Chef Turned Business Owner

My alarm went off after a few hours of tossing and turning, it was 8:45am on a Friday. I hadn't slept long, because I got off the night before around 12:30am, rushed home, showered, and crashed in bed. I spent much of the night thinking: Okay, Tomorrow I'll get in around 10, get the doors unlocked and the lights on. The produce better be there by then, and it better not be that shit they tried to give me last week.

​I think we have about 220 covers as of now so I will shoot for 325 on prep, maybe 350, yeah, 350 and that'll be our start for Saturday. God I hate this. I really hate my job. I have a degree in business and I am wasting it away in this dark kitchen for a few bucks a week. What am I doing? How do I get out of this and what would I even do if I quit tomorrow? I could find an investor and open a restaurant or maybe I could start a catering company, ooo maybe a cat café. Those are pretty expensive to start, but maybe I can bootstrap something: ya know start small, no overhead, stay lean, and grow it organically. A personal chef company could work: that would require little overhead and I could start building it tomorrow!

That was in November of 2018 and Tastify was born the day I went in and quit that restaurant job. You see, dear reader, I just wasn't cut out to fit in with everybody else. I just cannot seem to join society for the morning and evening rush hour, the clocking in and out, the meetings, or the politics of it all. If you relate to this, I beg you to continue reading!

I am not saying that starting a business is for everyone. I assure you it isn't, but what I am saying is that a job that you don't absolutely love or that isn't fulfilling a large percentage of your needs is probably not worth it. I love to work backwards with a little exercise I call "the end justifies the means" strategy. I challenge you to join me:

What is your dream job - as in - what job could you see yourself being perfectly happy doing in 10 years? For me, it was to be a business owner of a successful catering company. Okay, great, the end has now been identified! That was the easy part. Now let's identify the means:

For me, it was to get an LLC, start a yelp page, cook for some influencers and network my way into some business. Let that business grow, hire some people, let it continue to grow into something bigger, get a kitchen and some equipment, you get the idea. The means are the recipe instructions to your end goal, so take your time with this. The strategy needs to be worked out.

I think there is real value in standing out and aiming to be different than your peers. Some of the best chefs in my line of work are the ones that stood out and challenged the status quo. One thing is for certain, though: this path, the whole "I wanna stand out and be different" path is really hard. You have to work your ass off and grow a thick outer shell to make it through the hard times. You have to be outspoken when you're naturally quiet, you need to listen to the advice of people you hate, you need to fire your best friend, and you need to work day jobs and night jobs to keep things running when a Covid-19-sized issue dries out your industry. You have to be flexible and bold, tough, and diligent. One sign of weakness and your competitors and clients will eat you alive. The rewards, on the other hand, are few but great. You own a business, or you influenced people, or you made a change in somebody's life. Now, isn't that nice? If you need help starting a business, I bet I can help. Send me an email: Tyler@tastifyfood.com. It's time to take control of your life and your career and there is no better time to start than now!

That's ready for service.