March 29, 2023 • 57 mins
This week on Chefs Without Restaurants we have chef Kyle Shankman. Kyle is the chef and owner of Speak Easy Supper Club, an exclusive dining experience in the Atlanta area. As tickets for Speak Easy are hard to come by, Chef Shankman also finds a way to feed folks as a private chef and cooking class instructor.
A chef for two decades, Kyle has run multiple restaurant kitchens as an executive chef and consultant, taught hundreds of cooking classes for home cooks, been the personal chef to A-List celebrities, and has been the on-camera talent in both live and produced segments for several national brands.
On the show, we discuss starting the supper club in his residential home with his 15-year-old son. We talk about the inspiration for his menus, how his diners find him, and the pros and cons of running a supper club.
If you'd like to hear Kyle discuss why hiring an assistant was a game-changer for his business, check out the mini-episode here.
KYLE SHANKMAN
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Spear (00:00):
Hey, Kyle, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for
coming on.
Kyle Shankman (00:03):
Thank you so much for having me.
Chris Spear (00:04):
You are someone who works like me as a personal
chef. And I think today is gonnabe a really beneficial,
hopefully kind of tacticalconversation for our listeners.
And I'm really interested, youalso have a speakeasy style
Supper Club, which I think isgoing to be interesting for a
lot of people. I think we shouldjust jump right in, you know,
(00:25):
you've had a number of yearsworking in restaurants and the
food industry. And now you workas a personal chef. So why did
you make that jump?
Kyle Shankman (00:33):
Well, so I actually made the jump twice. I
got my first executive chef jobwhen I was 21. Back in the back
in the early 2000s. And it wasadmittedly a lot like it was, it
was my first restaurant that I'dever worked in, like I started
there as a dishwasher, then moveout to prep cook, and Garma J
(00:56):
saute grill, sous chef, and thenjust sort of the, all the right
things had to happen for me tothen get to executive chef. But
that didn't change the fact thatI was 21. And after a while,
like this was like a big countryclub. And during the summer, we
were feeding, you know, a couple1000 people a day, between all
(01:17):
the things. And I was likerunning the kitchen with a
walkie talkie. And losing mymind. And I mean, I was making a
lot of money, but I wasn'thaving any time to spend it. And
I wasn't cooking. And you know,so I had like this moment of
like, I need to just kind ofstop and, and cook, and I
willfully left and went and justasked somebody to hire me as
(01:39):
like, like a cook. I was like, Ijust want to cook and I want to
learn. And I was there for likesix months. And then the 2008
financial collapse happened intheir restaurant close. Just
about overnight, like he gave melike a few days notice. And
again, at the time, I guess Iwas 22 when that close. And I
(02:00):
left the industry altogether,with sort of initially the plan
to come back. But I left to golearn sales. Because I didn't
understand why his restaurantclosed. Like I'm this 22 year
old Cook, watching, watching akitchen doing everything from my
(02:22):
perspective. That was right.
Like we're bringing in, youknow, a new farmer, you know,
every single day, like we getlike, like crates of greens. And
we're, we're wrapping our porktenderloins and call fat and
we're, we're doing like, We'redoing everything. From my
perspective, food wise, that wascorrect. And we just couldn't be
couldn't get a customer in therestaurant across the street was
(02:44):
doing fine. And so I figured,like, I must be missing
something, some element of this.
Because if somebody handed me$100,000 to open a restaurant,
like, yeah, I would have madethe same choices that he did
that freaked me out. And so likeI left to go just do sales, like
I went into, like, door to doorbusiness to business office
(03:08):
supply sales. That was likestraight from mission.
Chris Spear (03:11):
That's a very big, like difference from the food
world.
Kyle Shankman (03:14):
Well, I mean, I was looking at the restaurants
that were that were hiring, andit wasn't the type of foods that
I wanted to cook and, and I justhad this weird experience of
like, kind of getting too big,too fast in the industry. And I
was like, You know what, I'mstill young enough and flexible
enough that, you know, maybethis isn't, you know, the right
thing for me, like I fell into,you know, the culinary world,
(03:38):
almost accidentally in the firstplace. Like I went to school for
architecture. And so I was like,I just need to like understand,
I guess base level marketing,like what it is that impulses
people to make certaindecisions. Why would they choose
this restaurant over thatrestaurant. And I would
eventually learned that, that alot of the decision making that
(04:00):
we make as customers istransferable from product to
product, you know, restaurantsor restaurant. And so I left and
I did that and I found a lot ofsuccess with it. And I did that
for three years. I have my ownoffice, I moved out of state
opened a sales and marketingfirm in South Carolina. And then
like once we were kinda like,comfortable. I was like, gosh, I
(04:24):
feel like I understand somethings a little bit better. I'm
ready to come back. sold mycompany. We moved back to
Atlanta. I started working forthe for the Ritz Carlton for a
little while. And I was anexecutive chef somewhere else
within six months. It was farfrom perfect, but it was closer
to what I wanted to do and I youknow, randomly got this. This
(04:47):
job offer two or rather aninterview offer to come and
audition as a as a resident cheffor a national cookware store
where we're doing like publicclasses and demonstrations and
so on. And I went, and I didthat. And, you know, apparently
did well in that interview, andI was hired. And I had this sort
of, like, perspective shift,where I was, you know, I was
(05:11):
cooking professionally, I wasaround food, doing what I love.
But I wasn't working seven daysa week, I wasn't working 80
hours, like, nine o'clock was alate night, all of a sudden, I
wasn't, you know, and like, Ididn't feel like my body, like
starting starting to fail me,you know, midweek. And, you
(05:32):
know, I never really went backto restaurants in a traditional
sense. After that, I would stay,you know, doing the doing the
cooking classes, I did thatexclusively for about six years.
But I was still cooking somebodyelse's recipe. And I kind of
missed developing my owncontent. And that's when I
started doing like, private,private chef work around the
(05:55):
same time the supper clubstarted, sort of accidentally.
And, you know, and I've beendoing a combination of those
things ever since?
Chris Spear (06:05):
What was the first personal chef event dinner?
Like? Like, how did you do that?
What was the leap of like, Iwant to create my own food and
do dinners for people? How didyou put that out into the world
and land your first gig?
Kyle Shankman (06:19):
Well, you know, I, I had, you know, friends and
acquaintances that, that knew Idid it. And once I kind of was,
was free, I, you know, I kind ofput out the bat signal and said,
Hey, anybody who's, who's stillinterested in beauty of social
media, as you can talk to a lotof people all at once, and
(06:40):
nothing sustainable came out ofthat, really, I mean, there were
a handful of like little dinnerparties for me to like, cut my
teeth on. And so I went andinterviewed with a company that
is sort of like a personal chefcompany here in Atlanta that has
like a team of chefs. They havethis existing, you know, chunk
(07:00):
of clientele that theydistribute us to. And it's
funny, I think, in our industry,we're all very, like, especially
restaurants just are very, likegrass was greener attitudes all
the time, where it's like, oh,that sounds so much better. I
think restaurant chefs go tojust go and be able to cook for
one family. You know, a fewnights a week. That's like the
(07:24):
dream. And then you go and doit. And you realize how, how
lonely it is, sometimes, how notgratifying it can be when you're
doing, we were doing mostly mealprep, you know, so I'm showing
up, I'm making a bunch of food,cooling it down, putting it in
containers, tossing it in theirfridge, it gave me a lot of
(07:47):
freedom. But Colin airilyspeaking, didn't give me a lot
of like, creative satisfaction.
It wasn't until I left thatcompany, and had speakeasy, the
supper clubs sort of starting totake off. But I was really able
to do the types of the type ofprivate chef work that I think I
(08:08):
always hoped I would be able toget into. So the supper clubs
sort of ended up feeding theprivate chef business, in a lot
of ways.
Chris Spear (08:21):
I've never done a single day of meal prep, like to
me that is just it seems likesoul crushing it and you know
it. It's great to work foryourself. I mean, it's not for
everyone. But I didn't want towork for myself at any cost. And
if that just meant like preppingout a week's worth of like,
grilled chicken, broccolidinners, I was like, I can't do
(08:43):
that, which is, you know, I kindof modeled my business as almost
like a, you know, a restaurantexperience in people's homes,
kind of doing the food like youdo with the speakeasy. So the
speakeasy, I want to get intothe nuts and bolts of that,
because I think that's soundsreally cool. So how does the
speakeasy work like, where areyou doing them? What's the
reception been talk through thatbecause I think that's something
(09:06):
that's really interesting, atleast to me, and I'm sure our
listeners would love to hearabout that.
Kyle Shankman (09:11):
So we do them in our home. It we kind of turn our
house into a restaurant, threeto four times a week, for up to
14 people at a time. It's allsort of one communal space right
there. Right there where thekitchen is. It started as a side
project for my son, Trevor, whowas, gosh, he was 15. At the
(09:35):
time, I started working for thatthat personal chef company. He
had expressed interest in theindustry, and I didn't want to
be that Chef who's like, don'tdon't do it. Don't do it. You'll
you'll hate it. I didn't wantthat to be the reason that he
you know, got turned off to theindustry. I didn't want him to
resent me if he ended up doingsomething else and hating it.
(09:58):
That being said he was 15 wouldbe difficult for him to like go
cook his own food somewhere. Andhe was doing well with the house
like he was cooking genuinelyimpressive stuff without my
help. And I said, why don't wejust invite some friends over.
And you can ask them to likedonate, you know, a certain
amount of money, give him like aminimum donation request. So
(10:20):
that you don't lose money. Butyou own the whole thing. Like
you, you light the menu, you dothe shopping, and you prepare
the meal, like, I'll just I'llprovide you with a space to do
it. And I'll help you withdishes. And I'll help you
serving. And we did one ofthose. He loved it, the
reception was really great. Andthen people started, like,
(10:40):
didn't know, the minus firsttable, everybody I knew. And
then strangers started, likereaching out to me on like
Facebook and Instagram asking mewhen the next one was. And I was
like, gosh, I didn't think Ididn't think there was going to
be a next one. So I askedTrevor, if you wanted to keep
doing it, and he said, Yeah. Andwe would do, you know, one here
and there, it took him a fullmonth to develop one menu,
(11:03):
because he was he was nervous,and a kid. And I didn't need it,
you know, really, it was justkind of for him. And then it
starts started sort oforganically taking off to the
point where there was after,after a year, there were a few
100 People like kind of on ourmailing list to reach out. And
(11:23):
around that time, he startedgetting admittedly a little bit
burnout on it. He wanted toleave high school, he wanted to
finish high school year early,and like buckled down on school.
And I had started doing somebrunches with speakeasy to kind
of like keep people engaged. Andso it was taking him a month to
like, push out one menu. And,you know, I was like, you know,
(11:45):
Trevor, I'm going to keep thisgoing, should you decide to come
back to it, because I'd hate tolike lose these hundreds of
people, you know, who are whoare interested in this. You
never came back to it, youstarting his own in the spring
of 2023. Because now he's 20.
He'll be he'll be 22 in October.
(12:08):
And so he's got he's on his own.
And he wanted to kind of do hisown thing. So I kept it going.
We moved houses, I knew that wewanted to kind of keep doing
this. And so we were admittedlylooking for a house that kind of
had the right setup for it. Thisone has a much better setup than
the last one. It's almost seemsbuilt for it. And then we just
sort of got, you know, a few1000 people. Now who are getting
(12:30):
these, these emails, and that'sreally how it works. People will
get on our email list, we'llsend out one blast per month,
saying, here are the feedingsfor next month. This is the date
the city and the time, that'sall we tell people. And then it
sort of first come first serve,you can like a hyperlink to a to
(12:51):
a page to sort of finalize thereservation. And then we get
like, you know, a roomful ofstrangers show up to our house
to come. Do a seven courseusually a seven course tasting.
