Connecting Chefs and Corporate Clients - Learn About the HUNGRY Platform From Founder Eman Pahlavani

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris Spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. Their caterers, research chefs, personal chefs, cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers, and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 10 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s, I've literally never worked in a restaurant. This week, I have Eman Pahlavani. He's the founder and COO of HUNGRY, a digital platform that connects businesses with catering services provided by local chefs. The platform's notable investors include Jay Z, Kevin Hart, and a number of NFL stars. This past year, they had to pivot a bit and began offering chef made meals direct to consumers at their homes, as well as adding a virtual chef experience. Over the past few years, a lot of these platforms have been popping up. So I wanted to get more details directly from eemaan. Honestly, I found that a lot of the platforms don't actually seem to be that beneficial to chefs, which is why I've been skeptical about having an organization like this on the podcast. But having done my research, it seems like hungry really is a great option for chefs looking to expand their corporate catering business. That being said, I'm not a user of their service and do your own research. This isn't a sponsored episode, I was just hoping to provide more value to my audience. On the show, we also talk about business basics and why he man thinks it's imperative for a successful business to have a co founder, I also want to let you know about something new. I'm trying on the podcast. Some of the episodes are going to be called meet a member where I highlight a member of the Chefs Without Restaurants community, rather than a long form interview, which I really do love. It'll be a shorter interview with a lot of fun, rapid fire type questions thrown in. Almost like what I used to do at the end of the show when I started this podcast with Andrew, if you'd like to be featured, send me a message or an email. And now on with the show. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great week. Hey, man, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to talking to you. I remember I guess a couple of years ago when the article came out. And I think the headlines were like Jay Z and Kevin Hart invest in chef platform or something. I think like everyone I know, sent me those articles.

We Yeah, we got we were very blessed and lucky to have some amazing people joined.

Yeah, well, you know, I've got a whole network of Chefs Without Restaurants. So this is kind of their, their thing. So I'm really looking forward to finding out about what you do. So I guess let's jump right in. You're the CEO and founder of hungry. So what's hungry? And how did that come about?

So Hungary's. It's basically a food tech company that was created 2016 2017. And the initial concept was to essentially Connect local chefs that worked out of incubator kitchens, to companies who want corporate catering for breakfast, for lunch for afternoon snacks. And the idea was that we would create that connectivity using a platform a website and launched this and every major market in the United States. So that was the original idea and concept basically leveled the playing field for the independent chef.

So are people using your own kitchens or can they use existing commercial kitchens that they've already been working out of if they have one?

Yeah, no. So hungry, doesn't own or operate any kitchens. You know, very much like, you know, we're doesn't own the cars. So all of our chefs work out of incubator and commercial kitchens that they either were already working at or that they go and partner with. Hungry has a lot of great relationships with a lot of these kitchens. Because we, you know, we're huge source of revenue for the chef's that work there that then pay rent to those kitchens. But we actually don't own or operate in.

Do you have traditional caterers who are doing other things like who may be cater weddings and big events, but they also want to bring in some revenue, doing corporate catering like this,

the way it starts is usually a chef, they would apply to be on the platform, if they got through the application process and the testing and everything. This would start off, maybe as a side hustle for them, right, they do some catering on the hungry platform, but then they have their own barbecue business or wedding business, or whatever the case is. Within a few months, usually this becomes their full time because they're just so busy, with the sheer volume of orders that comes in. So you know, companies spend north of $50 billion a year on food to the office. And so most of that money is going to Panera Bread, your fast casual restaurants that they're ordering from but hungry is essentially rerouting all that in putting it in the pockets of all these chefs. And so they once they join the platform, they get very, very busy.

That's really cool. Because I find as a personal chef, the hardest thing for me is the marketing and finding clients that I know every caterer I know goes through the same thing. How do you get new clients? So it seems like you must be funneling a ton of business into all of these smaller caterers, which I think is great.

Yeah, the two, the two common, you know, issues that we always hear with chefs is obviously getting business and getting reliable business. And then delivery. They don't like doing the delivery. That's not definitely what they went to culinary school for. That's not their passion. So hungry takes kind of the business side of the house. You know, today, you'll be cooking for Amazon, tomorrow, Microsoft the next day Facebook, so you don't really care, like where it's going. Because you're just on the platform, you're getting orders every single day. And then Hungary's, we have a delivery fleet of over 300 people, they will come pick up the food, they put it in these sealed hot boxes that are designed for hungry, they have the wire racks, the sternos all the different parts and pieces. Then they go to the client side, for example, Microsoft's office, they set it up beautifully. The catering Captain stays on site, they will help serve the food if necessary, and then they'll clean it up for free. So it's like a full service for the companies that don't want to get their hands dirty with food and cleanup and all that stuff. And it's full service for the chef's where all they want to do is just cook because that's your talent. And that's that's what they love doing.

