Chef Charles Hunter III on Using Social Media and a Blog to Launch His Personal Chef Business

This week we speak with Charles Hunter III. He’s a personal chef, recipe developer and food blogger based in Nashville, Tennessee. He’s the owner of The Salted Table Company, an in-home catering company that prepares meals for backyard weddings, dinner parties, business dinners and more, in the comfort of your own home. Charles and I have similar backgrounds as it relates to blogging, and the personal chef business, so I really wanted to ask him some questions about how he got started, and how he runs his business. Some of the things we talk about are using social media as a tool for growing your business, being a chef who blogs, dinner party fiascoes and pricing your dinners. 

You can find Charles sharing his recipes, and kitchen musings, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. He also has a Patreon where you can pay $6/month for exclusive recipes, kitchen tips and advice for all things culinary. You can find links to all of the social media platforms below.

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Charles Hunter III
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Charles's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesaltedtable
Charles's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thesaltedtable
Charles's Twitter https://twitter.com/thesaltedtable
Charles's Pinterest https://twitter.com/thesaltedtable
Charles's Patreon https://www.patreon.com/thesaltedtable
The Salted Table Website https://www.thesaltedtable.com

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Transcript

1:25

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris Spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. There caterers research chefs personal chefs cookbook authors food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my personal chef business perfect little bites 10 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s I've never worked in a restaurant unless you count Burger King. And before I get into this week's episode, I want to let everyone know that the podcast will be on hiatus for the month of January 2021. I put out 76 episodes now in the first season, and I'll be launching Season Two on Tuesday, February 2. And you may have noticed that this episode was released on a Tuesday. When Season Two starts, I'll continue to release the shows on Tuesdays going forward. In the meantime, I'm going to be doing a lot of Instagram Live sessions. I'm going to be having conversations with previous guests and people who've never been on the show. You can find that over@instagram.com forward slash Chefs Without Restaurants. And I encourage you to go back through our catalogue and catch up on some of the episodes that you might have never heard before. This week I have chef Charles hunter the third. He's a personal chef, recipe developer and food blogger based in Nashville, Tennessee. He's the owner of the salted table company and in home catering company that prepares meals for backyard weddings, dinner parties, business dinners and more in the comfort of your own home. Charles and I have similar backgrounds as it relates to blogging and the personal chef business. So I really wanted to ask him some questions about how he got started and how he runs his business. Some of the things we talked about are using social media as a tool for growing your business. Being a chef who blogs, dinner party fiascos and pricing your dinners. You can find Charles sharing his recipes and kitchen musings on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. He also has a Patreon where you can pay $6 a month for exclusive recipes, kitchen tips and advice for all things culinary. You can find links to all of the social media platforms in the show notes. Unfortunately, during our recording, my zoom completely froze up on me and I had to reboot the computer. I lost about what would have been the last five minutes of the show. I usually like to ask my guests what one of their favorite culinary resources is. So I followed up with Charles asking him and like many of our previous guests, he also lists the flavor Bible is one of his very favorite culinary resources. I think I'm gonna have to get Karen and Andrew on the show. What do you think? So enough of me talking? Let's get with the show. As always, thanks so much for listening and have a great week. Hey, good morning, Charles. Welcome to the show.

Charles Hunter: 3:54

Good morning, Chris. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. I'm

Chris Spear: 3:57

so glad I could get you on here. I feel like I've gotten to know you a little bit via Twitter the past couple months. I love seeing all the things you're working on.

Unknown: 4:05

Thanks. Yeah, Twitter is weird. I abandoned Twitter for quite a while. And then I don't know how I re ignited my love for it. Again, I think once I finally figured out what people wanted, because at first I felt like I was putting a lot of word based content into that space and just sharing like cooking information, articles from other food publications and things of that nature. But when I realized if I treated it more like Instagram, that it was a little bit more fun and people were more engaging. My love for it kind of came back. So I've been back there over the past year. So

Chris Spear: 4:44

finding the way to hack the system.

Unknown: 4:47

Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't I didn't know how to navigate it at all. I feel like I was like most people say, Oh, well, I can swipe up and all this good stuff over on Instagram. I'll abandon all the other platforms, realizing well, heck, if it's true Bam, blows up tomorrow, where's where's the rest of my content going to go house, I'm going to reach my, my people, potential clients, things of that nature. So I've really started reinvesting back into all the social media platforms a little bit more this year and trying to find the balance there. I don't think there is balance is just you just throw yourself into it, or you don't do it.

Chris Spear: 5:21

Yeah, there's no balance at all. No, I love Twitter. And I've mentioned it several times in this podcast. And what I did see is, it actually was good when a lot of people left because then it was less noisy, like I was on early, and then it got really noisy, and it got hard to get traction. But then a lot of people left for Instagram and other platforms. But I noticed that a lot of the people who were influential in food media never left. And I kept telling people, like if you want to get yourself in a publication, or something like that, like right now is the perfect time all the editors of every magazine and TV show they're still there.

Unknown: 5:53

Oh, my gosh, we have so much access to people on Twitter. It is crazy. The access you have to people on Twitter.

Chris Spear: 6:01

Yeah, I mean, the first publication I was in garden and gun magazine, it's like Jed Portman, I think every like jets become almost like a household name, in my opinion now in the food room, but he's someone who's been on Twitter for so long. And we just started interacting. And you know, one time he saw some cocktail that I made on my blog, and he said, This is great. Can we put this in the magazine? Yeah, like hell? Yeah, you can, you know, yeah, but, but that was one of those things. Like, just that's the kind of opportunities I think you have when you're on a platform like Twitter, whereas, you know, maybe posting a photo of it on Instagram, but but I don't know, I think you really need to build those relationships. And the depth you can get into on Twitter is a little different.

Unknown: 6:36

There's definitely a different kind of, I guess, you could say intimacy on Twitter that you don't necessarily get from Instagram, or even Facebook or any of the other platforms, like the ability to instantly Connect. And it doesn't feel as awkward to like send people messages or to like to talk to engage a conversation with people on Twitter versus into someone having a stream of conversation in like an Instagram, dm or something.

