Friend That Cooks Reviews

This review doesn't remotely represent what we do or what we're about, and shows that the reviewer doesn't understand the expenses necessary to operate a business. Here are some real facts about Friend That Cooks: * We spend between 65% and 75% of every dollar we take in on our employees pay, taxes and benefits, which include not only personal chefs, but support staff and managers. After taxes and benefits, more than half of what we bring in is spent only on chefs. * We offer benefits to both full and part time employees. Both are eligible for paid maternity/paternity leave, company contributions to retirement, fuel reimbursements, equipment allowances, holiday bonuses, bonus pay for training new chefs and automatic overtime for evening/weekend work. Full time employees are also eligible for healthcare benefits and paid time off. * Our fuel reimbursements more than pay for the extra driving on the job our chefs do. Reimbursements don't include pay for chefs to drive to job sites, just like they wouldn't get paid to drive to work by any other employer. * After paying employees, most of the rest of what we bring in goes to pay for marketing, insurance, rent, utilities, training new chefs and other things. There's a lot more expense to running our business than paying chefs. If we were only focused on the bottom line, we would spend no more than 1/3 of what we take in on labor, the way every other food service operation does. * Our company mission is to not only improve the quality of life for our clients, but for our employees, through pay and benefits that push other food service companies to offer more to their employees. We pay cooks around 50% more than area restaurants do, and benefits they don't. * There never has been or ever will be a "fake wait list", though we do have a real wait list with more than 100 families waiting for our next chefs to be hired and trained. That accusation doesn't even make sense. We only make money if our chefs work and having a fake wait list wouldn't benefit us in any way. * Every chef is a line cook before they are a chef and we openly admit to hiring talented, creative line cooks when we can find them and train them to become personal chefs. * No kid straight out of culinary school has ever passed our interview process to become a Friend That Cooks chef, though we have had many "experienced" executive chefs that have failed our testing. Every applicant goes through an interview process that forces them to prove their culinary knowledge and demonstrate their ability. Our interview process is tough, and most experienced cooks cannot make it through. Most experience chefs can't even make it through. If they do, they have proven they have the knowledge and talent to earn the title of "personal chef", whether they've had the title "chef" in the past or not. * Our chefs control their own schedules, work mainly weekday hours and earn extra when they do choose to work optional evening and weekends, and they have creative freedom they don't get at other jobs. Nobody has ever used the term "pimp like tactics" to describe our relationship with our employees. It could be described as exactly the opposite. No cooking position anywhere offers them the freedom and great schedule they have with us. * Not every person who does make it through our interview process has what it takes to succeed as a personal chef, though we're usually very good at identifying those that do. Some simply can't manage their own schedules or aren't responsible enough to work with the freedom they have with us. For those that can, we offer a quality of life they can't get in any other food service position.

Here are some real facts about Friend That Cooks: * We spend between 65% and 75% of every dollar we take in on our employees pay, taxes and benefits, which include not only personal chefs, but office staff, trainers, trainees and managers. After taxes and benefits, more than half of what we bring in is spent only on chefs. No other company, especially a food service company, dedicates that much of what they take in toward compensating employees. * We offer benefits to both full and part time employees. Both are eligible for paid maternity/paternity leave, company contributions to retirement, fuel reimbursements, equipment allowances, holiday bonuses, bonus pay for training new chefs and automatic overtime for evening/weekend work. Full time employees are also eligible for healthcare benefits and paid time off. We subsidize a large portion of our employees health benefit. Part time employees do not earn the health benefit because its not financially sustainable. You won't find better benefits than ours in a food service company. * Our fuel reimbursements more than pay for the extra driving on the job our chefs do. Reimbursements don't include pay for chefs to drive to job sites, just like they wouldn't get paid to drive to work by any other employer. Fuel reimbursements are paid to both full and part time employees, but even part time employees must work a minimum amount of hours to earn a reimbursement. * After paying employees, most of the rest of what we bring in goes to pay for marketing, insurance, rent, utilities, training new chefs and other things. There's a lot more expense to running our business than paying chefs. If we were only focused on the bottom line, we would spend no more than 1/3 of what we take in on labor, the way every other food service operation does. *We do have a wait list with more than 100 families currently waiting for our next chefs to be hired and trained. Balancing our influx of clients to our ability to hire is the hardest thing we do. Chefs who are willing to drive 30 minutes or less to work usually have their schedules filled up quickly. Chefs who put unreasonable restrictions on where in town they are unwilling to work do not. *Our pay has always been and continues to be higher than what talented cooks make in commercial kitchens. Our benefits far exceed what they can make, especially for part time employees for whom most businesses offer no benefits. * Our chefs control their own schedules, work mainly weekday hours and earn extra when they do choose to work optional evening and weekends, and they have creative freedom they don't get at other jobs. But not every person who does make it through our interview process has what it takes to succeed as a personal chef, though we're usually very good at identifying those that do. Some simply can't manage their own schedules or aren't responsible enough to work with the freedom they have with us. For those that can, we offer a quality of life they can't get in any other food service position.