I love it. I used to work in catering and have had some nightmares with deliveries and stuff and just not my jam, I was driving a truck one time and we had a chafing dish with you know, food already ready to go in and someone cut us off and we jammed on the brakes and flipped, flipped a giant thing in the back of the truck and the food went everywhere. And we had to turn around and go back to the kitchen and just that kind of stuff. That's not what I want to do. And I think that's what so many of us chefs get into is you want to be a chef, you want to cook food, but so much of your day to day is taken up with doing all these mundane, other little things that are best suited to someone else.

Yeah, that's it's not what you know. The key to this was how do you break up all the parts of a catering and have kind of someone take over each individual part one piece of it. So having someone owned the marketing the business acquisition part, like let's get an expert, let's get a salesperson for that. Having the chef do what they're an expert at, which is cooking delicious food on time, and then having a delivery person deliver it properly and clean it up. So we took the old traditional catering model and flipped it on its head. And it worked well for us. We grew very fast. We were in the DC area. In our first year we did over a million dollars in revenue. Investors came and said, you know, let's take this and put this in other cities. Let's expand let's go go go. So right before the pandemic hit, we were in seven cities across the country. We were if I murmur this correctly, clipping past a $20 million run rate. So there's a lot of you know, we were hiring chefs were joining the platform, we started getting a lot of celebrity interest. And we were kind of in a nice up into the right trajectory.

So what happened during the pandemic? I mean, how did you guys have to change?

So right before the pandemic, it's like three weeks before the US had its first case of COVID. We had just closed on a $20 million B round. So the company was valued at a at 100. And I want to say 15 or 20 million post money. We took in a good amount of capital. And the idea was that money would help fund Hungary's market expansion. We're going to go into, you know, 20 plus cities in 24 months, so it was an absolute Blitz of the market. Because we thought, you know, we felt like we had this special sauce and everything was working, clicking really well. Once COVID hit, and people stopped going to the office, our revenue dried up completely within about three weeks. So it was it wasn't like a slow, gradual, it was just a cliff. And we, you know, sat and sat in a conference room and had to figure out do we do what then if you remember what seemed like a very popular move, which was basically furlough everyone in anyone? I mean, you hear it every Thursday on the jobs reports, right, like another million people furlough 2 million, 3 million? Or do you try and figure out how do you make the current crappy world that we live in work somehow, and we we toyed around with every option, we decided, let's let's hold the line. And let's just give it a few months and see what's going to happen. Let's let's see if we can figure out a new way to survive, essentially. And that's how we had a couple of new business lines that were born. We went from survival to thrival. Last year, we clocked in, you know, two times our best revenue year ever. And the company is now just on the hiring spree right now we're hiring quickly to expand into new markets and kind of turn the corner there nicely.

So are you seeing people coming back into office buildings right now?

So it is a market by market question. But generally, yes, across the country, you know, as people get vaccinated, all the restrictions are getting loosened up, masks are coming off. And so people will be more and more comfortable as time passes, I believe the catalyst is going to be close summer. So once everyone really goes on vacation gets comfortable, you see all these people in restaurants and bars and you're everywhere you go, no masks, coming back to the office will probably be more normal. I don't think it's going to be full full time. I think it'll be a hybrid model for maybe a year. But definitely people will be back in the office. And we're already seeing it in the markets that

we're in. So as far as our chefs, do, you see a typical demographic, like who are the chef's signing up for this.