Chris Spear: 7:06

So I guess let's back it up a little bit. So you have a personal chef business, but I want to find out a little bit about how you got into food and cooking did you grow up being, you know, falling in love with food?

Unknown: 7:17

Oh, gosh, this could turn into an hour long story, I'll give the abbreviated version. Essentially, my, my parents worked full time. So my sister and I ended up spending a decent amount of our childhood with my great grandmother and grandmother who lived in a duplex together. So it was kind of the best of both worlds kind of that old cliche story of being on the stool, having grandma cook, licking the spoon kind of a thing. And I feel like food just stuck. I was surrounded by a big family who was always cooking, we were always having celebrations and get togethers of some sort, whether it was on the weekends, or I don't know, in the black community. There's always a reason to have food and get people together and to eat. So I was always surrounded by food and some capacity. And my mom was always cooking always in the kitchen with her. But really a lot of my inspiration for food I feel like comes from my great grandmother and my grandmother. Just always been around them always seen them cook like we'd literally get off the school bus, my sister and I, and she'd be out on the screen porch. And they'd be just like a table full of like fish guts in just scaling away or someone dropped her off a deer carcass and she's like breaking down or she's up there bowling turtles, or just, I mean, I've seen it all from her wrangling the heads of chickens and popping up to I don't know, some traumatizing things for kids. But still really good experience.

Chris Spear: 9:00

My uncle in Minnesota was a hunter and the first time that I went to visit them, I went in the kitchen and he had all these rabbits with hooks through their neck, you know, and they were these yes, no, she rabbits with the blood dripping down the front. But my mom said, you know, seeing that didn't traumatize me and she kind of had a sense. I don't know, know that she knew I was gonna be in food. But she definitely realized that like, I wasn't going to be squeamish with that kind of stuff.

Unknown: 9:24

Where they're gonna be safe to see your killers after we see it. For sure. I don't know what else to do. But no, so it was just I was always surrounded by food. A lot of just beautiful strong black women always cooking always in the kitchen with them always trying to see what's in the pie and what they're doing, how they're using utilizing these different ingredients to make really beautiful meals. And yeah, it just really stuck. But one of my first jobs was actually with my cousins who had a barbecue food truck before I even I think even grass The concept of what a food truck was or before they ever came became popular. And I'd be jumping on it with them on the weekends. And we'd be traveling to like these local festivals or local events and they will let me help plan like meaning specials and stuff like that. So you know, slinging barbecue nachos and being able to watch who we might what we call uncle z, uncle, but he's a cousin. But in the black community, you call people things. So they are like Uncle and Auntie. And just being able to really learn a lot about barbecuing and grilling. I don't know, it was things that I really didn't I probably at the time I took for granted. I was like, Oh, this is just fine. But I really I really learned a lot through those experiences.

Chris Spear: 10:44

And then you ended up going to culinary school, correct?

Unknown: 10:47

Yeah, I followed that up with going to culinary school because what I what I realized about myself is that I knew how to cook I never cook well, just from watching. All these people in my life, do it. But I didn't really understand why food and ingredients work together the way they did to get the results that I was wanting. So coloring school gave me a solid foundation, I think as far as like understanding the science of food in different flavor profiles and you know, getting in a larger grasp on all kinds of cultures and different cuisines and being able to understood outside of the bubble what I hadn't known him.

Chris Spear: 11:32

So then you did start working in food service out of culinary school. Correct. Like you started. Yeah,

Unknown: 11:37

I did. Well start Well, I was working. I don't think I worked for the first little bit of college. But then I was like, I need jobs. I have some free time. And I always love to work. I've always had my foot like doing something in restaurant related. I feel like even like, like probably 11 or 12. So yeah, I was in I was working in a kitchen in Gatlinburg while I was going to culinary school, 30 minutes away from there. Yeah, and that was just, that was a really great learning experience. I eventually moved between assistant kitchen manager while I was in culinary school. And then I was just like, I feel like I was really getting my, I don't know, Grant, I guess you could say grounding, and really learning more and understanding what it meant to work in an actual restaurant kitchen. Because like while I was in high school, I worked at like Panera Bread. So that was my first like real job with benefits and actual first foot in the door to the restaurant world, which I don't think was a really experience.

Chris Spear: 12:39

I started at Burger King when I was 16. So

Unknown: 12:43

yeah, it's a different experience. But it wasn't the same as like 300 cover and I restaurant, fine dining, like more brigade system kind of situation. So it was it was definitely interesting to be in culinary school and to be learning about what it meant to actually working in a restaurant. And to go and do that at night. It was like it was like enhanced training.

Chris Spear: 13:08

So now you have your own personal chef business. How did that start?

Unknown: 13:14

Oh, gosh. So I was a pootis Christian kid growing up in East Tennessee. And we literally spent our whole lives in the church like the church like three to four days a week. So I didn't. I didn't really understand a whole lot about like actual restaurant life. Kind of like dairy cows a little bit dark and a little bit seedy. And I gained so much knowledge about things I never knew anything about working in restaurants, which was which was all very interesting. Granted, I still do miss it. But I realized I think I realized that I wasn't cut out to be a lifer in a kitchen, that I needed to be doing something else where I had more of a one on one experience with the people who were consuming the food versus cooking that another chefs food and being a faceless body back in the kitchen. And I just I don't know, I have so much creativity within me. And I was always like at the restaurants I was working it I was always like creating specials and you know helping with menu changes and things of that nature, but never really been able to see the fruits of those labors. Like when that item that I created landed on the table. It was just like another restaurant item from the restaurant. No one knows who's who's creating these things. And I kind of I really hated that. And I was like,

Chris Spear: 14:41

oh, and then you say to the waitstaff did they did they like it and they're just like, yeah, I guess you know, like, you want more feedback. Like you don't get to see the customer.