Chris Spear (13:06):
So many questions, so many questions before it.
Yeah. First and foremost, isthis legal? Where you are like
not to throw you to the wolvesor something. But this would
absolutely not fly in any meanswhere I am. Because this is I
think this is one of thosethings that a lot of us do. They
don't want to talk about. So I'dlove for anything you feel
(13:26):
comfortable, like my departmentof health here won't even let us
technically rent an Airbnb andsell tickets to a dinner. And it
kind of goes county to countyaround here. Like how are you
able to do this? Is thissomething you can talk about?
Because I know that's theburning question out there for
everyone who's listening,thinking like, Oh, can I have
people over my house and chargethem for dinners?
Kyle Shankman (13:47):
So, so yes, and no, like every every
municipality is a little bitdifferent. And if you literally
went to the Department of Healthand tried to explain what you
were doing, there is no specificlanguage in Georgia that
addresses specifically what wedo. So they'll apply, you know,
(14:09):
like Party Rentals and cateringregulations to to this. What we
started, what we started doingis basically putting in the
language on our website, thatyou are, you're being invited to
a private party in a residentialspace. That is what your ticket
(14:30):
as for there happens to be foodthere. So we're not, you know,
in a, in a technical senseselling food, we're selling
admission to a to a party, whichat its face value is is legal.
And then you get into sort ofthis, you know that this sort of
question as to whether or not itwould even be worth the health
(14:52):
department's time
Chris Spear (14:54):
here. They weren't here they would they would find
your place and show up becausethat's how it is around here.
It's been In ridiculous becauseI, you know, again, I love that
idea. I don't think my wife isdown with having a bunch of
strangers in our house. Butyeah, you know, when I started
Chefs Without Restaurants, a bigpart of it was going to be
collaborative pop up dinners.
And I, you know, I have a friendwho has an Airbnb and we rented
it for the night. And we inviteda bunch of people, and we got a
(15:15):
lot of media attention, which Ithought was amazing. It was the
cover story of our localmagazine. And then you get
contacted that you need to stoprunning your illegal underground
restaurant, or there's gonna berepercussions. And then and then
miraculously, someone actuallynoticed something potentially
illegal going on at the Airbnb,and then that flagged inspectors
(15:36):
to show up to this woman'sbusiness and cite her for other
things. So there was some, Ifeel like retribution. Yeah, you
know, and I don't want to getanyone in trouble. So. So I was
just like, you know, we need tokind of table this for now. But
I would love to be doing more ofthis. Maybe not in my home,
though.
Kyle Shankman (15:55):
Well, so the way I the way we look at it is we
treat this very much so like a,like a dinner party, that that
you get hired to go do insomebody's home, right? Like,
which is perfectly legal for youas a as a, as a private chef, to
go bring some food to aresidential space. A bunch of
(16:17):
people come and they pay, andthey have a party, like a
private chef
Chris Spear (16:23):
part. That's my whole my whole business model.
Kyle Shankman (16:25):
Yeah. You know, when we develop our LLC, and I
went through, you know,categorizing what our business
is, it's a private chef servicethat hosts dinner parties. And
as far as the powers that be atleast down here, look at it,
we're just doing private chefparties, the fact that it's in
(16:49):
my home, is sort of irrelevant,because it can be in anybody's
home. Like if we have one of ourwe've done this several times,
where people who, who areregulars and frequent speakeasy
have said like, Hey, could youdo this at my house? And, you
know, I have to ask them, Can Iinvite strangers to your house,
and they go, Yeah,
Chris Spear (17:07):
you're good friends. And, and a good family
to,
Kyle Shankman (17:11):
ya know, my family's very family is super
understanding. But I think, youknow, my wife has known me since
that first executive chef job.
So we've been together for like,pushing two decades now. And she
knows what she knows what it'slike, when I'm working full time
in a restaurant, and the giveand take of like, you know, me,
(17:31):
me having to, you know, attendour house a few times a month,
to turn it into a restaurant isworth it. Because I'm generally
speaking here a heck of a lotmore often than I was when I was
in kitchen.
Chris Spear (17:47):
I would love to be able to just do it all in my
house and not have to leave andschlep stuff everywhere. Like
that's the dream. And you know,I have been looking at what are
the options? Like, is itfeasible? Is it even allowed to,
like make a my garage, like alicensed commercial kitchen?
Like, I've, I've kind of lookedat this, because I would just
love to not have to go outsomewhere and do this. So really
(18:08):
cool. I'm super impressed thatyou're doing it because like,
that would be my ideal dream. Ifsomeone asked me, if I could do
anything, what would it be, andit would be something along
these lines.
Kyle Shankman (18:18):
It's very cool that as I said before, we do
tend to be grass was greener inthis industry. And the times
like last night, we had toschlep our whole kitchen over to
a party in the city. And it wasalmost a relief after doing
several here at the house in arow to not have to. I mean, it's
(18:38):
a lot we we've got, you know,we've got a we've got a toddler,
like it's a lived in house, youknow, that needs to part of the
charm of it is that it lookslike a lived in house, but not
to, you know, not to like acrazy degree, like your toys
can't be out in the middle ofthe living room, you know, so we
have to, you know, we have to doa lot to make sure that
everything is clean and safeand, and attractive and still
(19:03):
feels a lot like a restaurantexperience when people sit down.
So it is kind of a nice changeof pace when we do get to leave
the house to
Chris Spear (19:10):
looking on your website. It looks like you're
selling out your events, whichis fantastic. How hard is that?
How much of a push is it lastweekend I went up to New Jersey
did a collab pop up dinner witha friend and it seemed like it
was pulling teeth to get peopleto commit and maybe because we
were in a smaller area, itwasn't as big a city with more
people to draw from but I justfelt like every single day we're
like pushing this out. They'relike we've got this dinner or
(19:32):
buy tickets, you know, we'rejust trying to do two seedings
and an Airbnb. And I can'timagine like my whole business
model just being trying to pushto get all these individual
people come as it is. It's Imean, you've been doing it for
quite a while now. So how hasthat changed? Were you having
more trouble when you startedand now it's an easy sell?
Kyle Shankman (19:51):
Yes, to both question is knock on wood, not
difficult at all to sell out?
Now, like we don't do a pushbeyond, we send one email, and
an entire month will be sold inan hour, sometimes, sometimes 10
minutes, depending on, dependingon it's like a themed dinner or
(20:13):
something like that. And thatwas not the case. In the
beginning, we had we probablyput up eight dinners in the
first year and only ran four ofthem. The other four couldn't
sell seats, too. So we cancelledthem. Then the next year,
Chris Spear (20:35):
people are you trying to get into a dinner
like, what's the headcount?
Kyle Shankman (20:39):
Now it's 1414. Is is the 14th time any weekend
fit. And it's also kind of whatwe have the infrastructure for.
Because it's still it's oneoven, one, one, you know, five
burner range,
Chris Spear (20:53):
you're still rocking the one off in your
house, come on, customer, I onlyhave one as well. But I go into
so many houses where they haveto I'm like, that would be the
dream for me.
Kyle Shankman (21:01):
Yeah. I mean, we have like a little like warming
drawer that actually works as anoven underneath our oven for
like one sheet pan, which is,you know, helpful. But yeah, I
mean, the second year, we did alittle bit better. And I think I
did restaurant consulting for alittle while. And something that
was, you know, that was alwaysso frustrating when I would talk
(21:23):
to restaurant chefs andrestaurant tours, was just sort
of this, this idea that ifyou're not getting the response
that you want, right away, youmust be doing something wrong,
and something needs to change.
And you'll start seeingrestaurants like, you know, a
few months after opening, likeintroducing things that were
clearly not part of the initialbusiness strategy. Like, they're
not adding brunch, because itwas part of the plan, they're
(21:47):
adding brunch, because, like,they're panicking, and they need
the revenue. Sometimes that'snot not the case. But generally
speaking, you start seeing them,changing the menu, changing the
style of service, grasping atstraws, because it's not busy as
they hoped it would be early on.
And I think the reality of itis, is that in this industry is
(22:10):
as competitive as it is, and howmany restaurants and food
choices there are for people,especially in like major
metropolitan areas, it justtakes time. Like, if you're
doing something well, that doesnot, you know, presuppose that
people are gonna pick up on it,and respond to it right away,
like, you're gonna have to buildsome credibility, and those
(22:31):
people are gonna have to tellpeople and their friends are
gonna tell people, and, and soon. And what was cool about
speakeasy is that it almostproved that point, it's kind of
a microcosm of the industry, inthat we just literally kept
doing what we were doing, whenpeople weren't coming, we
started adding courses andincreasing the price. Because
(22:52):
from our perspective, we weredoing it for fun. And if
changing the menu to be moreaccessible to more people made
it less fun for us than itwasn't worth it. So we just kind
of doubled down and kept doingwhat we wanted to do. And people
eventually it was almost as youknow, it's hard to remember the
tipping point, but it wasseemingly overnight, that, you
(23:15):
know, that I just stopped havingto make posts on social media to
get tickets. It was, it was, itwas like people are now like, if
we if people are angry with us,it's because they couldn't get
to see, you know, like, they're,they're begging for tickets. And
we never changed anything beyondjust continuing to try and
(23:38):
improve what we what we werealready, you know, what we were
already doing.
Chris Spear (23:44):
It's really funny how that works. And you know, so
much of its psychology, youworked in sales, but that idea
as almost like you become moreexclusive and more expensive, it
becomes more of a thing thatpeople want. Right. And I I
think a lot of people especiallynow, I mean, the economy is
turning down a little bit and Isee people getting scared, and
they're starting to lower theirprices on their menus, even
(24:06):
though food costs is going up.
They're like, well, let's dolike a week night three course
meal for $75 When I feel likeyou maybe need to stick to your
guns and even double down andjust say like no my, my services
for more an exclusive highpaying clientele. And we're just
gonna go deep into that thing.
And it's scary if you're notgetting customers to kind of do
(24:28):
that. But I think that is a realthing that works.
Kyle Shankman (24:31):
Yeah, and I also think that you know, the fastest
way to sort of lose you know,any, any sense of, like
sustainability in a restaurantis to is to start trying to be
relevant to everyone. Becauseyou can't like you can't do that
successfully. So it does comedown to like kind of doing the
(24:53):
math and going, how many seatsdo we have? How many seats do we
need to fill? And you can do thesame thing as a private chef.
Like how many tickets do I needto sell? How many plates do I
need to serve? And work that upagainst your expenses and go
like how many people do Iactually need to be relevant to?
Like we're we're doingexcellent. If we do 314 person,
(25:15):
seedings per month, right? Andso, from my perspective, I need
to be relevant to that manypeople, which is not a lot.
There are easily that manypeople who have 120 $150 to
spend on on dinner. It's
Chris Spear (25:29):
Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans, do you know that?
