Chefs Without Restaurants

On the podcast this week I have Mike Tholis. Mike is the owner of Rendezvous Farm in Frederick, Maryland. Before starting his farm, Mike was a chef for 5 years in Washington D.C. restaurants, and has also worked as a butcher. After the government shutdown a few years ago, he realized how precarious the restaurant industry could be, and started planning his exit strategy. We discuss leaving the res...

On today's show, we have Matthew Jennings, a chef and consultant who is also the Vice President of Culinary at Healthy Living Market & Cafe in Vermont. Along with Jason Rose, Matt is the founder of Full Heart Hospitality.  Prior to his current role, he owned and was the chef at Farmstead restaurant and cheese shop in Providence, and later opened Townsman restaurant in Boston. He is the au...

On the podcast this week I have chef Jensen Cummings, the creator and host of Best Served Podcast. On his show he talks to hospitality industry leaders to learn about the trials and triumphs of their lives and careers. A fifth-generation chef/restaurateur, Jensen has run acclaimed kitchens, owned restaurants, developed concepts and now is focused on evolving the restaurant business model, and stor...

On this week’s podcast we have chef Jamie Simpson. He is the chef liason at The Chef’s Garden, and the executive chef of the culinary vegetable institute. The Chef’s Garden has been delivering amazing produce and specialty products direct from the farm to chefs and restaurants for over 30 years. As many businesses have had to pivot due to Covid, The Chef’s Garden has also made some changes. While...

On this episode, Chefs Without Restaurants founder Chris Spear speaks with Ray Delucci of the Line Cook Thoughts podcast. The episode originally aired on January 12, 2020. The discussion revolves around starting a personal chef business, building a community, podcasting and various food industry issues. Chris shared advice for all the line cooks, and aspiring food entrepreneurs out there. If you h...

On this podcast I have Brandon Baltzley. Brandon is the owner of Brandon Baltzley Fitness & Nutrition, as well as a personal trainer and wellness coach at Planet Fitness, and the co-owner of The Buffalo Jump restaurant on Cape Cod with his wife. Brandon is also a chef with more than 20 years in the restaurant business, which he left for good at the beginning of the year. Battling substance abu...

On today’s podcast we have Kisha Washington. She is the executive Chef and Owner of 3 culinary industry businesses. The first is The Key Ingredient, which is a private dining and chef table experience. The second business is called The Kitchen Spectrum Collective, which is a platform for chefs. It’s a one stop shop for website building, branding, menu development and more. And the third culinary b...

On this week’s podcast I speak with chef Hari Cameron. Hari is the chef consultant at Arcobaleno, as well as the chef partner at Grandpa Mac. I met Hari a few years ago when he was the chef and owner of a(MUSE.) restaurant in Rehoboth, Deleware, a restaurant that he closed on New Year’s Eve 2019.  We discuss the move from fine dining to fast casual, as well as his new position with Arcobaleno. Arc...

On this week’s podcast we have chef Carolyn Crow. Carolyn is the owner of Black Bunny Bakery, as well as an event planner for the city of Gaithersburg, Maryland. We discuss how she’s been juggling event planning, programming cooking classes for Gaithersburg’s Casey Community Center, preparing baked goods for Black Bunny Bakery, and her new series of online cooking demos. We also talk about favorit...

On this episode, we have Christina Xenos. She is a Los Angeles-based personal chef, and owner of Sweet Greek Personal Chef Services. She’s also a recipe developer, does cooking classes and is the co-author of Opa. The healthy Greek Cookbook. She was also recently on an episode of “A New Leaf” on NBC, and The Cooking Channel’s Food: Fact or Fiction. We discuss Greek cooking, getting on a national T...

On this episode of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, we have David Pietranczyk. He’s the chef and product expert at Breville Polyscience. He also does some of their photography, videography and marketing. We discuss ·      Modern kitchen equipment ·      Impostor syndrome ·      Virtual conferences and learning ·      Niche Facebook groups ·      Michelin restaurants, and if they can live up...

On this episode, we have Certified Master Chef Rich Rosendale. Rich has a number of business ventures including Rosendale Collective, RC Culinary Lab, Rosendale Events, the Rosendale Online learning platform, and the Leesburg, Virginia restaurant Roots 657. Rich led the United States culinary team at the Bocuse d'Or culinary competition, and had that experience documented in the movie The Con...