Unknown: 14:49

I'm like with a place of decent like, hopefully like that. But yeah, like you can't get any real feedback or anything like you're just continuously like cranking Are these like what you think are like beautiful things. And I just wanted I wanted more. I wanted more. I knew there was more ingredient I spent years in the restaurant industry before I even got to this point. It wasn't until I moved to Nashville. And there was this like slow snowballing of people asking me to like cook for them that I realized that there was a demographic of people who wanted the service and actually enjoyed it. And I had started the, the food blog. And it was just, it was just something I was doing. I was like, I was a very, I was a late comer to Instagram, I was a late comer to all the social media platforms really. So I started this food blog, where I was just like talking about my favorite restaurants and sharing really basic recipes. But I had already had an audience from that. And then when I realized that, oh, this personal chef thing could really like turn into something or Bossman something. I just kind of rolled it over and change the name and started doing research on like branding and marketing and trying to like figure out who I was and what my voice was and what my aesthetic was. And who am I talking to? Who am I trying to reach all that all that just trying to figure out all things you have to figure I guess to be an entrepreneur?

Chris Spear: 16:22

What was the name of your blog when you started?

Unknown: 16:24

It was the local forkful.

Chris Spear: 16:27

So is your website the same? Did you leave all your old posts and just rebranded I left my

Unknown: 16:33

old posts like you dug in the archives, you can still find local for full content and from even like, interviews and stuff that I did still referencing the local for cool.

Chris Spear: 16:46

What year was this? When did you start? Oh, my

Unknown: 16:49

gosh, I this officially became a business in 2015. So it was like 2012 ish, probably when I started the logo for cool. I started

Chris Spear: 17:00

my website, perfect little bites, I think in 2010, it's really hard to tell because the whole I was hosting it on posterous. And that like went out of business. And I had to download all my posts and re upload and build my website on WordPress. So I've kind of even lost track of like, when my website was when I was about 2010 when I started writing on my website. So similarly, I the website perfect little bites came before the personal chef business perfect little bites. So how do you convert readers to customers? Because that's one of the challenge with something like a website, you know, it's not necessarily going to be hyperlocal you can have people from all over the world. So how do you capture those customers? How are you getting people locally to find your website and then get them to be a personal chef customer.

Unknown: 17:43

I'm so I think that came that came through a lot of networking. I had to learn how to really just put myself out there to sell myself to talk about what it was I was doing. And I realized that I could no longer be the guy who was like, Oh, yeah, I'm working here. But this is what I'm aspiring to be. I had to tell people, I was a personal chef. And this is what I'm doing, to really get them to understand it, to believe in it and to want to be a part of it. So I started networking with like local event stylist, and florist event planners, like connecting with all these people and really doing some free some free legwork. So coming in and like creating the food for their photoshoots are coming in and doing small events, they did pay not a lot because I didn't realize my worse back then I was just excited to get the I was excited to get the jobs. So it came through a lot of networking, a lot of just putting myself out there putting my content out there creating at home, playing around learning about food photography, and then kind of like changing my voice from talking about the local restaurants and the recipes and stuff that I was doing to slowly rolling that over into talking to people about gathering together how to be intentional about what it is that they're knowing how to create, you know that overused word of curation, how to like curate like beautiful meals for people. So just like it was kind of like it was like learning the culinary industry from a different perspective and trying to figure out how I fit into it and what it looked like for me and my company.

Chris Spear: 19:39

She's talking about event planners and stylists and and things like that. For your dinners. Do you deal with front of the house? Do you have someone who serves food do you deal with like tablescapes

Unknown: 19:50

I take care of front and back of the house. We try to make it we try to make it super simple for the client. I don't want them to have to deal with Several people or like I would I essentially have created to where it all comes to me. So we can take care of the tablescape, we have, I have the front of the house staff, I have the back of the house staff, I've gotten to the point now to where I try to like cross train those people into people that can cross utilize. So I've phased out slightly more people who just do one thing, and kind of like Swiss demand for people who can work or at least willing to learn how to do front and back. Because it makes life a lot easier. And you have to isn't you have less people to actually worry about.

Chris Spear: 20:38

So do you? Do you look for a front of the house person to teach back of the house? Or do you look for a back of the house person that you teach front

Unknown: 20:44

of back of the house that I can teach front? Because the thing was going in, you didn't know this, like the thing was going to people's homes is like, it's really it's kind of strange and bizarre how this works. Because you have to earn people's trust without them ever meeting you a lot of times, like a lot of like you have your your clients who understand it now only you cook for on a regular basis and do things for and they get it but like the new clients, you have to get them to understand exactly how this works, that you have to earn their trust through an email.

Chris Spear: 21:18

Most of my customers I've never even spoken to on the phone, we can do it all via email, and then I show up Yeah, meeting a meeting for the very first time I haven't even seen their face until I get their

Unknown: 21:27

thing here. Because now I have to kind of like streamline it when we're in like a busy season. Gosh, it hasn't been a whole lot since COVID. But when we're in a busy season, I've streamlined it to where I'm like, hey, it takes me images of the dining room and the kitchen, and the spaces that we're going to utilize. So I can plan the flow of the evening, I used to do home visits. And then it was just it was getting becoming too much. There was too many moving parts between doing home business and grocery shopping, and wrangling and staff and doing all these things and going to buy flowers. So we've I've definitely streamline the service. But yeah, it's an interesting thing, because you have to get people to trust you as a complete stranger and also bringing other strangers into their home.

Chris Spear: 22:14

So going back to the blog, do people still ever referred to you as a blogger? And if so, how does that make you feel? Because Personally, I'm a chef first. And when people refer to me as a blogger, I get kind of, like a weird feeling about that.

Unknown: 22:29

I don't know, I've learned I feel like I've learned to kind of just like this association or like detachment from titles I always considered, I consider myself a chef, but I consider myself a chef who blogs. Um, I haven't gotten to a place where I even feel comfortable with even calling myself a food writer, because I've done very little of it. But I really do enjoy it. And it's something that I plan to like, navigate the waters more next year. But when people call me a blogger, i don't i don't i don't even really think twice about it. I think there may have been a point early on, when I was rolling over into the person who said, Well, I'm not a blogger anymore. But now Mike Yeah, I'm a chef who blogs

Chris Spear: 23:09

because I always in my head. You know, when blogging started out, I just picture this kind of like, stay at home mom was way too much time and spends eight hours crafting like one entree and it's like no, I'm a chef. I've been cooking in kitchens since 1992. Like, because I friends, even chef friends who will introduce me and be like, this is Chris from the blog, perfect little bites, I'm like, and the business like I actually cook, I make money off of cooking, you know?