It's a great essay, he was theeditor in chief of Wired, but he
wrote this essay years ago, andhe redid it recently. But
basically saying, like, youdon't need millions of
followers, you need like 1000true fans, and he talks about
the Grateful Dead. Like he said,stop people on the street,
asking what they like theGrateful Dead, probably like 1%
(25:50):
will say yes, but like thatperson goes to like every show
and travels around the country,and they spend money on all this
stuff. Like you don't need to beeverything to everyone. You just
need people who really love youand love what you do. And you
know, for my business, when Istarted, I was doing tons of to
person dinners for persondinners, this and that. And now
I'm just like, it really needsto be like 10 and above and like
(26:12):
you now I'm working sometimesone day a week and people are
like, wow, like, is that reallya business? If you go out and
cook one day a week, it's like,Yeah, cuz I'm cooking for like,
16 people I used to sling foodfor like, I'm doing a two on
Tuesday and a five on Thursday.
I'm like running myself ragged.
It's like, let's just focus ongetting one dinner party that's
going to pay the bills thisweek. And then the rest of the
(26:34):
week, I'll fill with otherstuff.
Kyle Shankman (26:36):
Yeah, a really quick, neat story that relates
to that, that I that I alwayslike to tell people is that when
we first started, we, we didwhat a lot of, you know, new
restaurants, if you want to callus that, in this instance, do
and invited like a bunch of likefood bloggers at like, at like
costs, because you go look atall their? Which Yeah, look at
(27:00):
all the exposure we're gonna getright. And that comes from a
place of like, you know, beingnew and not having the
competence to just sort of standbehind what you do, I think, and
there were, were 10 people atthe table, there were over a
million followers between them.
And there were local foodbloggers, all that we asked us
that they made a post about it,everybody did. And we got a
(27:22):
grand total of three newsubscribers to our, to our
website. You know, I chalk it upas a lesson learned, we didn't
lose money, if you just look atjust like the raw cost of it. So
compare that to we have a wehave a guest who we would
consider our our our biggestregular she, she's been to over
(27:43):
30 of these now, in two and ahalf years. Her Instagram is
private, and she has maybe 60followers. But she's like, you
know, a young single girl inAtlanta with a lot of close
friends. We had a night onenight where there were 14 people
(28:04):
at the table. And I do kind ofwhat I normally do, or there's
new people and ask them how theyfound out about us. And through
the conversation, we found outthat 10 of the 14 were referred
by either her or somebody thatshe brought in the early days.
And it's so it's so telling oflike, what it really takes to
(28:26):
like, build like a sustainableregular crowd is that it has to
not just not be a lot of people,it has to be like the right
people, the people that shetells are exactly the types of
you know, guests that we're thatwe're after
Chris Spear (28:43):
100% You know, I, every year on the anniversary of
my business, when I launched it,I do a giveaway. And the
giveaway is for previouscustomers. And instead of trying
to reach out to theseinfluencers, who's already spent
money with me, and I just do araffle and I give away two to
three free dinners and just gocook for those people right and
(29:03):
that's the kind of thing youknow, that's going to bring more
business those people are goingto have a great dinner, they're
going to post on their privateFacebook page, you know, it's
lots of couples husbands andwives 40s to 60s year old and
they're just gonna post picturesof the dinner and their friends
are gonna hire me and that'sdone way more than you know
giving a dinner away to somelocal influencer though I've
(29:24):
done it we've all done iteveryone at this point for the
most part is has fallen intothat trap in some regard.
Kyle Shankman (29:29):
If you look at I tell people who are considering
I go look at their Instagrampages and look at the comments
on every post. It's just allother food bloggers, like
they're all talking to eachother. It's just like kind of
this echo chamber of, of, youknow, pseudo influencers, you
know, trying to, you know, getfree or calm to meals. So I
(29:52):
mean, it's, it's, again, it'sgood for exposure, if just
eyeballs on your page are allthat you're after, but I'm kind
of I'm after you know revenue,
Chris Spear (30:01):
as we all are, and should be, one of the things you
do is I know that you'd like tokeep your dinners a secret, but
you tell people that they caninquire, I'm interested, what is
the percentage of people whoreach out and say, I actually
kind of want to know what's fordinner?
Kyle Shankman (30:16):
Less than 1%.
Really, that's all Yeah, about10 per tend to depends on. Like,
if we're in February, it'salmost, it's almost definitely
somebody's like Valentine'sthing. And a good percentage of
them will reach out to askabout, though, even for those
(30:36):
say, I, I want to preface this,I don't want to know them in.
But I would like wine pairingssuggestion, if you have them. So
a decent percentage of peoplereach out asking about like
pairings just so they they bringwhat they feel is the is the
right thing. Because we don'twant to get back to that sort of
like legal gray area, like wedon't touch a bottle, we don't
(30:58):
pour it, we don't serve it, wedon't provide it. But they're
able to like, you know, BYOD.
And so, you know, we'll getpeople reach out that way. But
we're also very, likeaccommodating of dietary
restrictions. So when peopleare, are, are making a
reservation, they have anopportunity to say like, Hey,
(31:19):
I'm gluten free or dairy free orvegetarian, whatever. And we
tell them that we will, youknow, that will accommodate. So
in the early days, we would postthe menu. And taking that away
from them was a was a was a wasa specific choice to try and
(31:39):
cultivate the right audience,and the right, the right
experience for everybody.
Because I do think that part ofthe experience is the elder
conversations and therelationships that are built
between these 14 strangers at atable, and there's no
guaranteeing that any of themare going to have a ton in
(32:00):
common. But if you can guaranteethat everybody at the table
shares this one really uniquepersonality trait of being
willing to, you know, buytickets to a location without
knowing the address or knowingthe menu. That's a really
specific type of person. Theymight come from tons of
(32:21):
different socio economic,political, ethnic backgrounds,
but they all kind of share that.
And it when we took away theadvertised menu, we started
having a much more excitingdinner service, if that makes
sense.
Chris Spear (32:37):
Absolutely. Have you heard any stories of people
who've become friends aftercoming to one of your dinners?
Yeah.
Kyle Shankman (32:45):
Yeah, it's, it's my favorite part, when I see
them, like posting together,like at, like, at a concert on
on Instagram, and I'm like, Oh,I know where you guys met? Well,
food totally
Chris Spear (32:54):
brings people together. That's why, you know,
one of the things I've missed somuch, during COVID was
specifically not going out toeat in restaurants, but not
eating at the bar, and noteating with strangers, you know,
like, we went to Zahav. AndPhiladelphia, I don't know if
you knows how, but it's kind ofchallenging to get into, and I
went with a friend. But we weregoing to get bar seats, you
know, and you had to line upoutside. So for the hour, before
(33:17):
they open, you're talking allthese people in line, and then
they open the doors and everjust goes and sits at the bar.
And you know, I was there withthe eight people who I met in
line. And we're just we wantedto all try as much as we could.
And everyone was just buyingsomething, and then just kind of
like passing the plate down theline. And now I'm friends with
so many of these people who Imet solely because we just sat
(33:38):
next to each other at the bar ina restaurant and shared food. So
I think that's fantastic. And tobe able to bring people around
food. Is there anything betteras a chef?
Kyle Shankman (33:49):
I don't think there is.
Chris Spear (33:51):
So what inspires you? I mean, you have the luxury
of creating kind of whatever youwant for food and putting
together these five menus, whereare you drawing inspiration?
Kyle Shankman (34:02):
In short, the ingredients, it is almost a
hindrance to have no limitationson what I can put on the menu,
right? Because it's like, I haveaccess to I could do whatever.
And then you go like how do Ibecause we change the menu every
time. That's self imposed to adegree. But we so we have so
many regulars that sort ofcontinue having like that ratio
(34:25):
of like 6040 new new guests orregulars, we've got to change
the menu every month, right?
Because just one seven coursemenu so I wouldn't want to
repeat it. So to sort of givemyself some limitations, I look
at what is in season. What'slocal. And I don't really start
like finalizing the menu untillike a week before. Like I'll
(34:46):
have kind of a rough guess atit. But I want to look at what
looks best and just sort of playwith play with that. What's
funny is that my Food style haschanged, has changed a lot since
we first started this, becauseit kind of started with what I
(35:06):
found fun and exciting six yearsago, to what I find fun and more
fun and exciting now that I'vegot, you know, going bald and
have a have a bunch of grayhair. I've like matured along
the way and started realizingthat I get a better response.
And I have more fun if I cookthe types of things that I'm
(35:28):
craving, right, like what isdelicious to me, first and
foremost. And then we try andmake that, you know, make it
pretty. But, you know, I fellinto a lot of the sort of the
pitfalls that a lot of youngchefs do in the early days is
imagining what I wanted it tolook like first, and then trying
to figure out how to make thattaste good. And that's kind of a
(35:50):
fool's errand I think. So. Sonow we take inspiration from the
ingredients, and what it is thatI want to eat, what tastes good,
to me, what creates nostalgicfeelings for me. And then I hope
that it connects with as manypeople at the table as possible.
Chris Spear (36:10):
Now, where are you are now? Is that where you grew
up? Like Are these all foodsthat you associate with your
youth and growing up? Are youfrom the Georgia area,
Kyle Shankman (36:19):
I'm from the Georgia area. My My parents are
from California, moved here,very, very young. So I've only
known Georgia really. That beingsaid, My parents didn't cook,
when I was growing up, like Iwasn't around food as a kid.
Like they were, you know, theywere still our professional
physical therapists were runningclinics. And we were like
(36:42):
latchkey kids, me and mybrothers, you know, eaten stuff
out of boxes, or cans or jars,or, you know, frozen food and
like I got into the industry,because I wanted independence.
And I wanted money as a kid. Andthe first, you know, the
industry that will more morelikely hire a 15 year old is
going to be you know,hospitality in some way, shape,
(37:04):
or form. And so I got verycomfortable in the industry
working as a line cook and as aserver and delis, smoothie bars
and things like that. And theninstantly inadvertently became
very comfortable in this worldwhen you know, so it was an
easier transition when decidedto switch careers and go into
food. But that being said, likewhen I was working in
(37:27):
restaurants and things likethat, they were all local in
Georgia, and I was I wasinteracting with mostly local
ingredients and styles of food.
When I was working as a residentchef for that cookware company,
we had to like as the residentchef, like I had, I had
employees, chef instructors whowere specialists, but because
the content was all coming to usfrom corporate, if somebody
(37:50):
wasn't available or comfortablewith a certain topic, it's on
me. And so in the early days, itwas a lot of like, fake it till
you make it like, you know, KyleShankman trying to teach an
authentic Korean class. Andeventually, I became very sort
of passionate about cuisinesthat I'd never interacted with
as a restaurant chef, like Thaiand Korean and like authentic
(38:13):
Spain, and in Mexico. So thatstill influences a lot of like
the style of my of my cooking, Idon't consider myself like a
Southern chef, that didn't growup, like the southern food at
the table, so to speak, I'm justpassionate about the food coming
from nearby, right. And thenfrom like a practical, you know,
(38:38):
business owner standpoint, italways cost more to use
ingredients that came from faraway, right? Like, you had to
buy a plane ticket to get toyou. So it's going to cost it's
going to cost more. Whereas ifyou're dealing with ingredients
that come from your state or astate that touches your state,
yeah, there might be someincreases when you're when
(39:01):
you're dealing with proteinyou're dealing with, like
independent farmers. But I stillthink that it's a net, it's a
net gain when you can when youhave that story to tell to your
to your guests, and you kind ofhave money in that in that local
economy.
