic Development Corporation, is a past Board Chairman of the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce, a current member, and past Chairman of the Bastrop Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee.