Unknown: 23:36

No, and I feel like I've finally got people to people who have the very be into doubt. And so they usually introduced me as a chef who blogs. But yeah, I don't care that much about it. And the blog, still, the blog still exists whenever I can get around to it. I've invested way more time into Patreon now. But the blog still exists. And I'll still put content there.

Chris Spear: 23:59

Well, that's, you know, one of the things is how much time? How do you allocate your time? You know, is the question I'm always asking myself, like, Where is the best ROI? Is it better to just put a bunch of recipes or a bunch of photos on Instagram as opposed to crafting this one? blog post blogging takes so much more time for me. And it's easier for me to just take a picture of whatever I'm working on post on Instagram and be done with it.

Unknown: 24:23

Yes, the thing was, the thing I love about the website, and the blog is I want it to be a place where like, my kids can go and kind of see like what I did and see all the content and kind of like be inspired by it. And also it's just I could just continually building something that I can reference. I can reference later like send links out to other people. I don't know if there's something about I like having that kind of like tangible content, just always kind of present there in the background. Even though I spend a lot more time with such median tonight the website these days, but I still I still love it I still love spending like three hours creating three to four hours creating a recipe taking pictures of it and then trying to like, squeeze some words out of my brain. Yeah. into the into that space is saying it seemed like coming to fruition. So it's still fun.

Chris Spear: 25:19

Well, and who is your target customer? Do you have a handle on what the demographic is?

Unknown: 25:27

God? So majority of my audience is women. Oh, who's

Chris Spear: 25:33

your demographic for paying customers for your personal shave? I guess is what I want to get out. Yeah, because they're very different. Or they can be very different.

Unknown: 25:41

So my paying customers are between the ages of 45 and 60 is majority majority of requirements. A lot of empty nesters, and a lot of like, CEO, type people who entertain the load will do a lot of business dinners and things, events, things of that nature.

Chris Spear: 26:02

And I asked this because I think that's where you kind of get the you know, with social media, you know, it's like I do a lot of posting on Instagram, where the demographic definitely skews younger. And you know, you get a lot of likes, you got a lot of followers, but is that doing anything to move the needle in a business sense, when I look at most of my customers are these you know, like, 55 to 60 year old person, they've probably never even seen my Instagram. And I would say that 95% of the people who follow me have never hired me, you know, and I think this is one of the things that I keep talking about with other people is where are you spending your time? And if you want to grow your business, does it make sense to spend so much time on a platform where your customers aren't even there right now?

Unknown: 26:46

Oh, yeah, I actually do believe, though weird thing was, I was shocked at how much business I was getting from Instagram, a lot of business comes through Instagram, which is why I really started like investing into that platform more than all the others. Because it was where I get the most messages about doing dinners and the most messages about cooking classes and people who were just really interested in what it was I was doing. And it was way easier to connect with people in there to share information and to really just get your name out there a lot more. But I get a lot of business through Instagram. So I'm always telling people who want to be personal chefs to definitely invest into that platform, as well as a couple of the others. Because you can definitely find the people who want to utilize your services, there be other people who are just looking for free content and just come like your stuff cuz it's pretty or whatever.

Chris Spear: 27:46

Yeah, most of my customers tell me they find me through a Google search that so thank god, I'm doing something right for SEO that they're literally just putting like personal chef washington dc into Google and find it.

Unknown: 27:56

Now I get a lot of those people who tweeted the other day we put in personal chef Nashville, you were the first people that popped up. I'm like, Yes. I love good.

Chris Spear: 28:06

So what do you wish you knew earlier on about being a personal chef or starting the business? Like, what if you could go back and just like, say, Man, I wish I knew this? What would that be?

Unknown: 28:16

One that should have started out with an accounting. Because I was not a graded numbers, it is still something I struggle with. But definitely having an accounting helps you become more rounded, and frees you up to do other things besides always crunching numbers and working on the books. So definitely starting out with an accountant understanding more of I don't know how I guess how to work with people. Because you run into so many different personality types that I've never dealt with before. So I sometimes it's a learning curve.

Chris Spear: 28:55

Do you mean customers?

Unknown: 28:57

Yeah, yeah, with customers, because sometimes it's a learning curve, to understand what what it is that people want from me and what they need. So I wish I kind of had a mentor, because I didn't know any other personal chefs. It was something that I just saw on TV. And I was like, people don't do that for a career. That's not a real thing. Until I was actually doing and I was like, Okay, wait, what am I doing? How do I do this? How do I figure this out? So this came from, I had to do a lot of research. So I would definitely tell people to like start out with an accountant, do a lot of research on it and try to find somebody even if it's not if you can't find them in person, find them on the internet and like see if they don't mind answering some questions for you. Because it's definitely it's a different ballgame. It's a totally different experience from working in a restaurant. Like they're almost there. They're comparable but also incomparable. And the way that they're formatted.

Chris Spear: 29:51

Yeah, I tell a lot of people you definitely have to be an entertainer, right. You know, like coming in people's houses. I don't think a lot of chefs are you said if you've only been invited restaurants where you're behind the closed kitchen doors doing your thing. You know, it's, if you've worked in a, an open kitchen a little bit, but still, when you're in an open kitchen, you don't necessarily have as much interaction directly with the customer. I mean, worse front and center quite often talking to multiple people while we're cooking.