Chris Spear (39:17):
Most definitely, you know, one of my challenges
is getting people to take thejourney with me. You know, it's,
it's very different when you'retrying to sell tickets to a
dinner as opposed to being apersonal chef, and I have
clients who specifically reachout you know, I'm going through
that, literally this morning,someone sent an email that
they're coming to town and theywant like a surf and turf dinner
(39:38):
and they really want likegrilled steak and lobster tail
and like, that's just not myjam. It's not my vibe and like,
I haven't drafted that email yethow I'm going to kind of say
like, Yeah, I hear what youlike, but I really don't do that
kind of food. Can I send you amenu of what I do and I might
have to be comfortable with themsaying like, we're gonna go
(39:59):
another day. reaction and bokloosing that but for me, you
know, making food that I'mexcited about is really
important. And I know not allpersonal chefs share that view,
some say, you should just youknow, it's a business, you need
to cook what the customer wants.
And that's, you know, I don'twant to make anyone eat anything
they don't want, but I also wantto be fulfilled.
Kyle Shankman (40:19):
Yeah, that's the, that's the balance. Right. And I
don't I don't know, I don'tknow, there's a perfect way to
have that conversation with witha customer. But I do think that
people respond in this industryto, to confidence, like a
competent point of view as towhat you do. And you just like,
(40:39):
just say, this is what we, thisis what we do, take it or leave
it, it's a lot harder to havethat conversation when you're
building the business, right.
And you're like, you need, youneed revenue.
Chris Spear (40:51):
That's why I advocate for doing it on the
side if you can, when you don'tneed it, you know, I did it for
five years while I worked a fulltime job. So I could build a
brand like brand was reallyimportant to me. And say like,
this is what I do this is forpeople who like this, where I
didn't have to take every gig,if I worked once a month, once
every two months, no big deal. Iwas working 50 hour a week
(41:12):
cooking job.
Kyle Shankman (41:14):
When I talk to cooks, or people who reach out
and ask about, you know,speakeasy, or having a supper
club or even private chefbusiness and how to make that
sustainable. I'm always veryopen about the fact that I
didn't I didn't run the supperclub for three years at the sub
four years of the supper club. Ididn't need it. Right, like now
(41:35):
I know I do. Because I kind oflike I burnt my boat, my shift,
like there's no, you know,there's nothing really to fall
back on. There's no like nine tofive salary job anymore. Is
that, you know, so you're doingthings on the side, these types
of things where you can like,you can set the parameters and
(41:56):
say, this is the type of foodsthat I'm going to do, take it or
leave it, and you're doing itfor fun. Like, if you're having
a great time, your food isinherently better, I think, than
if you're cooking, what somebodyelse wants you to cook. And then
from there, you start to findpeople who then become, you
know, future private eventcustomers, what I was going to
(42:17):
say is that 100% of my privatechef jobs were coming from a
separate club, meaning they werepeople who were either following
the Instagram page, or, oractually, like, attended a
dinner, or were told about it bysomebody who attended a dinner,
(42:38):
so they're only reaching out tome because they know the type of
food that I do. So I I don't putmyself out there in any other
way. So I don't get the callsanymore. I did in the early
days. I don't get the callsanymore for like fillet lobster
tail twice baked potato,chocolate lava cake, you know,
but I did. Yeah, I did. And Ididn't like doing them. But I
(42:59):
could. But I also had to, like,you know, learn some coping
mechanisms when I was cookingother people's food for a lot of
years to just go, there'ssomething in this menu or this
process that that you can takepride in or find joy from, even
if that means like adding asurprise course that they
weren't expecting. And goinglike, here's just me, you know,
(43:24):
on a plate, hope you like it. Sothat you can at least take some
joy from doing from doing that.
Move. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's ablast. And it's almost always
you have to like, almost forcedpeople to step outside of their
comfort zone with certainthings. Because all these like,
I'll have the conversation aboutfilet all the time, I'll say
like, I will beg them to let melower the price and give them a
(43:47):
better cut. Say it will cost you$10 less a person, if you let
me, you know if you let me doyou know culottes or that? Or?
Or flat iron? Right? And they'relike, No, I think we'd rather do
fillet you know. And so whenwhen I'm presenting private
(44:08):
chef, options to people we don'tI don't have a menu for people
to choose from him for myprivate chef business. It's all
it's all custom no matter what.
But I will give them sort ofthis option of I can do
something I'm going to dosomething custom for you. Either
way. You can consult on it ifyou're concerned or you have
(44:29):
somebody at the table because alittle bit pickier, but most
people just choose to sort ofgive me their requirements or
request and just let me youknow, let me kind of take them
on a surprise journey and dosort of the chef's you know,
secret menu with them. It's whatwe do at the supper club and,
and people are fighting to getseats. And when it's presented
(44:52):
that way. You know, probably 70%of the private chef customers
now. Say I don't even want toknow the menu just surprise us
just a heads up, my wife hatescapers, you know what I mean?
And then we, and then we buildsomething from that. But even
the 30% who want to see it, theysee that custom menu of meat,
basically showing them what I doat the supper club. And most of
(45:15):
the time, if they have an issue,it's was like one component of
one dish. It's an easy switch,at the very least, like I'm
still having a blast doing, youknow, a private chef party,
which was not the case, in theearly days,
Chris Spear (45:28):
I have 100% of my customers wanting to see the
menu. I've done zero surprisedinners and the legend. Maybe
we'll get there soon. But I am,I am looking at changing some of
the business model a little bit,which I'm going to be rolling
out I'm not quite doing arebrand or relaunch. But in the
next month or two, yeah, I'mgoing to be making some of these
changes to go more in thatdirection. What are we not
(45:52):
talking about in the food andbeverage industry, especially
for food entrepreneurs, becausethis seems cool and sexy and
whatever. But for those who aremaybe like on the fence ready to
do something, what do they needto know that you don't think
maybe gets talked about enough
Kyle Shankman (46:08):
that I say this as somebody who, who went to
culinary school, that, that Ithink the traditional route has
become sort of phased out andirrelevant. If you want to be
successful, I do think that sortof like the gig economy, where
(46:31):
you're, you know, either doingeither doing pop ups, or, you
know, or collaborations orseparate clubs, things like
that, you tend to learn a lotmore a lot faster. And it's
practical knowledge than goingto culinary school and then
working your way up through akitchen. I think so many cooks.
(46:55):
And chefs, executive chefs neverfully reached their potential,
not just professionally, buteven like creatively, because
they were just sort of hamstrungby, you know, the systems that
they feel are that they feel arein place. So, I don't I don't
know. I mean, I think in othermarkets, people talk about it
(47:17):
more like, we are kind of theonly ones doing this in like
kind of the North metro Atlantaarea. But, you know, people who
are getting into the industryare so often just, again, going
to culinary school, and thengoing and getting the first job
they can, they can find and thenof working their way up to
(47:38):
kitchen. So I think finding waysto express your creativity
without any, any of thelimitations of sort of a
permanent, for wall brick andmortar space, will teach you a
lot more about what your pastcould and should be in this
(47:58):
industry. And there are a lot ofother ways beyond working in a
restaurant. That I mean, I'll doa commercial for your podcast,
please. I love that, that youcan find joy in this industry.
Like I'm, I'm more financiallystable and successful than I
than I've ever been. And I workhard, maybe three or four days a
(48:22):
week. And, you know, I'm homewhen I need to be home, I leave
for Key West for a weektomorrow. And like I'm not I'm
not stressed about it. And thatall came from me just sort of
disconnecting from fromprofessional kitchens. So I
don't know if that I don't knowif that answers.
Chris Spear (48:44):
Yeah, don't go to culinary school and, you know,
follow your passion, figure itout. You know, there's so many,
Kyle Shankman (48:52):
I think just sort of stopping and rethinking like
what like, ignoring the rules,like one of the things that that
I that I learned the most fromthe early days with the supper
club, watching Trevor my kid doit is that he was he was
breaking every rule because hedidn't know the rules existed.
And he was, you know, I wouldsay, well, it's not done that
(49:15):
way. He felt why. And I say,Gosh, I'm really not sure
because that's just kind of theway that I was taught
Chris Spear (49:21):
which is funny because you would hate that if
you were in a professionalkitchen and tell it like when a
younger cuts to you right orwhatever.
Kyle Shankman (49:28):
But that's that's that's the toxicity of
professional kitchen. It's likewe're doing it this way because
I said so. And it's so frownedupon to kind of listen to you
know, a line cook, show you thatthere is a faster and more
effective way to get from pointA to point B on something that
(49:48):
you know that you've alwaysprided yourself on, you know
taking three days to accomplish.
Chris Spear (49:53):
I can't imagine being at a kitchen these days
with line cooks showing theirchefs things they saw on tick
tock and the conversation thatensues from that
Kyle Shankman (50:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, it's a hit to the
pride if I see something on ticktock and learn something, you
know, I'm like, I reallyshouldn't have learn that from a
from a 17 year old just now, butI guess I did.
Chris Spear (50:13):
Kids are great in that respect, you know, I've
twins who are 10. And they'veactually said, they want to help
with my business. And you know,that's great. And I'm looking
at, like, what does that looklike? Like, at what age can my
kids actually go to someone'shouse and help me serve, you
know, like, there's a maturitylevel, I think my daughter would
be okay, my son, not so much.
But we've really write that.
And, you know, I don't want toforce them into any industry or
(50:34):
business, but they're verballyexpressing interest in helping
with the business in someregard. So I don't think we're
too far away from that. And I'mgoing to share the fact that,
you know, your 15 year old sonstarted his own separate clubs.
So I guess at 10, maybe that'snot there'll be 11 the summer,
that's not so much of a stretchto get them going.
Kyle Shankman (50:52):
But it's a good thing that they look at your
life and want to emulate it. Andit's like, in a traditional
sense, when people watch theirparents be chefs, they go, I
would never want to do that.
Because I never see him. Like,he's, you know, he, he comes
home after I go to bed, and hewakes up after I go to school,
you know, like that. This isn'tthe type of industry unless it's
(51:14):
like, you know, a familyrestaurant where things get, you
know, where the kids end up, youknow, taking on the family
business. And so if you'reshowing them balance, and joy
and flexibility, that I thinkit's cool that, you know, they
see that and want to get intothe industry,
Chris Spear (51:32):
the kids brought that to me, you know, I, I
haven't worked in restaurants.
But I did work in corporatekitchens, and I was working
crazy schedules and lots ofhours. And I gave up a lot, a
lot of time with my wife a lotof time with other family,
parents and stuff. And then whenI have kids, I just decided
like, they're going to comefirst like family is going to
come first. And I'm not going tobe you know, 100% married to
(51:52):
this job all the time. So when Istarted my business, it was
really important to me to findthe balance where we would be
able to have family life, I wantto know my kids, I want to enjoy
time with my wife and finding abusiness that suited me that in
that way was amazing.
Kyle Shankman (52:09):
I think every every chef who's like, you know,
who has a family, and kids who'sbeing honest with themselves,
they know that they're, theylove their families more than
they love food or cooking. Butgoing through the traditional
route of working in kitchens,takes some sort of level of like
cognitive dissonance to likereckon with the fact that it
(52:32):
doesn't usually match up. Right?
Like, if you love your familyand your kids more than food.
Why are you there 100 hours aweek, and letting it you know,
sort of inform how you how youinteract with your family and
not the other way around. And Ihated
Chris Spear (52:48):
that as a boss too.
Because when you're a boss whostaffing a kitchen, you're the
guy who these people are comingin saying, hey, I really need
Saturday night off because Ihave a family birthday and
you're like, sorry, you can'thave it. It's like, wow, I'm
turning into a person. I don'treally want to be like, I would
want that day off myself. Butnow I have to be here and be
that guy who's telling all thesepeople they need to be more
(53:09):
committed to their job thantheir families. And that just
didn't suit me anymore. Well,thanks so much for coming on the
show. I loved having you today.