On this episode, we have Jeff Givens, owner of Southern Skies Coffee Roasters. We talk about how he started his business, his successes and some challenges, including marketing. We dive into coffee talk, getting into brewing ratios, roasting, gear and thoughts on the addition of cream and sugar (spoiler alert…Jeff says drink what you like). I hope you enjoy this episode. If you’re into coffee, thi...

On this episode, we have we have Las Vegas Chef Phillip Dell. Phillip is a personal chef, culinary instructor, BBQ competitor, Chopped Champion, consultant and even has his own BBQ sauce. We discuss how he’s diversified, and built a personal brand, which seems especially relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic.  ===========================  Chef Phillip Dell  ===========================  The Chef Ph...

On this episode, we have we have Mathew Townsend from Jug Bridge Brewery. Jug Bridge is one of the newer breweries in Frederick, Maryland. We discuss some of the ups and downs he’s experienced since opening, many of which are due to Covid-19. The business was closed briefly for upgrades, opened back up, and then had to pivot exclusively to take-out crowlers. This past weekend, the brewery was allo...

On this episode, we have we have Jason Logsdon and Mike LaCharite from The International Sous Vide Association. We discuss sous vide basics, how their organization was started, and their upcoming sous vide conference. There are a lot of links in the show notes to where to find their organization online, as well as information on the conference and many of the presenters such as Rich Rosendale and...

On this episode, we have we have Father Leo Patalinghug, who’s known as ‘the cooking priest”. Father Leo is a Catholic priest, and the host and founder of Plating Grace, which is meant to strengthen families and communities around the dinner table. He’s an internationally renowned conference speaker, author, black belt martial artist and 80’s breakdancer. He has released a number of cookbooks, has...

On this episode, we have chef Jeremy Law. Jeremy and his wife Kimberly run SOCO Farm & food. For the past 10 years, they’ve been operating SOCO on their farm in Wilson, North Carolina. They have decided to move SOCO to Greenville, North Carolina, and hope to have it open in some manner later this summer. Obviously, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted this, and we spend a lot of time discussing...

Palestinian Chef Hanan Rasheed started My Healing Table to bring Palestinians and Israelis together around a communal table of food, hoping to find some common ground. Hear her tell her story. ===========================  Hanan Rasheed and My Healing Table   ===========================  Like their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/My-Healing-Table-324525365068717/?tn-str=k*F Join the conversa...

On this episode, Chefs Without Restaurants founder Chris Spear speaks with Amira Alvarez of The Unstoppable Woman. Amira is our first podcast guest that’s not in the food and beverage industry. Her mission is to teach entrepreneurs and business owners the skills that helped her take her business from the low six-figures to over $700k in one year, and then going on to hit seven-figures. We discuss...

On this episode, we speak with chef Benjamin from Dallas, Texas. Starting his culinary career at The Olive Garden in Montgomery, Alabama, Benjamin worked his way up the culinary ladder, from cooking on a cruise ship, to cooking at Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen in Las Vegas.  He ended up moving to Dallas, right before the Covid-19 pandemic started, and soon found his employment options limited. In...

On this episode, we speak with Jacob Pratt. Jacob is a sales rep with International Gourmet Foods. Prior to working there, he’s spent most of his career working in, and running, kitchens. We discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the restaurant industry including diminished sales, the supply chain, pivoting to the carry-out model, and restaurants turning into mini grocery stores. We also talk about wor...

On this episode, Chefs Without Restaurants founder Chris Spear speaks with Billy Trakas of Story on the Pass. Founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, Story on the Pass is aimed at revealing the backstory of a chef through a recipe. Oftentimes, food ignites influential emotions that remind us of childhood memories, significant individuals or an event that has helped shape the story of a chef. Occasio...

This episode is a little different than the other episodes. On this episode, chef Chris Spear of Perfect Little Bites gives some easy cooking tips to a group of moms from a local MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) group. They had scheduled a Zoom session to learn some easy ways to make dinner a little more interesting, without having to invest a lot of extra time or money. I hope you all enjoy this ep...

On this episode we have Christian Blouin , the executive chef of Hootch & Banter restaurant in Frederick, Maryland. Christian is the first restaurant chef we’ve had on the show. Obviously, we talk a lot about the impact of covid-19 on the restaurant industry. We also touch on kitchen culture, continuous learning and culinary inspiration.  Some of the people and businesses mentioned are: Jeff N...