Unknown: 30:19

Yeah, cuz they're just while they're just wandering around your space. You really can't You can't hide from them, especially since a lot of homes nowadays are built open concepts. So there's no, there's no cutoff, you kind of have to be on at all times. And you have to present Well, there are some people who I've worked with before in kitchens are like I come across, and they're like, Oh, I want to be a personal chef. And like, I don't know, if you actually want to be a personal chef. Because you have to you, you definitely, you have to present well, like you had, I don't know, like you have to, you have to learn to really be a people person, if you're not a people person. And when I when I know, people who aren't people who aren't people person, you know, I really

Chris Spear: 31:08

have to go with the flow really easily. Yeah, like,

Unknown: 31:11

you know, what's gonna happen.

Chris Spear: 31:14

I, I love animals, but I hate when people have like those dogs, and they like, don't have the common sense to get them out of your space. And like I'm working and there's like a dog at my feet the whole time. And I'm tripping and they're like getting into my stuff. And you just want to turn around, say, Get that dog the fuck out of here.

Unknown: 31:34

You know, you can't do that. I've put that in the contract now that if you have active animals that we have to have, you put them away for the course of the event, because it's too is too distracting. And if I'm turning around with a hot skillet of something, your dog comes running to the kitchen. That's the problem and liability. And no one wants to deal with that. I learned that the hard way. I think the first the first year of like, oh, wow, I didn't think about the aspect of dealing with people's animals in my space. So now I need to figure out how to like nicely tell them to put them away. So now we ask them. I it's like front and center. Now it's like, oh, do you have animals? By the way? Well, here's how that needs to work for us.

Chris Spear: 32:15

Yeah, something for me to put into my policies, I think for the new year going forward.

Unknown: 32:20

Same thing with kids too. Like, yeah, it's a weird how you have to kind of like, you have to become the authoritarian and I'm gonna need

Chris Spear: 32:28

you to lock up your kids before, before we do dinner

Unknown: 32:31

was like, I need you to definitely keep an eye on your kids like you can I'm sorry, the three year old can't run around. While now that we're here. Like, we've got to figure something like what time is the nanny coming? Because we got to figure something else out.

Chris Spear: 32:45

But those are those are the things that you don't know until you get there. Right?

Unknown: 32:50

If I definitely can't be a chef and a babysitter at the same hour.

Chris Spear: 32:55

No, not not at all. It does get really interesting. Are there any things that you make in your customers homes that you will make for food, but are really a pain? Like, what are some of those dishes that people love? Or just you get there? And you're like, why did I even agree to make this? Do you have any of those dishes that come to mind?

Unknown: 33:16

You know what, in the beginning of being a personal chef, I was trying to like, you know, be fireworks show and like get loose on Wiles all the time. And I've really tailored that back because I started thinking about the experience as a whole, and how to like streamline the things that we were doing, how to make a more palatable experience for the staff and the clients without losing any of that wow factor. So I started to simplify my recipes. So I stopped doing things that took like 18 ingredients for one dish because it was killing me.

Chris Spear: 33:58

I've been there too.

Unknown: 33:59

Yeah. And they like also like try to get like we because when you have a lot of stuff to do, you can't do it all at the client's home. So like trying to get like Reno kitchen space and trying to like figure all that out. It was it wasn't adding up and it wasn't worth it and I can roll that cost over to my clients. So I started simplifying things without really losing any of that elevated feel. So now I don't do any I don't do any super complicated dishes. I mean, hearing egg yolks, smoking something are probably as complicated as it gets. But I don't do any of those dishes that take like two to three days pre prep.

Chris Spear: 34:41

Well, I would say just like frying anything like this last weekend these people want to Spanish party and I made croquettes last day hormone but like you're going to someone's house and they had a glass cooktop stove and I've got this giant pot of vegetable oil on there. And I'm there by myself. It was only a party of six. But then you're trying to watch all these things. So I've got this stuff in the oven. I'm trying to make sure that the oil is at the right temperature, but then you're done and you have this hot pot full of oil that I've got to like put in my car and get home. It's like, I really hate frying. Like, I love fried food. But like doing that off site at some stranger's house where I have to cart hot oil home is a mess.

Unknown: 35:17

I don't put fried food on my menu.

Chris Spear: 35:20

I purposefully do not put fried food on the menu. You have to actually if we're fine food to your house, is because you've requested something that wasn't present on my menu. And now I have to figure it out. That's what that's what this was for me because I don't usually do it either. But they wanted a traditional Spanish tapas dinner. It's like, well, there's really I mean, for me, that's one of the top like three things. Oh, yeah, having a Spanish restaurant. I have to do it, but I hated it.

Unknown: 35:44

Yeah, cuz like, trying to figure out what to do with oil, like you said is like an awkward situation. It's just, it's laborious, and it feels wasteful, because like, you're not gonna use it again, probably more than likely. So I if we do anything fried, it's like a garnish. Or it's like a pan fry was like, a cup of oil or so used at most. But yeah, I try. I really try not to deep fry anything like we did last. I feel like the last time we do something we did Bing gays. So it was like two big panes of oil that I had to figure out what to do with. So I'm just like waiting for it to cool. Pour it back into the containers, wrapping it up loading it back. Oh, I know. Yeah. It becomes it becomes real laborious.

Chris Spear: 36:28

Have you ever seen the baking steels Do you know the baking steels, it's like a 40 pound piece of steel that you can put in the oven. It's really good for making pizza. So I had customers who had asked for like pizza parties. So that was something I did early on, I would bring this thing not thinking about the fact that this basically gets up to the equivalent of like 900 degrees. And now I have to take this thing home. So I have it on this giant sheet pan. So one time I'm at a customer's house and I'm carrying it and the sheet pans slid and it fell off and went on their floor. So this 40 pound piece of steel is like 100 pounds in there like breezeway with our laminate floor. I don't know what kind of magical flooring they had that it did not melt or even show up like a sign. But I'm freaking out and I'm getting like spatulas trying to like lift this thing up. I burn the crap out of my hands. I'm like, I'm never doing this again. I'm not making pizza at people's houses.

