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Personal Chef Industry

Like many others visiting this forum, I am considering becoming a Personal Chef for much of the same reason's that you have all listed. I do have one question though - do Personal Chef's sometimes partner with another or have an assistant to share the cooking and the time spent at clien's homes? I ask this because the one downside I see to this line of work may be the lonliness factor. Besides that it can always be nice to trade off cooking/cleaning responsibilities. Any thoughts out there?

Great Question... I do alot of my chef dates by myself but everyonce in a while my wife is able to work with me... and let me tell you you can fly through a cooking date.( I do have her trained to the point if I get hurt that she can pick up the tongs so to speak so we don't miss a beat) I'm sure Jim can chime in with the benfits of working in pairs, Candy as well did alot with a partner when the business got to that point for her.... But remember if you have a partner you have to split the fees and if you hirer out for help you have to pay off your profit.

My mom was my partner. We laughed and argued, but it was great to have someone there. The downside is you have to discipline yourself to not talk but work.
Good luck,

Laura

Folks, I think there is a lot of difference between a partner as a PC and a family member helping out a PC. The only people that I have heard of that had partners no longer have partners. I'm not sure why but my suspicion would be that there is not enough money in a single cooking date to pay two people. Unless you can more than double the income by having a partner I'm not sure it would be worth it.

I think my reaction would be to do it like Bryan and I do, he is the chef, and I help him when I need to or when he gets bogged down. I am taking no money from the business, YET. I will begin payming myself after we make enough money to support both of us. In the meantime thank God for the mortgage business that I can run out of my home office.

Yesterday, Bryan was cooking for a new client and realized that he had forgotten to pick up the new containers required. I was able to leave my office and drive to WalMart to pick up the box of Anchor Hocking containers that we use for new clients.

BTW-yesterday was the day we began tring our idea of prepping in advance in our commercial kitchen and doing only the final cooking of the entrees at the clients home. When Bryan left he had all the sides done and packaged, and all the entrees preprepped. His time on site was less than 2 and 1/2 hours, including clean up, packaging and labeling!!

I think we might be onto something here folks.

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Jim Davis
The Really Good Food Co.
A Personal Chef Service

Hi Jim,
You mentioned that you have a new commercial kitchen. I know we do not live in the same state and the laws probably vary from state to state but I am interested in putting in one myself and I was wondering if you would care to share a few things about it with me? How expensive are they? What were the zoning laws? Were you able to have it in your own home separate from the living quarters? Thanks for any info that you could share with me. I'm in Minnesota by the way. Thanks Jim you always have some great points to share with us.
Sincerely,
Kari Haler
Chef on Call
South Central Minnesota

It sounds to me as if you would really have to hustle to get in enough clients to support a partner from what you are saying. And I do not have a spouse or relative who would be able to assist. I know I have a lot more to learn about the pros and cons of this biz before I take the next step. Thanks for your input!

Kari - We do not own a commercial kitchen. We have made arrangements to lease a licensed kitchen in a local church for daytime use only. The kitchen has a 10 burner range, 6 ovens, huge reach in fridge and freezers, 30 feet of stainless steel tables and a commercial dish washer. A large selection of large cookware, a 40 qt hobart mixer. Only thing we don't have that we would like to have on occasion are deep fryers.

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Jim Davis
The Really Good Food Co.
A Personal Chef Service

Another source for a possible commercial kitchens to rent, other than local churches, are VFW and American Legion Halls, Elks, other fraternal lodges, and occasionally Rec Centers. If these comercial kitchens are not being used on a daily basis by the owners, they may be amenable to renting them out for a portion of a day or several days per week. Some of our members do some catering for their church as a "trade-out" for use of the church's commercial kitchen. Hope this helps. Candy

Thanks Jim and Candy,
I will look into one of those types of kitchens for rent. Is there any one there though that would have an idea on the cost of one if you decided to build. I get tons of catering calls here. Two local gals in my little village did build one onto their home but they have a bakery license only as they sell specialty baked goodies to supermarkets etc. I guess their regulations are a little less strict than what I would need from the dept. of health. I'm still not able to get into the pc biz here, but I'm becoming one hell of a caterer!!!
Sincerely,
Kari Haler
Chef on Call

Hi Kari! You should probably contact your local Board of Health and ask them for a printed list of requirements for your Commercialkitchen "add-on" to be up to code. Then take that list to a contractor and have him give you a bid on what it would cost to construct it to code. Then sit down and take deep breaths! Candy