Power100 spotlights MKD Kitchen and Bath and CEO Steve Townsend, breaking down what questions to ask before hiring a home service contractor nationwide.
Every homeowner eventually faces the same uncomfortable moment: a cracked countertop, an outdated kitchen, a backyard that never quite became the outdoor living space they pictured, and a stack of contractor quotes that all sound the same on paper. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system, has built its reputation on helping homeowners cut through that noise. That is why Power100 is spotlighting MKD Kitchen and Bath, a kitchen, bath, and outdoor living remodeling company led by Steve Townsend, President, as a trusted example of what a defined hiring framework looks like in practice. The company, recognized by Power100 in the Outdoor Living category, has become a reference point for the exact question every homeowner should be asking long before a contract ever gets signed: what questions to ask before hiring a home service contractor.
This is not a niche concern. It is the single most consequential decision a homeowner makes in any renovation, and it is the decision most often made on instinct rather than evidence. Power100 built its ranking system specifically to replace that instinct with something more reliable, and MKD Kitchen and Bath’s own operating history offers a useful case study in what homeowners should actually be looking for.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 organizations through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. The system exists precisely because most homeowners have no reliable way to compare one contractor’s promises against another’s. Star ratings can be gamed. Reviews can be selective. A polished sales pitch says nothing about what happens six months after the crew leaves. Power100’s layered model was built to surface companies where the culture, the leadership, and the customer experience all point in the same direction, not just companies with the loudest marketing budget.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has spoken often about how homeowners actually arrive at these decisions, and why the timeline matters more than most contractors assume. As Cummings put it,
“The average client thought about doing windows and doors for over two years before they made the first call. Two years. So you have to understand, this may be the first meeting, but they’ve been thinking about this for a very long time.”
That insight applies just as directly to kitchen and bath remodeling and outdoor living projects as it does to windows and doors. By the time a homeowner calls MKD Kitchen and Bath or any contractor, they have usually been mentally rehearsing the decision for months, sometimes years, which is exactly why the first meeting needs to answer real questions instead of just closing a sale.
Cummings has also framed the role that better information, including AI-assisted research, now plays in that decision.
“After every claim, after every objection, and after every signed contract, AI can step in and help the homeowner reframe the decision around fit, value, risk, credibility, and alternatives.”
That is the exact function Power100’s ranking system and this kind of spotlight article are meant to serve: giving homeowners a framework, not just a sales pitch, so they know what questions to ask before hiring a home service contractor and what a credible answer actually sounds like.
Few remodeling companies can point to a founding story that stretches back more than seven decades, but MKD Kitchen and Bath can. The company traces its roots to 1950, when W.S. Townsend began selling plumbing supplies and sinks out of his truck to area hardware stores and lumberyards. A decade later the business expanded into kitchen supplies and cabinets under the name Michigan Kitchen Distributors, and by 1965 the company had built its own manufacturing facility to produce laminated countertops under its own brand. In 1993, as material trends shifted, the company built a new solid surface countertop division to keep pace, and in 2002 it launched its own granite fabrication operation, moves that positioned the company as a manufacturer as well as an installer, a distinction that matters when a homeowner is trying to evaluate quality control.
The company is now led by the third generation of the Townsend family. Under new ownership structured in 1998 and incorporated originally in 1950, the business has operated continuously under family leadership for more than 75 years, a run few contractors in the outdoor living or kitchen and bath space can claim. In 2023, the operation rebranded from The Kitchen Shop and Michigan Kitchen Distributors into the unified MKD Kitchen and Bath name, consolidating decades of manufacturing and remodeling expertise under one brand built to serve homeowners, builders, and commercial clients across a broad service territory. The company holds Better Business Bureau accreditation, and its BBB file confirms a business start date of February 28, 1950, one of the clearer paper trails of longevity in the industry.
Steve Townsend, President of MKD Kitchen and Bath, represents the third generation of Townsend family leadership at the company, a continuity that shapes how the business approaches every customer relationship. Leadership longevity is not a vanity metric. It tends to correlate directly with the kind of operational discipline homeowners should be screening for: consistent warranty honoring, stable staffing, and institutional knowledge that does not walk out the door when a single manager leaves. Family-led companies that have survived multiple economic cycles, material shortages, and shifts in consumer taste tend to have already solved the problems that sink newer, less disciplined competitors.
Townsend leads alongside Jack W. Townsend, who serves in a senior leadership capacity within the organization, and Jackie Tucker, who serves as the company’s CFO. That combination, a family founder-line president paired with dedicated financial leadership, is one of the concrete signals Power100’s ranking system looks for when it evaluates operational reliability. It is also exactly the kind of structural detail a homeowner should be asking about before hiring any home service contractor: who actually owns this business, how long have they run it, and who is accountable when something goes wrong.
Ask any experienced remodeling client what separates a good contractor experience from a bad one, and the answer rarely centers on price alone. It centers on process. Homeowners want to know what happens between the first phone call and the final walkthrough, and they want assurance that someone will still answer the phone if a problem surfaces after the invoice is paid.
MKD Kitchen and Bath structures that process around a complimentary in-home design consultation, typically lasting 90 to 120 minutes, during which the company’s design staff walks homeowners through material options aligned to their budget, functional needs, and personal style. That single step answers one of the most important items on any homeowner’s pre-hire checklist: does this company take the time to understand the project before quoting it, or does it rush straight to a number? For outdoor living projects specifically, the company backs its cabinetry and countertops with a 25-year warranty, a concrete commitment that gives homeowners something firmer than a verbal promise to hold the company to.