And I'm so glad that you couldcome and share your expertise
with us. It was my pleasure. Andto all of our listeners. This
has been Chris with the ChefsWithout Restaurants podcast.
Thanks so much and have a greatweek. Go to chefs without
(53:30):
restaurants.org To find ourFacebook group, mailing list and
Chef database. The community'sfree to join. You'll get gig
opportunities, advice onbuilding and growing your
business and you'll never missan episode of our podcast. Have
a great week.
Hey, Kyle, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for
coming on.
Kyle Shankman (00:03):
Thank you so much for having me.
Chris Spear (00:04):
You are someone who works like me as a personal
chef. And I think today is gonnabe a really beneficial,
hopefully kind of tacticalconversation for our listeners.
And I'm really interested, youalso have a speakeasy style
Supper Club, which I think isgoing to be interesting for a
lot of people. I think we shouldjust jump right in, you know,
(00:25):
you've had a number of yearsworking in restaurants and the
food industry. And now you workas a personal chef. So why did
you make that jump?
Kyle Shankman (00:33):
Well, so I actually made the jump twice. I
got my first executive chef jobwhen I was 21. Back in the back
in the early 2000s. And it wasadmittedly a lot like it was, it
was my first restaurant that I'dever worked in, like I started
there as a dishwasher, then moveout to prep cook, and Garma J
(00:56):
saute grill, sous chef, and thenjust sort of the, all the right
things had to happen for me tothen get to executive chef. But
that didn't change the fact thatI was 21. And after a while,
like this was like a big countryclub. And during the summer, we
were feeding, you know, a couple1000 people a day, between all
(01:17):
the things. And I was likerunning the kitchen with a
walkie talkie. And losing mymind. And I mean, I was making a
lot of money, but I wasn'thaving any time to spend it. And
I wasn't cooking. And you know,so I had like this moment of
like, I need to just kind ofstop and, and cook, and I
willfully left and went and justasked somebody to hire me as
(01:39):
like, like a cook. I was like, Ijust want to cook and I want to
learn. And I was there for likesix months. And then the 2008
financial collapse happened intheir restaurant close. Just
about overnight, like he gave melike a few days notice. And
again, at the time, I guess Iwas 22 when that close. And I
(02:00):
left the industry altogether,with sort of initially the plan
to come back. But I left to golearn sales. Because I didn't
understand why his restaurantclosed. Like I'm this 22 year
old Cook, watching, watching akitchen doing everything from my
(02:22):
perspective. That was right.
Like we're bringing in, youknow, a new farmer, you know,
every single day, like we getlike, like crates of greens. And
we're, we're wrapping our porktenderloins and call fat and
we're, we're doing like, We'redoing everything. From my
perspective, food wise, that wascorrect. And we just couldn't be
couldn't get a customer in therestaurant across the street was
(02:44):
doing fine. And so I figured,like, I must be missing
something, some element of this.
Because if somebody handed me$100,000 to open a restaurant,
like, yeah, I would have madethe same choices that he did
that freaked me out. And so likeI left to go just do sales, like
I went into, like, door to doorbusiness to business office
(03:08):
supply sales. That was likestraight from mission.
Chris Spear (03:11):
That's a very big, like difference from the food
world.
Kyle Shankman (03:14):
Well, I mean, I was looking at the restaurants
that were that were hiring, andit wasn't the type of foods that
I wanted to cook and, and I justhad this weird experience of
like, kind of getting too big,too fast in the industry. And I
was like, You know what, I'mstill young enough and flexible
enough that, you know, maybethis isn't, you know, the right
thing for me, like I fell into,you know, the culinary world,
(03:38):
almost accidentally in the firstplace. Like I went to school for
architecture. And so I was like,I just need to like understand,
I guess base level marketing,like what it is that impulses
people to make certaindecisions. Why would they choose
this restaurant over thatrestaurant. And I would
eventually learned that, that alot of the decision making that
(04:00):
we make as customers istransferable from product to
product, you know, restaurantsor restaurant. And so I left and
I did that and I found a lot ofsuccess with it. And I did that
for three years. I have my ownoffice, I moved out of state
opened a sales and marketingfirm in South Carolina. And then
like once we were kinda like,comfortable. I was like, gosh, I
(04:24):
feel like I understand somethings a little bit better. I'm
ready to come back. sold mycompany. We moved back to
Atlanta. I started working forthe for the Ritz Carlton for a
little while. And I was anexecutive chef somewhere else
within six months. It was farfrom perfect, but it was closer
to what I wanted to do and I youknow, randomly got this. This
(04:47):
job offer two or rather aninterview offer to come and
audition as a as a resident cheffor a national cookware store
where we're doing like publicclasses and demonstrations and
so on. And I went, and I didthat. And, you know, apparently
did well in that interview, andI was hired. And I had this sort
of, like, perspective shift,where I was, you know, I was
(05:11):
cooking professionally, I wasaround food, doing what I love.
But I wasn't working seven daysa week, I wasn't working 80
hours, like, nine o'clock was alate night, all of a sudden, I
wasn't, you know, and like, Ididn't feel like my body, like
starting starting to fail me,you know, midweek. And, you
(05:32):
know, I never really went backto restaurants in a traditional
sense. After that, I would stay,you know, doing the doing the
cooking classes, I did thatexclusively for about six years.
But I was still cooking somebodyelse's recipe. And I kind of
missed developing my owncontent. And that's when I
started doing like, private,private chef work around the
(05:55):
same time the supper clubstarted, sort of accidentally.
And, you know, and I've beendoing a combination of those
things ever since?
Chris Spear (06:05):
What was the first personal chef event dinner?
Like? Like, how did you do that?
What was the leap of like, Iwant to create my own food and
do dinners for people? How didyou put that out into the world
and land your first gig?
Kyle Shankman (06:19):
Well, you know, I, I had, you know, friends and
acquaintances that, that knew Idid it. And once I kind of was,
was free, I, you know, I kind ofput out the bat signal and said,
Hey, anybody who's, who's stillinterested in beauty of social
media, as you can talk to a lotof people all at once, and
(06:40):
nothing sustainable came out ofthat, really, I mean, there were
a handful of like little dinnerparties for me to like, cut my
teeth on. And so I went andinterviewed with a company that
is sort of like a personal chefcompany here in Atlanta that has
like a team of chefs. They havethis existing, you know, chunk
(07:00):
of clientele that theydistribute us to. And it's
funny, I think, in our industry,we're all very, like, especially
restaurants just are very, likegrass was greener attitudes all
the time, where it's like, oh,that sounds so much better. I
think restaurant chefs go tojust go and be able to cook for
one family. You know, a fewnights a week. That's like the
(07:24):
dream. And then you go and doit. And you realize how, how
lonely it is, sometimes, how notgratifying it can be when you're
doing, we were doing mostly mealprep, you know, so I'm showing
up, I'm making a bunch of food,cooling it down, putting it in
containers, tossing it in theirfridge, it gave me a lot of
(07:47):
freedom. But Colin airilyspeaking, didn't give me a lot
of like, creative satisfaction.
It wasn't until I left thatcompany, and had speakeasy, the
supper clubs sort of starting totake off. But I was really able
to do the types of the type ofprivate chef work that I think I
(08:08):
always hoped I would be able toget into. So the supper clubs
sort of ended up feeding theprivate chef business, in a lot
of ways.
Chris Spear (08:21):
I've never done a single day of meal prep, like to
me that is just it seems likesoul crushing it and you know
it. It's great to work foryourself. I mean, it's not for
everyone. But I didn't want towork for myself at any cost. And
if that just meant like preppingout a week's worth of like,
grilled chicken, broccolidinners, I was like, I can't do
(08:43):
that, which is, you know, I kindof modeled my business as almost
like a, you know, a restaurantexperience in people's homes,
kind of doing the food like youdo with the speakeasy. So the
speakeasy, I want to get intothe nuts and bolts of that,
because I think that's soundsreally cool. So how does the
speakeasy work like, where areyou doing them? What's the
reception been talk through thatbecause I think that's something
(09:06):
that's really interesting, atleast to me, and I'm sure our
listeners would love to hearabout that.
Kyle Shankman (09:11):
So we do them in our home. It we kind of turn our
house into a restaurant, threeto four times a week, for up to
14 people at a time. It's allsort of one communal space right
there. Right there where thekitchen is. It started as a side
project for my son, Trevor, whowas, gosh, he was 15. At the
(09:35):
time, I started working for thatthat personal chef company. He
had expressed interest in theindustry, and I didn't want to
be that Chef who's like, don'tdon't do it. Don't do it. You'll
you'll hate it. I didn't wantthat to be the reason that he
you know, got turned off to theindustry. I didn't want him to
resent me if he ended up doingsomething else and hating it.
(09:58):
That being said he was 15 wouldbe difficult for him to like go
cook his own food somewhere. Andhe was doing well with the house
like he was cooking genuinelyimpressive stuff without my
help. And I said, why don't wejust invite some friends over.
And you can ask them to likedonate, you know, a certain
amount of money, give him like aminimum donation request. So
(10:20):
that you don't lose money. Butyou own the whole thing. Like
you, you light the menu, you dothe shopping, and you prepare
the meal, like, I'll just I'llprovide you with a space to do
it. And I'll help you withdishes. And I'll help you
serving. And we did one ofthose. He loved it, the
reception was really great. Andthen people started, like,
(10:40):
didn't know, the minus firsttable, everybody I knew. And
then strangers started, likereaching out to me on like
Facebook and Instagram asking mewhen the next one was. And I was
like, gosh, I didn't think Ididn't think there was going to
be a next one. So I askedTrevor, if you wanted to keep
doing it, and he said, Yeah. Andwe would do, you know, one here
and there, it took him a fullmonth to develop one menu,
(11:03):
because he was he was nervous,and a kid. And I didn't need it,
you know, really, it was justkind of for him. And then it
starts started sort oforganically taking off to the
point where there was after,after a year, there were a few
100 People like kind of on ourmailing list to reach out. And
(11:23):
around that time, he startedgetting admittedly a little bit
burnout on it. He wanted toleave high school, he wanted to
finish high school year early,and like buckled down on school.
And I had started doing somebrunches with speakeasy to kind
of like keep people engaged. Andso it was taking him a month to
like, push out one menu. And,you know, I was like, you know,
(11:45):
Trevor, I'm going to keep thisgoing, should you decide to come
back to it, because I'd hate tolike lose these hundreds of
people, you know, who are whoare interested in this. You
never came back to it, youstarting his own in the spring
of 2023. Because now he's 20.
He'll be he'll be 22 in October.
(12:08):
And so he's got he's on his own.
And he wanted to kind of do hisown thing. So I kept it going.
We moved houses, I knew that wewanted to kind of keep doing
this. And so we were admittedlylooking for a house that kind of
had the right setup for it. Thisone has a much better setup than
the last one. It's almost seemsbuilt for it. And then we just
sort of got, you know, a few1000 people. Now who are getting
(12:30):
these, these emails, and that'sreally how it works. People will
get on our email list, we'llsend out one blast per month,
saying, here are the feedingsfor next month. This is the date
the city and the time, that'sall we tell people. And then it
sort of first come first serve,you can like a hyperlink to a to
(12:51):
a page to sort of finalize thereservation. And then we get
like, you know, a roomful ofstrangers show up to our house
to come. Do a seven courseusually a seven course tasting.
Chris Spear (13:06):
So many questions, so many questions before it.