Unknown: 37:19

I do. I do not volunteer piece of parties, and I shun them unless you have a piece of heaven in your backyard. Our it has to make sense. I don't try to figure it out in the oven anymore. I've done that a couple of times. So I know exactly what you're talking. Like know, when I do. You have to have an actual piece of paper because it's not like just the logistics of this, like all the toppings and then people want to make their own and customize everything. No, no,

Chris Spear: 37:48

thank you. I did a party It was 1010 year old girls was a girl's 10 year old birthday party. And she invited nine other friends and they wanted to learn how to make pizza. And that was a hot mess. Like the adults didn't even help at all the parents stayed at the party and they had a glass of wine and stood in the back while I'm at the island. And these girls are just like, laying in sauce everywhere. And I was like, like, I just don't do kids, kids birthday parties

Unknown: 38:13

I've decided are not my thing. And I'm just not gonna pass the party for some for some 11 year olds. And I was like, Yeah, I won't be advertising for this. Although it was definitely It was definitely a learning experience. But I'll try to wrangle in like 611 year old girls to make pasta is work.

Chris Spear: 38:38

And I think it's hard if it's, you know, for one of your existing customers, because that's how it always happens. I do a dinner for these adults, and it's a dinner party. And now they feel like family and we're friends and they say, hey, it's my daughter's birthday party, we'd love for you to come in and do this. I feel like that's something that I easily cave into and say sure, I'll do it. And now I just have to say, you know, I really, thank you for thinking of me, I just don't think it's gonna be a good fit.

Unknown: 39:04

Yeah, it's like you want to be accommodating to your, to your regular clients, especially. Especially because a lot of them so we're sometimes in like, a lot of my regular clients have become like friends, you know, like almost consider them family. Yeah, but sometimes you do have to, like you have to set those boundaries. Because sometimes just like, No, I know.

Chris Spear: 39:26

Yeah, yeah. But I think that's another thing that came over time is knowing my strengths and my weaknesses and what I was good at and what I like doing, because I think when you're starting out and you need the money, you're willing to take a lot more things. And it just like anything. Absolutely. And then at some point, you're like, no, that's not that's not what I want to be doing.

Unknown: 39:47

Yeah, once you once you figure it out it it gets a lot. It gets a lot easier to kind of navigate this world and to like better understand who you are as a chef as well.

Chris Spear: 39:59

So what did you learn? Pricing your product and charging for your time, I'm sure like many personal chefs, that was a struggle and trying to figure out what to charge for, you know, it's

Unknown: 40:09

hard. There's not a whole lot of information on it out there. And the information that is out there is kind of, like, vague and oh, you need to do like, you need to do all these math equations and figure out your food cost and things of that nature. And it's like, No, I'm trying to provide like an upscale experience. But what does that look like? What is charging for food like separate from like, because I was trying to roll it all together? In the beginning, I don't know how you started out. But I was trying to do like the per person cost and that was it like that. A us walk, gratuity walk out the door. And that wasn't working for me, because I realized when people started wanting to do like, appetizers, and they want to do a salad and the entree and dessert, and sometimes they wanted to throw in, um, use boosh and all this stuff of that$60 a person wasn't covering those groups.

Chris Spear: 41:09

Not at all.

Unknown: 41:11

So I had, I had to, I had to step back. And I think I fumbled through this whole thing for the first year. I was just, you know, just continually tripping over myself trying to figure it out. And trying to do research and trying to like change menus and like, it was just push and pull with clients, because my menu prices were changing as I was trying to figure it out. And you know, I'm so glad a lot of them were willing to just, like work through it with me. Because it was a lot of learning. It was a lot of learning. So finally, when I realized like, Okay, this is I should I need to create menus, I'm going to do seasonal menus, with the prices for the food Allah cart. And then I'm going to try to service fee for me for staffing. And then for rentals. So I started to create these layers and compartmentalize and it was clear to the customer, what they were what they were getting, and what they were looking at. versus this kind of mbu is 60 hours a person have a field a kind of a thing is what it felt like.

Chris Spear: 42:14

So does pricing fluctuate based on menus? Like, do you have different prices for different dishes?

Unknown: 42:19

Yeah, prices for different dishes, because the thing I still try to do is source quality ingredients from different places. So if I can get this from the farmers market, as good, I charge more for it, because it cost more versus if I go get it from fresh market or Whole Foods. So I still have to take into account just all the little things that come along with it.

Chris Spear: 42:42

I don't do any of that at all, I have a flat pricing, that's always been well, it hasn't always been this price. But my pricing, I just say starts at $100 a person and goes up from there. And if you want a filet mignon, or a crab cake, or a tofu or a pork tenderloin, it's all $100 a person, I don't get into this, like, you know, because you'll have a party where you've got like one vegetarian and six meat eaters and six people have filet. I don't want to get into like, well, it's $50 for the filet, but then it's like $25 for the tofu, it's like, no, it's $100 across the board, or 125 across the board. And then that gives me a margin of error. You know, I have very low overhead, I hire no staff, except when I do more than 10 people, I'll bring on one person, but under 10. I do it all myself and I have no rentals. So I don't deal with any of that. And so at that price point, it's like that gives me a lot of leeway to do a lot of different stuff. But I found that getting a number out of my client was helpful because that's how I found I was under charging when I started I was like, Oh, it's 65 or 75 now I have a questionnaire and I say what is your budget and some people are like well is $150 a person good? And I'm like Yep, but some people are like what can you for $200 a person I'm like you have $200 a person to spend like I I didn't even think that was something people would wander off because I found that I would say like oh it's you know 85 and like great soul You know, I'm like that was a little too quick. Maybe I should raise my prices.

Unknown: 44:07

Yeah, no, I actually found that I may I was making better money with the menu pricing versus having a flat fee. Just because I wanted to really I was trying to really do the thing where I kind of was like supporting local and being able to give the products that I wanted to cook with and I want to see people enjoying a I don't know I did I did the flat fee thing and I feel like the main your pacing now is making more sense for me because they can see how much it cost for the chicken dish. And then I also have in the notes well, because what I tried when I tried to get my clients to do everybody's gonna eat the same thing. Me too. Except you have like a weird, like, if you're a vegan dietary restriction or allergy, then yeah, we definitely accommodate that. So I created this Section of the menu for those people. And then if there's like three people in the party who just happened to be gluten free, my main you can cater to that now I'm like, Oh, that's people get really stressed out about it. I'm like, Oh, that's not a big deal. Gluten Free is not as hard as people think it is. So I feel like the individual pricing of like the menu items, doing the seasonality and that whole thing, what is working better for me now than doing the flat fee, because I've I've built in, I've built in a little bit of extra to have some wiggle room to get these nicer ingredients. And if I have to navigate some dietary or allergy restrictions, like I feel like is all built in there now. And it's really comfortable to move around.