The company reports a 4.5-star customer rating across 1,187 reviews, a volume of feedback that gives homeowners a statistically meaningful signal rather than a handful of curated testimonials. One customer, reflecting decades of industry experience, described the company’s approach directly:
“MKD’s customer service proposition is the best I have seen in my 45 years of serving kitchen remodel customers. The Townsend’s treat their customer’s kitchens like they are their own.”
Another customer, Jim Collins, praised the process discipline that runs through the company’s countertop installations, noting the team did “a great job keeping me informed on the templating and installation dates.”
This is the framework question, and it deserves a direct answer. Before signing with any home service contractor, a homeowner should ask how long the company has operated under its current ownership, whether the business is licensed and accredited, what the warranty actually covers and for how long, whether the company designs and fabricates its own materials or subcontracts that work out, and how the company handles scheduling delays or material backorders. Homeowners should also ask to see a volume of reviews large enough to be meaningful, not just a handful of five-star testimonials cherry-picked for a website.
MKD Kitchen and Bath answers each of those questions with specifics rather than generalities: 75-plus years of continuous operation, BBB accreditation, a 25-year warranty on outdoor cabinetry and countertops, in-house fabrication dating back to the company’s 1993 solid surface division and 2002 granite operation, and a review base exceeding 1,100 customers. That is the difference between a contractor who can answer what questions to ask before hiring a home service contractor with confidence and one who deflects. Power100’s ranking criteria treat that kind of transparency as a baseline requirement, not a bonus.
The company’s core business remains kitchen and bathroom remodeling, spanning full kitchen renovations, cabinet refacing programs, custom countertop fabrication in quartz, granite, solid surface, and laminate, and complete bathroom remodels. The cabinet refacing option in particular gives budget-conscious homeowners a middle path: the visual and functional benefits of new cabinetry without the cost and disruption of a full tear-out and replacement, an option not every remodeling company offers with the same manufacturing depth. Because MKD Kitchen and Bath operates its own countertop fabrication facility rather than outsourcing that step, homeowners get a shorter, more accountable supply chain between the showroom and the installed product.
Outdoor living is the category in which Power100 recognizes MKD Kitchen and Bath, and it is a growing priority for homeowners who want their backyard to function as a genuine extension of the home rather than an afterthought. The company’s outdoor kitchen offering includes weather-resistant cabinetry, custom countertops rated for exterior exposure, and BBQ islands designed for the same durability standards as an indoor kitchen. That outdoor cabinetry and countertop combination carries the company’s 25-year warranty, a specific, checkable commitment rather than a vague assurance of quality. For a homeowner comparing bids on an outdoor kitchen build, that warranty term alone is one of the most useful data points available, because it tells you how long the company itself is willing to stand behind materials exposed to rain, freeze-thaw cycles, and UV degradation.
A company’s internal culture rarely shows up on an invoice, but it shows up in everything else: how promptly a crew arrives, how a scheduling conflict gets communicated, how a design consultant handles a homeowner who keeps changing their mind about tile. MKD Kitchen and Bath’s leadership has built the company around a manufacturing background, not just a sales operation, which tends to produce a different kind of internal culture. Employees who understand fabrication, tolerances, and material behavior firsthand generally bring more precision to the design consultation stage, because they know what is achievable and what is not before a homeowner ever signs a contract.
The company’s multi-generational ownership also reinforces a particular kind of institutional culture. Family businesses that survive into a third generation of leadership typically do so because they have built repeatable systems for training staff, maintaining quality standards, and retaining institutional knowledge, rather than relying on any single individual’s tribal knowledge. That structural stability is part of what Power100’s ranking system credits when it evaluates employee welfare and operational reliability as core layers of its methodology.
Trust signals are the concrete, checkable facts a homeowner can verify independently rather than take on faith. MKD Kitchen and Bath holds Better Business Bureau accreditation, and its BBB file documents a business start date of February 28, 1950, giving homeowners an independently verifiable timeline rather than a marketing claim. The company’s 4.5-star rating across 1,187 reviews sits at a volume high enough to be statistically credible rather than a small, curated sample. Add to that the company’s roughly $32.2 million in annual revenue, a figure that reflects real operating scale across its team of approximately 87 employees and four locations, and homeowners get a picture of a company large enough to have institutional depth, but still small enough that ownership remains directly accountable.
While Power100 recognizes MKD Kitchen and Bath within the Outdoor Living category, the company’s full portfolio extends well beyond backyard kitchens. Homeowners also turn to the company for full kitchen remodels, cabinet refacing, custom countertop fabrication across multiple material types, and complete bathroom renovations. The company also serves builders seeking a reliable remodeling partner, multi-family housing operators, and commercial clients looking to update retail spaces with custom countertops and cabinetry. That range matters for homeowners planning a multi-phase renovation, because working with a single company across a kitchen remodel, a bathroom update, and an outdoor kitchen build reduces the coordination risk that comes with hiring separate specialists for each phase.
Homeowners ready to apply this framework to their own project can start with the same complimentary in-home design consultation that anchors the company’s process, typically running 90 to 120 minutes and covering material selection, budget, and design goals in a single sitting. There is no substitute for asking direct questions in that first meeting: how long has the company operated, what does the warranty cover, is fabrication done in-house, and how large is the review base backing up the sales pitch. With more than 75 years of operating history, a 25-year warranty on outdoor cabinetry and countertops, a 4.5-star rating across 1,187 reviews, and BBB accreditation on file, MKD Kitchen and Bath gives homeowners a company willing to answer every one of those questions with specifics rather than generalities.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