Yeah. First and foremost, isthis legal? Where you are like
not to throw you to the wolvesor something. But this would
absolutely not fly in any meanswhere I am. Because this is I
think this is one of thosethings that a lot of us do. They
don't want to talk about. So I'dlove for anything you feel
(13:26):
comfortable, like my departmentof health here won't even let us
technically rent an Airbnb andsell tickets to a dinner. And it
kind of goes county to countyaround here. Like how are you
able to do this? Is thissomething you can talk about?
Because I know that's theburning question out there for
everyone who's listening,thinking like, Oh, can I have
people over my house and chargethem for dinners?
Kyle Shankman (13:47):
So, so yes, and no, like every every
municipality is a little bitdifferent. And if you literally
went to the Department of Healthand tried to explain what you
were doing, there is no specificlanguage in Georgia that
addresses specifically what wedo. So they'll apply, you know,
(14:09):
like Party Rentals and cateringregulations to to this. What we
started, what we started doingis basically putting in the
language on our website, thatyou are, you're being invited to
a private party in a residentialspace. That is what your ticket
(14:30):
as for there happens to be foodthere. So we're not, you know,
in a, in a technical senseselling food, we're selling
admission to a to a party, whichat its face value is is legal.
And then you get into sort ofthis, you know that this sort of
question as to whether or not itwould even be worth the health
(14:52):
department's time
Chris Spear (14:54):
here. They weren't here they would they would find
your place and show up becausethat's how it is around here.
It's been In ridiculous becauseI, you know, again, I love that
idea. I don't think my wife isdown with having a bunch of
strangers in our house. Butyeah, you know, when I started
Chefs Without Restaurants, a bigpart of it was going to be
collaborative pop up dinners.
And I, you know, I have a friendwho has an Airbnb and we rented
it for the night. And we inviteda bunch of people, and we got a
(15:15):
lot of media attention, which Ithought was amazing. It was the
cover story of our localmagazine. And then you get
contacted that you need to stoprunning your illegal underground
restaurant, or there's gonna berepercussions. And then and then
miraculously, someone actuallynoticed something potentially
illegal going on at the Airbnb,and then that flagged inspectors
(15:36):
to show up to this woman'sbusiness and cite her for other
things. So there was some, Ifeel like retribution. Yeah, you
know, and I don't want to getanyone in trouble. So. So I was
just like, you know, we need tokind of table this for now. But
I would love to be doing more ofthis. Maybe not in my home,
though.
Kyle Shankman (15:55):
Well, so the way I the way we look at it is we
treat this very much so like a,like a dinner party, that that
you get hired to go do insomebody's home, right? Like,
which is perfectly legal for youas a as a, as a private chef, to
go bring some food to aresidential space. A bunch of
(16:17):
people come and they pay, andthey have a party, like a
private chef
Chris Spear (16:23):
part. That's my whole my whole business model.
Kyle Shankman (16:25):
Yeah. You know, when we develop our LLC, and I
went through, you know,categorizing what our business
is, it's a private chef servicethat hosts dinner parties. And
as far as the powers that be atleast down here, look at it,
we're just doing private chefparties, the fact that it's in
(16:49):
my home, is sort of irrelevant,because it can be in anybody's
home. Like if we have one of ourwe've done this several times,
where people who, who areregulars and frequent speakeasy
have said like, Hey, could youdo this at my house? And, you
know, I have to ask them, Can Iinvite strangers to your house,
and they go, Yeah,
Chris Spear (17:07):
you're good friends. And, and a good family
to,
Kyle Shankman (17:11):
ya know, my family's very family is super
understanding. But I think, youknow, my wife has known me since
that first executive chef job.
So we've been together for like,pushing two decades now. And she
knows what she knows what it'slike, when I'm working full time
in a restaurant, and the giveand take of like, you know, me,
(17:31):
me having to, you know, attendour house a few times a month,
to turn it into a restaurant isworth it. Because I'm generally
speaking here a heck of a lotmore often than I was when I was
in kitchen.
Chris Spear (17:47):
I would love to be able to just do it all in my
house and not have to leave andschlep stuff everywhere. Like
that's the dream. And you know,I have been looking at what are
the options? Like, is itfeasible? Is it even allowed to,
like make a my garage, like alicensed commercial kitchen?
Like, I've, I've kind of lookedat this, because I would just
love to not have to go outsomewhere and do this. So really
(18:08):
cool. I'm super impressed thatyou're doing it because like,
that would be my ideal dream. Ifsomeone asked me, if I could do
anything, what would it be, andit would be something along
these lines.
Kyle Shankman (18:18):
It's very cool that as I said before, we do
tend to be grass was greener inthis industry. And the times
like last night, we had toschlep our whole kitchen over to
a party in the city. And it wasalmost a relief after doing
several here at the house in arow to not have to. I mean, it's
(18:38):
a lot we we've got, you know,we've got a we've got a toddler,
like it's a lived in house, youknow, that needs to part of the
charm of it is that it lookslike a lived in house, but not
to, you know, not to like acrazy degree, like your toys
can't be out in the middle ofthe living room, you know, so we
have to, you know, we have to doa lot to make sure that
everything is clean and safeand, and attractive and still
(19:03):
feels a lot like a restaurantexperience when people sit down.
So it is kind of a nice changeof pace when we do get to leave
the house to
Chris Spear (19:10):
looking on your website. It looks like you're
selling out your events, whichis fantastic. How hard is that?
How much of a push is it lastweekend I went up to New Jersey
did a collab pop up dinner witha friend and it seemed like it
was pulling teeth to get peopleto commit and maybe because we
were in a smaller area, itwasn't as big a city with more
people to draw from but I justfelt like every single day we're
like pushing this out. They'relike we've got this dinner or
(19:32):
buy tickets, you know, we'rejust trying to do two seedings
and an Airbnb. And I can'timagine like my whole business
model just being trying to pushto get all these individual
people come as it is. It's Imean, you've been doing it for
quite a while now. So how hasthat changed? Were you having
more trouble when you startedand now it's an easy sell?
Kyle Shankman (19:51):
Yes, to both question is knock on wood, not
difficult at all to sell out?
Now, like we don't do a pushbeyond, we send one email, and
an entire month will be sold inan hour, sometimes, sometimes 10
minutes, depending on, dependingon it's like a themed dinner or
(20:13):
something like that. And thatwas not the case. In the
beginning, we had we probablyput up eight dinners in the
first year and only ran four ofthem. The other four couldn't
sell seats, too. So we cancelledthem. Then the next year,
Chris Spear (20:35):
people are you trying to get into a dinner
like, what's the headcount?
Kyle Shankman (20:39):
Now it's 1414. Is is the 14th time any weekend
fit. And it's also kind of whatwe have the infrastructure for.
Because it's still it's oneoven, one, one, you know, five
burner range,
Chris Spear (20:53):
you're still rocking the one off in your
house, come on, customer, I onlyhave one as well. But I go into
so many houses where they haveto I'm like, that would be the
dream for me.
Kyle Shankman (21:01):
Yeah. I mean, we have like a little like warming
drawer that actually works as anoven underneath our oven for
like one sheet pan, which is,you know, helpful. But yeah, I
mean, the second year, we did alittle bit better. And I think I
did restaurant consulting for alittle while. And something that
was, you know, that was alwaysso frustrating when I would talk
(21:23):
to restaurant chefs andrestaurant tours, was just sort
of this, this idea that ifyou're not getting the response
that you want, right away, youmust be doing something wrong,
and something needs to change.
And you'll start seeingrestaurants like, you know, a
few months after opening, likeintroducing things that were
clearly not part of the initialbusiness strategy. Like, they're
not adding brunch, because itwas part of the plan, they're
(21:47):
adding brunch, because, like,they're panicking, and they need
the revenue. Sometimes that'snot not the case. But generally
speaking, you start seeing them,changing the menu, changing the
style of service, grasping atstraws, because it's not busy as
they hoped it would be early on.
And I think the reality of itis, is that in this industry is
(22:10):
as competitive as it is, and howmany restaurants and food
choices there are for people,especially in like major
metropolitan areas, it justtakes time. Like, if you're
doing something well, that doesnot, you know, presuppose that
people are gonna pick up on it,and respond to it right away,
like, you're gonna have to buildsome credibility, and those
(22:31):
people are gonna have to tellpeople and their friends are
gonna tell people, and, and soon. And what was cool about
speakeasy is that it almostproved that point, it's kind of
a microcosm of the industry, inthat we just literally kept
doing what we were doing, whenpeople weren't coming, we
started adding courses andincreasing the price. Because
(22:52):
from our perspective, we weredoing it for fun. And if
changing the menu to be moreaccessible to more people made
it less fun for us than itwasn't worth it. So we just kind
of doubled down and kept doingwhat we wanted to do. And people
eventually it was almost as youknow, it's hard to remember the
tipping point, but it wasseemingly overnight, that, you
(23:15):
know, that I just stopped havingto make posts on social media to
get tickets. It was, it was, itwas like people are now like, if
we if people are angry with us,it's because they couldn't get
to see, you know, like, they're,they're begging for tickets. And
we never changed anything beyondjust continuing to try and
(23:38):
improve what we what we werealready, you know, what we were
already doing.
Chris Spear (23:44):
It's really funny how that works. And you know, so
much of its psychology, youworked in sales, but that idea
as almost like you become moreexclusive and more expensive, it
becomes more of a thing thatpeople want. Right. And I I
think a lot of people especiallynow, I mean, the economy is
turning down a little bit and Isee people getting scared, and
they're starting to lower theirprices on their menus, even
(24:06):
though food costs is going up.
They're like, well, let's dolike a week night three course
meal for $75 When I feel likeyou maybe need to stick to your
guns and even double down andjust say like no my, my services
for more an exclusive highpaying clientele. And we're just
gonna go deep into that thing.
And it's scary if you're notgetting customers to kind of do
(24:28):
that. But I think that is a realthing that works.
Kyle Shankman (24:31):
Yeah, and I also think that you know, the fastest
way to sort of lose you know,any, any sense of, like
sustainability in a restaurantis to is to start trying to be
relevant to everyone. Becauseyou can't like you can't do that
successfully. So it does comedown to like kind of doing the
(24:53):
math and going, how many seatsdo we have? How many seats do we
need to fill? And you can do thesame thing as a private chef.
Like how many tickets do I needto sell? How many plates do I
need to serve? And work that upagainst your expenses and go
like how many people do Iactually need to be relevant to?
Like we're we're doingexcellent. If we do 314 person,
(25:15):
seedings per month, right? Andso, from my perspective, I need
to be relevant to that manypeople, which is not a lot.
There are easily that manypeople who have 120 $150 to
spend on on dinner. It's
Chris Spear (25:29):
Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans, do you know that?
It's a great essay, he was theeditor in chief of Wired, but he
wrote this essay years ago, andhe redid it recently. But
basically saying, like, youdon't need millions of
followers, you need like 1000true fans, and he talks about
the Grateful Dead. Like he said,stop people on the street,
asking what they like theGrateful Dead, probably like 1%
(25:50):
will say yes, but like thatperson goes to like every show
and travels around the country,and they spend money on all this
stuff. Like you don't need to beeverything to everyone. You just
need people who really love youand love what you do. And you
know, for my business, when Istarted, I was doing tons of to
person dinners for persondinners, this and that. And now
I'm just like, it really needsto be like 10 and above and like
(26:12):
you now I'm working sometimesone day a week and people are
like, wow, like, is that reallya business? If you go out and
cook one day a week, it's like,Yeah, cuz I'm cooking for like,
16 people I used to sling foodfor like, I'm doing a two on
Tuesday and a five on Thursday.