Chris Spear: 45:43

That's great that you've found a system that works. I mean, as long as you have something that works, so many people are still trying to figure it out. Oh, yeah, I know, one of the hard things for me is like when you have a recurring customer, like did you ever have to, like frankly, say to someone like, I know, I used to charge this, but this is what I charged? Now have you did you have to deal with that when you raised prices,

Unknown: 46:03

I had a small group of clients, I had to do that with I was like, Look, as time has gone on. And I've realized how much energy in time This takes to create this product and deliver it to you and for you to be happy with the final results. We're going to do a price increase come January or whatever of the following year. And they usually no one usually ever has an issue with it. Because Okay, we love what you do trials, and we love the product. And we love what you provide for us. So like none of them have issues with it. And then the newer clients don't even know. So most of the time is pretty much a flawless process. I think at this point.

Chris Spear: 46:47

Now have you picked up meal prep customers as well,

Unknown: 46:51

I had and that was part of the pivot of lovely COVID just because people people are having a whole lot of in home stuff. Like it's kind of like a weird place to be right now. So yeah, I did pick up some meal prep clients, and then I pivoted to also doing some drop off meals for people that you see I offer on the internet from time to time, which has been fun. I am not. I respect delivery people so much more now. To see how that operates. I'm like man, dropping food off to like, eight people's houses is exhausting.

Chris Spear: 47:31

Not something I'm built for I have zero No,

Unknown: 47:35

no,

Chris Spear: 47:36

I'm like this is a lot of I'm like, this is a lot of work. And it's also going to be one of those things too. Like where we're after we're like over this he'll have explaining to those people who now want to utilize my services. Why that pricing work for that. And not for what it is that I do full time as a career. Because a lot of people are going to blur those lines and not see what exactly was happening. And that's one of the reasons I never did it. I didn't pivot at all during COVID I have stuck to my guns of perfect little bites has been branded as an in home dining experience where I set the table and I cook everything there. And because I'm in the$100 a person price range, how do I then come out and say like, Oh, well, but now you know for$30 a head you can get this meal delivered like I really was intentional about my branding from the start. And it's being stubborn, but I just didn't want to start to get into that and

Unknown: 48:28

no I get that i i think the the pivoting to moodily was more like a internal freakout of like, Oh my gosh, I have 20 meal prep clients who have left town and don't know when they're coming back. Yeah. And they haven't come back since March. They like they haven't they have to figure out a way to fly safely. It was a company of executives, and they have to find a way to safely fly 20 people back into town who need meal prep again. Oh, so

Chris Spear: 49:00

you had like a big company you're working with and you had Oh yeah,

Unknown: 49:03

I had an I had a whole nother company separate from the In Home dining experience that we were doing meal prep for and I had a team and that and COVID took all that away. So it was like oh my gosh, like a big chunk of my income just literally flew out the window. I have to figure something.

Chris Spear: 49:20

But you are doing in home dinners right now. Correct? Yeah,

Unknown: 49:24

we are doing that we are doing them occasionally still doing the meal drop offs as well.

Chris Spear: 49:29

I imagine December has been down for you number wise from what it's been in past years.

Unknown: 49:35

Oh yeah. My wife is like man, you see November and December you're like non stop and I never see you and that hasn't not been the case this year. I'm like I'm here.

Chris Spear: 49:44

That's why I've gone all in on the podcasting right now because I have the time to do it like December and November. I'm usually like, I can't come up for oxygen. You know,

Unknown: 49:54

right now. It's like, like two days after Christmas. Yeah, like never stops. And this year is feeling weird. I'm like, Oh my gosh, my hands are fidgety. Like, okay. Well, I've

Chris Spear: 50:05

been doing a lot of smaller parties, which is fun, but it's more work. You know, when you look at like profitability, like I'd rather go out on a Saturday and cook for 10 people than work five days a week for two people like that just doesn't make sense because of economy of scale, you know? But you do what you have to do. So I've been going out doing a lot of twos fours and sixes lately.

Unknown: 50:26

Yeah, no, it definitely has smaller, smaller groups is the theme this year, because I do miss the big groups. Because that was that was that was where the money really is.

Chris Spear: 50:39

So when things start to get back to normal, do you have any big plans, any changes to the company,

Unknown: 50:46

so I plan to not be knocked on my butt again, like this. From a pandemic I never saw coming. So right now I feel like I'm, I'm a Korean, I'm a creative, almost to my detriment, sometimes. I like to do a lot of things I'm passionate. Chef first. But I also love writing. And I love creating, and I love doing these things. So I'm going to definitely invest a lot more energy into Patreon, over the next year, because it's really been a fun platform to connect with people and to give people that one on one that they want for like recipe creation, and cooking in the kitchen. And then I also think I'm going to look into like doing more virtual cooking classes, because I keep getting emails about that, and dabbling more into food writing, like trying to like navigate my way through those waters, I have such imposter syndrome. When I think about doing that, but I'm also really passionate about writing and I love creating in that format. So I don't want to limit myself from being able to do anything. But I have a lot of these just like small projects that I want to get off the ground. But I need to find a way to streamline it and make it make sense for the brand. And try to find a way to relate it to our audience in a way that they understand it.

