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What I do
Hands On Gourmet is the leading cooking company in the Bay Area. Our team takes pride in delivering fun, dynamic and mouth-watering events fortified with innovation. Taste the difference! Guests come together, cook together alongside professional chefs and then eat what they've made. In other words, we are an alternative to dinner and drinks, a great way to entertain clients, a kick off to a series of meetings, an icebreaker, a team building event, a cooking party, or all of the above.
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My Story
I started my business in 2004 after meeting a chef a year earlier, on my way to South America. After returning, I moved to San Francisco. At the time the chef was catering and doing other odd cooking jobs, among them teaching singles cooking classes at Sur La Table for a singles cooking class company. I started hosting those events. Next the culinary coordinator at Sur La Table referred a corporate client to the chef, now my boyfriend and soon to be one of my business partners. They wanted to do a culinary team building event for 25 people. I had no idea what that was, but thought since it was corporate we should charge $150 per person, as opposed to $25 per person. Over the weekend I did a crash course on what team building means to organizations. I discovered that it was a niche that needed to be filled. Next we put up a website and Stephen's sister, Anne, became a partner. We started the business on a shoestring out of our garage. About a year and half into it, our landlords decided to move back into the house, which meant eviction for us. We scrambled to find a new home for our company. When we moved into the 1300 sq foot space it felt palatial. But we soon grew to fill every inch with equipment and desks. I had no idea what I was getting into when we opened our bank account October 26th, 2004. Our revenues in 2005 were $350K, in 2006 were $750K, in 2007 were $1.1M and in 2008 were $1.3M. In the spring of 2006, we were awarded the Make Mine a Million $ Business prize. That was when I realized that we had a business that was viable. Here is some insight into how we operate. We know how many people are attending an event in advance so we know exactly how much labor and food we need. We work with groups of people, not individual's so we can set a minimum price, which we know is profitable. Because the guest's are cooking what they eat, we do no food production in advance. Most of our labor is hired on a part time, event to event basis, which helps us manage our overhead. Currently we are working on opening our second location in Chicago.
- My passion:
- growing my business
- Why I started my business:
- I wanted to work for myself and make money.
- Why I joined the M3 RACE:
- I believe in it's mission and from my experience with M3 know that it will help me accomplish my business goals
- Best business advice:
- From Libby and Ellen, know your financials, From Nell, don't worry if you don't have every detail in order, just follow your vision for growth, I could write pages of excellent advice I've received from other M3 gals, call me.
- My biggest challenge:
- communicating with my employees and working with my boyfriend
- What helps my business grow:
- How I balance work/life:
- I usually don't check my email on weekends.
- Within five years, my business will:
- Be in three cities and ready for sale
- My professional affiliations:
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