I'm like running myself ragged.
It's like, let's just focus ongetting one dinner party that's
going to pay the bills thisweek. And then the rest of the
(26:34):
week, I'll fill with otherstuff.
Kyle Shankman (26:36):
Yeah, a really quick, neat story that relates
to that, that I that I alwayslike to tell people is that when
we first started, we, we didwhat a lot of, you know, new
restaurants, if you want to callus that, in this instance, do
and invited like a bunch of likefood bloggers at like, at like
costs, because you go look atall their? Which Yeah, look at
(27:00):
all the exposure we're gonna getright. And that comes from a
place of like, you know, beingnew and not having the
competence to just sort of standbehind what you do, I think, and
there were, were 10 people atthe table, there were over a
million followers between them.
And there were local foodbloggers, all that we asked us
that they made a post about it,everybody did. And we got a
(27:22):
grand total of three newsubscribers to our, to our
website. You know, I chalk it upas a lesson learned, we didn't
lose money, if you just look atjust like the raw cost of it. So
compare that to we have a wehave a guest who we would
consider our our our biggestregular she, she's been to over
(27:43):
30 of these now, in two and ahalf years. Her Instagram is
private, and she has maybe 60followers. But she's like, you
know, a young single girl inAtlanta with a lot of close
friends. We had a night onenight where there were 14 people
(28:04):
at the table. And I do kind ofwhat I normally do, or there's
new people and ask them how theyfound out about us. And through
the conversation, we found outthat 10 of the 14 were referred
by either her or somebody thatshe brought in the early days.
And it's so it's so telling oflike, what it really takes to
(28:26):
like, build like a sustainableregular crowd is that it has to
not just not be a lot of people,it has to be like the right
people, the people that shetells are exactly the types of
you know, guests that we're thatwe're after
Chris Spear (28:43):
100% You know, I, every year on the anniversary of
my business, when I launched it,I do a giveaway. And the
giveaway is for previouscustomers. And instead of trying
to reach out to theseinfluencers, who's already spent
money with me, and I just do araffle and I give away two to
three free dinners and just gocook for those people right and
(29:03):
that's the kind of thing youknow, that's going to bring more
business those people are goingto have a great dinner, they're
going to post on their privateFacebook page, you know, it's
lots of couples husbands andwives 40s to 60s year old and
they're just gonna post picturesof the dinner and their friends
are gonna hire me and that'sdone way more than you know
giving a dinner away to somelocal influencer though I've
(29:24):
done it we've all done iteveryone at this point for the
most part is has fallen intothat trap in some regard.
Kyle Shankman (29:29):
If you look at I tell people who are considering
I go look at their Instagrampages and look at the comments
on every post. It's just allother food bloggers, like
they're all talking to eachother. It's just like kind of
this echo chamber of, of, youknow, pseudo influencers, you
know, trying to, you know, getfree or calm to meals. So I
(29:52):
mean, it's, it's, again, it'sgood for exposure, if just
eyeballs on your page are allthat you're after, but I'm kind
of I'm after you know revenue,
Chris Spear (30:01):
as we all are, and should be, one of the things you
do is I know that you'd like tokeep your dinners a secret, but
you tell people that they caninquire, I'm interested, what is
the percentage of people whoreach out and say, I actually
kind of want to know what's fordinner?
Kyle Shankman (30:16):
Less than 1%.
Really, that's all Yeah, about10 per tend to depends on. Like,
if we're in February, it'salmost, it's almost definitely
somebody's like Valentine'sthing. And a good percentage of
them will reach out to askabout, though, even for those
(30:36):
say, I, I want to preface this,I don't want to know them in.
But I would like wine pairingssuggestion, if you have them. So
a decent percentage of peoplereach out asking about like
pairings just so they they bringwhat they feel is the is the
right thing. Because we don'twant to get back to that sort of
like legal gray area, like wedon't touch a bottle, we don't
(30:58):
pour it, we don't serve it, wedon't provide it. But they're
able to like, you know, BYOD.
And so, you know, we'll getpeople reach out that way. But
we're also very, likeaccommodating of dietary
restrictions. So when peopleare, are, are making a
reservation, they have anopportunity to say like, Hey,
(31:19):
I'm gluten free or dairy free orvegetarian, whatever. And we
tell them that we will, youknow, that will accommodate. So
in the early days, we would postthe menu. And taking that away
from them was a was a was a wasa specific choice to try and
(31:39):
cultivate the right audience,and the right, the right
experience for everybody.
Because I do think that part ofthe experience is the elder
conversations and therelationships that are built
between these 14 strangers at atable, and there's no
guaranteeing that any of themare going to have a ton in
(32:00):
common. But if you can guaranteethat everybody at the table
shares this one really uniquepersonality trait of being
willing to, you know, buytickets to a location without
knowing the address or knowingthe menu. That's a really
specific type of person. Theymight come from tons of
(32:21):
different socio economic,political, ethnic backgrounds,
but they all kind of share that.
And it when we took away theadvertised menu, we started
having a much more excitingdinner service, if that makes
sense.
Chris Spear (32:37):
Absolutely. Have you heard any stories of people
who've become friends aftercoming to one of your dinners?
Yeah.
Kyle Shankman (32:45):
Yeah, it's, it's my favorite part, when I see
them, like posting together,like at, like, at a concert on
on Instagram, and I'm like, Oh,I know where you guys met? Well,
food totally
Chris Spear (32:54):
brings people together. That's why, you know,
one of the things I've missed somuch, during COVID was
specifically not going out toeat in restaurants, but not
eating at the bar, and noteating with strangers, you know,
like, we went to Zahav. AndPhiladelphia, I don't know if
you knows how, but it's kind ofchallenging to get into, and I
went with a friend. But we weregoing to get bar seats, you
know, and you had to line upoutside. So for the hour, before
(33:17):
they open, you're talking allthese people in line, and then
they open the doors and everjust goes and sits at the bar.
And you know, I was there withthe eight people who I met in
line. And we're just we wantedto all try as much as we could.
And everyone was just buyingsomething, and then just kind of
like passing the plate down theline. And now I'm friends with
so many of these people who Imet solely because we just sat
(33:38):
next to each other at the bar ina restaurant and shared food. So
I think that's fantastic. And tobe able to bring people around
food. Is there anything betteras a chef?
Kyle Shankman (33:49):
I don't think there is.
Chris Spear (33:51):
So what inspires you? I mean, you have the luxury
of creating kind of whatever youwant for food and putting
together these five menus, whereare you drawing inspiration?
Kyle Shankman (34:02):
In short, the ingredients, it is almost a
hindrance to have no limitationson what I can put on the menu,
right? Because it's like, I haveaccess to I could do whatever.
And then you go like how do Ibecause we change the menu every
time. That's self imposed to adegree. But we so we have so
many regulars that sort ofcontinue having like that ratio
(34:25):
of like 6040 new new guests orregulars, we've got to change
the menu every month, right?
Because just one seven coursemenu so I wouldn't want to
repeat it. So to sort of givemyself some limitations, I look
at what is in season. What'slocal. And I don't really start
like finalizing the menu untillike a week before. Like I'll
(34:46):
have kind of a rough guess atit. But I want to look at what
looks best and just sort of playwith play with that. What's
funny is that my Food style haschanged, has changed a lot since
we first started this, becauseit kind of started with what I
(35:06):
found fun and exciting six yearsago, to what I find fun and more
fun and exciting now that I'vegot, you know, going bald and
have a have a bunch of grayhair. I've like matured along
the way and started realizingthat I get a better response.
And I have more fun if I cookthe types of things that I'm
(35:28):
craving, right, like what isdelicious to me, first and
foremost. And then we try andmake that, you know, make it
pretty. But, you know, I fellinto a lot of the sort of the
pitfalls that a lot of youngchefs do in the early days is
imagining what I wanted it tolook like first, and then trying
to figure out how to make thattaste good. And that's kind of a
(35:50):
fool's errand I think. So. Sonow we take inspiration from the
ingredients, and what it is thatI want to eat, what tastes good,
to me, what creates nostalgicfeelings for me. And then I hope
that it connects with as manypeople at the table as possible.
Chris Spear (36:10):
Now, where are you are now? Is that where you grew
up? Like Are these all foodsthat you associate with your
youth and growing up? Are youfrom the Georgia area,
Kyle Shankman (36:19):
I'm from the Georgia area. My My parents are
from California, moved here,very, very young. So I've only
known Georgia really. That beingsaid, My parents didn't cook,
when I was growing up, like Iwasn't around food as a kid.
Like they were, you know, theywere still our professional
physical therapists were runningclinics. And we were like
(36:42):
latchkey kids, me and mybrothers, you know, eaten stuff
out of boxes, or cans or jars,or, you know, frozen food and
like I got into the industry,because I wanted independence.
And I wanted money as a kid. Andthe first, you know, the
industry that will more morelikely hire a 15 year old is
going to be you know,hospitality in some way, shape,
(37:04):
or form. And so I got verycomfortable in the industry
working as a line cook and as aserver and delis, smoothie bars
and things like that. And theninstantly inadvertently became
very comfortable in this worldwhen you know, so it was an
easier transition when decidedto switch careers and go into
food. But that being said, likewhen I was working in
(37:27):
restaurants and things likethat, they were all local in
Georgia, and I was I wasinteracting with mostly local
ingredients and styles of food.
When I was working as a residentchef for that cookware company,
we had to like as the residentchef, like I had, I had
employees, chef instructors whowere specialists, but because
the content was all coming to usfrom corporate, if somebody
(37:50):
wasn't available or comfortablewith a certain topic, it's on
me. And so in the early days, itwas a lot of like, fake it till
you make it like, you know, KyleShankman trying to teach an
authentic Korean class. Andeventually, I became very sort
of passionate about cuisinesthat I'd never interacted with
as a restaurant chef, like Thaiand Korean and like authentic
(38:13):
Spain, and in Mexico. So thatstill influences a lot of like
the style of my of my cooking, Idon't consider myself like a
Southern chef, that didn't growup, like the southern food at
the table, so to speak, I'm justpassionate about the food coming
from nearby, right. And thenfrom like a practical, you know,
(38:38):
business owner standpoint, italways cost more to use
ingredients that came from faraway, right? Like, you had to
buy a plane ticket to get toyou. So it's going to cost it's
going to cost more. Whereas ifyou're dealing with ingredients
that come from your state or astate that touches your state,
yeah, there might be someincreases when you're when
(39:01):
you're dealing with proteinyou're dealing with, like
independent farmers. But I stillthink that it's a net, it's a
net gain when you can when youhave that story to tell to your
to your guests, and you kind ofhave money in that in that local
economy.
Chris Spear (39:17):
Most definitely, you know, one of my challenges
is getting people to take thejourney with me. You know, it's,
it's very different when you'retrying to sell tickets to a
dinner as opposed to being apersonal chef, and I have
clients who specifically reachout you know, I'm going through
that, literally this morning,someone sent an email that
they're coming to town and theywant like a surf and turf dinner
(39:38):
and they really want likegrilled steak and lobster tail
and like, that's just not myjam. It's not my vibe and like,
I haven't drafted that email yethow I'm going to kind of say
like, Yeah, I hear what youlike, but I really don't do that
kind of food. Can I send you amenu of what I do and I might
have to be comfortable with themsaying like, we're gonna go
(39:59):
another day. reaction and bokloosing that but for me, you
know, making food that I'mexcited about is really
important. And I know not allpersonal chefs share that view,
some say, you should just youknow, it's a business, you need
to cook what the customer wants.