Chris Spear: 52:16

I see you putting out a lot of content, I seem to see you online all the time. And, and even if it's just an idea, I think that's the thing that's, you know, sometimes it's not even like a fully formed recipe. It's just like a snippet of something you're working on. And just seems like you're just putting out a ton of ideas and photos and recipes and seems like wow. Yeah,

Unknown: 52:35

that's the thing I'm always creating, like, I people are always like, do you get tired of cooking, I'm like, I might get tired. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna stop. You know, it's kind of like, I can be exhausted, but I can still get in the kitchen and like bake something or whip something up just because like it's my, it's my cheap therapy is where I have fun is I enjoy being in the kitchen. And it's never been. And in this format that I do it now, where is a lot more creative than it is like, I don't know how to describe it. But like labor, I guess like when you're like in a kitchen. It's like you're just sledging away and the heat and the dark space with the fluorescent lights, cranking all these big things of food out. But it's not like that in your home kitchen or when you're cooking for someone else. So I enjoy I enjoy creating in this format.

Chris Spear: 53:35

I feel like you almost even have more of the mental space to think about being creative when you're doing this. Like when I'm at home cooking. I'm definitely more thoughtful, you know and things connect the dots a little better. So like the Spanish dinner last week, I made Brava sauce for patatas bravas and like, in the moment there, you know, I'm just making them and they're just potatoes but then I had some leftovers I brought home and I was eating and I said what if this was a tomato soup, you know and even posted that online like this sauce is like the best tomato sauce I ever had. What have you pureed and just hit it with a little cream and you'd like a cream a tomato, but with that as the base for and then maybe do like a Manchego cheese toast, you know, but when I'm looking at these people's house like that doesn't hit me like that. It's when I get down and I'm at home and I'm tasting this I'm like, wow, this is like the best tasting tomato sauce I've ever made. Like, what could this be a good base for but when you're just grinding away putting out that dinner, I don't really get those moments at that time,

Unknown: 54:29

though and I love repurposing I make some of my business. I feel like I make some of the best meals for my wife and myself. When I'm repurposing something that's been leftover from another meal. I don't know it's like if you don't you don't want to see food go to waste. I feel like you get like a little bit of extra own in you to create something delicious.

Chris Spear: 54:48

Yeah, I'm very frugal. And that's something when I was working in other kitchens that I was running. I was always challenging my staff to like what are you throwing in the trash? Like how can we use that my one of my signature dishes scrapple dip Do you know scrapple Do you ever eat scrapple?

Unknown: 55:03

Yeah, yeah, interesting when you said dip, I was like, wait, wait.

Chris Spear: 55:06

So take take your favorite crab dip and just replace ounce rounds. scrapple for crab so it's like pan seared scrapple with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, Old Bay hot sauce. Maybe it sounds disgusting.

Unknown: 55:18

I love it. None of you're familiar with grapple and you like it. But it

Chris Spear: 55:23

was one of those things, I worked at a place and we did breakfast. And one day a week we did scrapple. And my cooks always said they didn't have enough time to cook it from scratch. So they would like go ahead and cook like a whole bunch of it. And after every Monday morning's breakfast service, they'd have like half a hotel pin and they would just throw it in the trash. And at one point, it just saved that and like why I'm like, because this is ridiculous. We shouldn't be throwing this away. We're gonna do something with it. And I don't even remember the spark like maybe we're making crab dip for a function or something. I was like, What if I just like you scrapple instead of crab like I didn't do it for that function, but just like tinkering in the kitchen. And that's how that was born. And then just like looking at that again. It's like, well, what if we did dirty rice? Like dirty rice is usually Oregon made? It's usually like chicken livers. What if we didn't use chicken livers? Whatever you scrapple I made like a super awesome, like, dirty rice and just threw some crispy scrapple on top. And you know, that was just because I was tired of throwing away you know, a pound of it every Monday.

Unknown: 56:16

Yeah, I mean, he's got my wheels turning. I was like, What if he smoked that scrap wood to make this dead? That's so good. Ooh,

Chris Spear: 56:22

next stage, next stage for sure.

Unknown: 56:25

Okay. But no, I have been thinking about me. It's like, I see sometimes, like, I know, some people like subtweeting, or whatever they're like, I don't know how you have time to take pictures when you're in the kitchen. Like, I have time to take pictures when I'm in the kitchen. Because I make time to take pictures when I'm in the kitchen. I've planned I've. And also if you don't have the content, a lot of people times people don't feel comfortable because they don't know what they're paying for. I mean, if I want you to invest into me, if I want you to enjoy the product that I create, then I feel like you need to be able to see it, you need to be able to visualize it. So I I am very intentional about trying to capture what it is that I'm creating. And I can't get a picture of every meal that every every event or even everything that I do on my own house and sometimes you just need to eat. But I'm very intentional about trying to collect those visuals and to be able to share that with people on the internet who will become potential or potential clients.

Chris Spear: 57:28

More often than not I'm doing a photo shoot the day after with leftovers because I don't have anyone working with me. You know, it's really hard to go.

Unknown: 57:34

How's it different for you?

Chris Spear: 57:35

And then there's like, yeah, I have no staff. There's eight people I'm cooking for and like nobody wants you stopping plating their food to take pictures Plus, you know, it's night their lighting is garbage or whatever. So it's like, Okay, I've got like a little bowl, I've got like, two tablespoons of chimichurri sauce left, like I'm gonna take that home with me, I have, you know, this and that. And then the next day, it's like, Can I put together a dish with just with the leftovers, like, it's always nice if I have enough just to make one plate and then I can set up my lights and get my good plates and all that and do a photo shoot. But more often than not, it's like food that I just managed to save from the day before.

Unknown: 58:10

And then I've gotten good to where now like, my, my staff is learning to just grab my phone and take pictures of food if I'm busy or something. Like you just it just kind of seamlessly works in it's not something that we have to like stop and figure out, you know, we're still moving. We're still making sure this like experience is legit, and all the i's are being dot entities are being crossed. But it's just taking that quick moment if you have it to like get an image and move on. You know, we're not we're not stopping to pick out a ring light or anything. Because I think people think sometimes I'm like, No, it's not a we're not full on photo shoot at anyone's home.

Chris Spear: 58:51

Thanks for listening to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. And if you're interested in being a guest on the show, or sponsoring the show, please let us know. We can be reached at Chefs Without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.