And that's, you know, I don'twant to make anyone eat anything
they don't want, but I also wantto be fulfilled.
Kyle Shankman (40:19):
Yeah, that's the, that's the balance. Right. And I
don't I don't know, I don'tknow, there's a perfect way to
have that conversation with witha customer. But I do think that
people respond in this industryto, to confidence, like a
competent point of view as towhat you do. And you just like,
(40:39):
just say, this is what we, thisis what we do, take it or leave
it, it's a lot harder to havethat conversation when you're
building the business, right.
And you're like, you need, youneed revenue.
Chris Spear (40:51):
That's why I advocate for doing it on the
side if you can, when you don'tneed it, you know, I did it for
five years while I worked a fulltime job. So I could build a
brand like brand was reallyimportant to me. And say like,
this is what I do this is forpeople who like this, where I
didn't have to take every gig,if I worked once a month, once
every two months, no big deal. Iwas working 50 hour a week
(41:12):
cooking job.
Kyle Shankman (41:14):
When I talk to cooks, or people who reach out
and ask about, you know,speakeasy, or having a supper
club or even private chefbusiness and how to make that
sustainable. I'm always veryopen about the fact that I
didn't I didn't run the supperclub for three years at the sub
four years of the supper club. Ididn't need it. Right, like now
(41:35):
I know I do. Because I kind oflike I burnt my boat, my shift,
like there's no, you know,there's nothing really to fall
back on. There's no like nine tofive salary job anymore. Is
that, you know, so you're doingthings on the side, these types
of things where you can like,you can set the parameters and
(41:56):
say, this is the type of foodsthat I'm going to do, take it or
leave it, and you're doing itfor fun. Like, if you're having
a great time, your food isinherently better, I think, than
if you're cooking, what somebodyelse wants you to cook. And then
from there, you start to findpeople who then become, you
know, future private eventcustomers, what I was going to
(42:17):
say is that 100% of my privatechef jobs were coming from a
separate club, meaning they werepeople who were either following
the Instagram page, or, oractually, like, attended a
dinner, or were told about it bysomebody who attended a dinner,
(42:38):
so they're only reaching out tome because they know the type of
food that I do. So I I don't putmyself out there in any other
way. So I don't get the callsanymore. I did in the early
days. I don't get the callsanymore for like fillet lobster
tail twice baked potato,chocolate lava cake, you know,
but I did. Yeah, I did. And Ididn't like doing them. But I
(42:59):
could. But I also had to, like,you know, learn some coping
mechanisms when I was cookingother people's food for a lot of
years to just go, there'ssomething in this menu or this
process that that you can takepride in or find joy from, even
if that means like adding asurprise course that they
weren't expecting. And goinglike, here's just me, you know,
(43:24):
on a plate, hope you like it. Sothat you can at least take some
joy from doing from doing that.
Move. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's ablast. And it's almost always
you have to like, almost forcedpeople to step outside of their
comfort zone with certainthings. Because all these like,
I'll have the conversation aboutfilet all the time, I'll say
like, I will beg them to let melower the price and give them a
(43:47):
better cut. Say it will cost you$10 less a person, if you let
me, you know if you let me doyou know culottes or that? Or?
Or flat iron? Right? And they'relike, No, I think we'd rather do
fillet you know. And so whenwhen I'm presenting private
(44:08):
chef, options to people we don'tI don't have a menu for people
to choose from him for myprivate chef business. It's all
it's all custom no matter what.
But I will give them sort ofthis option of I can do
something I'm going to dosomething custom for you. Either
way. You can consult on it ifyou're concerned or you have
(44:29):
somebody at the table because alittle bit pickier, but most
people just choose to sort ofgive me their requirements or
request and just let me youknow, let me kind of take them
on a surprise journey and dosort of the chef's you know,
secret menu with them. It's whatwe do at the supper club and,
and people are fighting to getseats. And when it's presented
(44:52):
that way. You know, probably 70%of the private chef customers
now. Say I don't even want toknow the menu just surprise us
just a heads up, my wife hatescapers, you know what I mean?
And then we, and then we buildsomething from that. But even
the 30% who want to see it, theysee that custom menu of meat,
basically showing them what I doat the supper club. And most of
(45:15):
the time, if they have an issue,it's was like one component of
one dish. It's an easy switch,at the very least, like I'm
still having a blast doing, youknow, a private chef party,
which was not the case, in theearly days,
Chris Spear (45:28):
I have 100% of my customers wanting to see the
menu. I've done zero surprisedinners and the legend. Maybe
we'll get there soon. But I am,I am looking at changing some of
the business model a little bit,which I'm going to be rolling
out I'm not quite doing arebrand or relaunch. But in the
next month or two, yeah, I'mgoing to be making some of these
changes to go more in thatdirection. What are we not
(45:52):
talking about in the food andbeverage industry, especially
for food entrepreneurs, becausethis seems cool and sexy and
whatever. But for those who aremaybe like on the fence ready to
do something, what do they needto know that you don't think
maybe gets talked about enough
Kyle Shankman (46:08):
that I say this as somebody who, who went to
culinary school, that, that Ithink the traditional route has
become sort of phased out andirrelevant. If you want to be
successful, I do think that sortof like the gig economy, where
(46:31):
you're, you know, either doingeither doing pop ups, or, you
know, or collaborations orseparate clubs, things like
that, you tend to learn a lotmore a lot faster. And it's
practical knowledge than goingto culinary school and then
working your way up through akitchen. I think so many cooks.
(46:55):
And chefs, executive chefs neverfully reached their potential,
not just professionally, buteven like creatively, because
they were just sort of hamstrungby, you know, the systems that
they feel are that they feel arein place. So, I don't I don't
know. I mean, I think in othermarkets, people talk about it
(47:17):
more like, we are kind of theonly ones doing this in like
kind of the North metro Atlantaarea. But, you know, people who
are getting into the industryare so often just, again, going
to culinary school, and thengoing and getting the first job
they can, they can find and thenof working their way up to
(47:38):
kitchen. So I think finding waysto express your creativity
without any, any of thelimitations of sort of a
permanent, for wall brick andmortar space, will teach you a
lot more about what your pastcould and should be in this
(47:58):
industry. And there are a lot ofother ways beyond working in a
restaurant. That I mean, I'll doa commercial for your podcast,
please. I love that, that youcan find joy in this industry.
Like I'm, I'm more financiallystable and successful than I
than I've ever been. And I workhard, maybe three or four days a
(48:22):
week. And, you know, I'm homewhen I need to be home, I leave
for Key West for a weektomorrow. And like I'm not I'm
not stressed about it. And thatall came from me just sort of
disconnecting from fromprofessional kitchens. So I
don't know if that I don't knowif that answers.
Chris Spear (48:44):
Yeah, don't go to culinary school and, you know,
follow your passion, figure itout. You know, there's so many,
Kyle Shankman (48:52):
I think just sort of stopping and rethinking like
what like, ignoring the rules,like one of the things that that
I that I learned the most fromthe early days with the supper
club, watching Trevor my kid doit is that he was he was
breaking every rule because hedidn't know the rules existed.
And he was, you know, I wouldsay, well, it's not done that
(49:15):
way. He felt why. And I say,Gosh, I'm really not sure
because that's just kind of theway that I was taught
Chris Spear (49:21):
which is funny because you would hate that if
you were in a professionalkitchen and tell it like when a
younger cuts to you right orwhatever.
Kyle Shankman (49:28):
But that's that's that's the toxicity of
professional kitchen. It's likewe're doing it this way because
I said so. And it's so frownedupon to kind of listen to you
know, a line cook, show you thatthere is a faster and more
effective way to get from pointA to point B on something that
(49:48):
you know that you've alwaysprided yourself on, you know
taking three days to accomplish.
Chris Spear (49:53):
I can't imagine being at a kitchen these days
with line cooks showing theirchefs things they saw on tick
tock and the conversation thatensues from that
Kyle Shankman (50:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, it's a hit to the
pride if I see something on ticktock and learn something, you
know, I'm like, I reallyshouldn't have learn that from a
from a 17 year old just now, butI guess I did.
Chris Spear (50:13):
Kids are great in that respect, you know, I've
twins who are 10. And they'veactually said, they want to help
with my business. And you know,that's great. And I'm looking
at, like, what does that looklike? Like, at what age can my
kids actually go to someone'shouse and help me serve, you
know, like, there's a maturitylevel, I think my daughter would
be okay, my son, not so much.
But we've really write that.
And, you know, I don't want toforce them into any industry or
(50:34):
business, but they're verballyexpressing interest in helping
with the business in someregard. So I don't think we're
too far away from that. And I'mgoing to share the fact that,
you know, your 15 year old sonstarted his own separate clubs.
So I guess at 10, maybe that'snot there'll be 11 the summer,
that's not so much of a stretchto get them going.
Kyle Shankman (50:52):
But it's a good thing that they look at your
life and want to emulate it. Andit's like, in a traditional
sense, when people watch theirparents be chefs, they go, I
would never want to do that.
Because I never see him. Like,he's, you know, he, he comes
home after I go to bed, and hewakes up after I go to school,
you know, like that. This isn'tthe type of industry unless it's
(51:14):
like, you know, a familyrestaurant where things get, you
know, where the kids end up, youknow, taking on the family
business. And so if you'reshowing them balance, and joy
and flexibility, that I thinkit's cool that, you know, they
see that and want to get intothe industry,
Chris Spear (51:32):
the kids brought that to me, you know, I, I
haven't worked in restaurants.
But I did work in corporatekitchens, and I was working
crazy schedules and lots ofhours. And I gave up a lot, a
lot of time with my wife a lotof time with other family,
parents and stuff. And then whenI have kids, I just decided
like, they're going to comefirst like family is going to
come first. And I'm not going tobe you know, 100% married to
(51:52):
this job all the time. So when Istarted my business, it was
really important to me to findthe balance where we would be
able to have family life, I wantto know my kids, I want to enjoy
time with my wife and finding abusiness that suited me that in
that way was amazing.
Kyle Shankman (52:09):
I think every every chef who's like, you know,
who has a family, and kids who'sbeing honest with themselves,
they know that they're, theylove their families more than
they love food or cooking. Butgoing through the traditional
route of working in kitchens,takes some sort of level of like
cognitive dissonance to likereckon with the fact that it
(52:32):
doesn't usually match up. Right?
Like, if you love your familyand your kids more than food.
Why are you there 100 hours aweek, and letting it you know,
sort of inform how you how youinteract with your family and
not the other way around. And Ihated
Chris Spear (52:48):
that as a boss too.
Because when you're a boss whostaffing a kitchen, you're the
guy who these people are comingin saying, hey, I really need
Saturday night off because Ihave a family birthday and
you're like, sorry, you can'thave it. It's like, wow, I'm
turning into a person. I don'treally want to be like, I would
want that day off myself. Butnow I have to be here and be
that guy who's telling all thesepeople they need to be more
(53:09):
committed to their job thantheir families. And that just
didn't suit me anymore. Well,thanks so much for coming on the
show. I loved having you today.
And I'm so glad that you couldcome and share your expertise
with us. It was my pleasure. Andto all of our listeners. This
has been Chris with the ChefsWithout Restaurants podcast.
Thanks so much and have a greatweek. Go to chefs without
(53:30):
restaurants.org To find ourFacebook group, mailing list and
Chef database. The community'sfree to join. You'll get gig
opportunities, advice onbuilding and growing your
business and you'll never missan episode of our podcast. Have
a great week.
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