So it's usually not your executive chef that's running a restaurant kitchen, because they've been there, they've got their hands full, they, you know, they're working 100 hours a week. Actually, you know, it could be your executive chef or sous chef that either owns their own catering company, or has worked in the restaurant industry doesn't like it for various reasons, hard hours, you know, pay whatever the whatever the reasons are, and they want to do their own thing. They have an entrepreneurial bug, they want to create their own barbecue company catering company. And this platform is perfect for that. It's actually honestly perfect for any chef, that is just great in the kitchen. Because this platform, you know, where before COVID, some of our chefs were doing $30,000 a month. You know, that's two months of that is more than you know, most chefs in America see on, you know, on an annual basis. So it was doing, you know, totally changing the game for chefs. And it was just, they make really good food. And companies are spending lots of money or they were spending lots of money on breakfast lunches and snacks in their office. And they were tired of you know, ordering dinner every single day are just sandwiches. So it is a platform that's really for all chefs. But typically what we see is initially it's your call it your your mid level to high level chefs that Come on, is where most of the talent is right now.

So how does the pay work and all that? Are they just paying you a flat fee every month to kind of work with hungry?

No, so so chefs don't pay us anything out of their own pocket to be on the platform. So once they apply and then get accepted on the platform and part of that process, it's a rigorous process of you actually have to cook your food for the hungry team, because we are a company. So we're going to test it that we review it, we give the chef feedback. So they're able to make fixes and things or changes if they need to. We test them on being prompt timeliness. There's a whole bunch of things that they're getting tested on there. But but once they're on the platform, they are setting their own prices for their meals, we give them lots of guidance, like here's what the market, you know, you know, can take on a sandwich menu or on a chicken dish or on a pasta dish, whatever the case might be. And they set their own prices and then hungry as a company, we mark it up to provide enough room for us to make money off of the transaction as well, that will cover our delivery costs, our catering equipment, and marketing and sales and all those different things. So

the chef sets their own prices and keeps all of it. I love that because i think you know, there's been so many of these platforms come out in the past couple of years and so many of them seem kind of predatory. To the chef. You know, I think my biggest concern is like these chefs want to leave a restaurant to start their own business and then they get on these places. forms and then they're essentially making, you know, $15 an hour like they're making working in a restaurant, a lot of them lose their, their own branding. You know, one of my concerns is I've looked at a couple of these and I, I've been established for 10 years now. And they say, Well, now your Chef Chris at hungry, or, you know, whatever company it is, you've lost all your branding, and now they're taking this huge cut, and basically paying you you know, like, 20% of all the food money you bring in. And that's just kind of ridiculous.

Yeah, that I'd say, that's probably one of the main reasons why we've had such an influx at learning we've had over, you know, 1000s of chefs applied to be on this platform. So, again, part of it part of the flipping this industry on its head is also figuring out how do you incentivize and monetize the chef side in a way that works for everyone. So there isn't a lot of room in food, right in the what people are willing to pay. And, and the raw ingredients, and the time that the chef, you know, has to spend to make all the food, there's very small slices for different parties to take. So what we typically do is our business targets, companies that are subsidizing food fully, or partially but But typically, it's fully, and they have decent budgets to do that, you know, lunch for $12 to $15 per person. And then we help the chef's get wholesale pricing on their ingredients, because usually an independent shop doesn't have a ton of buying power, but hungry will back them. And we will help them get that from, you know, wherever they're sourcing their ingredients from. And then we make sure that the chef is happy with what they're receiving. This is worth their time, they're making really good money, they're profiting, they're successful, they can pay their rent to the kitchen that they're operating out of. And then hungry will take its piece, which again, helps just cover the costs of essentially running this enterprise business that you know, has sales, marketing, delivery, all these different parts and pieces to make this thing grow. So, you know, thankfully, our chefs, generally across the board been very, very happy with it, which is why they go full time on this. It's reliable business, it's high income. And the hours are awesome. Our chefs work from call it six to 7am. till about 1130. And they're done for the day. Because it's a breakfast and lunch catering, which was where corporate America, you know, typically caters to the office. So our chefs are done. before noon, they can go home, you know, get ready for the next day, hang, hang with the family, you know, do whatever they want to do. So it's no longer the days of the restaurant, you know, keeping you till two in the morning, especially on a weekend.

It's pretty sweet. I worked for a catering company that that's what they did was just corporate catering. The guys were big sports fans, they want to have season tickets to all the games, they didn't want to have to work on Saturdays or Sundays, they just wanted to go in and do breakfast lunch and call it a day.

If you're looking for like a better work life balance. And most chefs don't have that, that it's just it just the industry doesn't allow for right, we all go out to restaurants when during dinner. And then after dinner is over at eight, nine, there's like three hours of cleanup that has to happen. And just because there's so much, especially on the weekends, so you know, delivery, the amount of income, they make the work life balance, like these are all things that make this very attractive for for chefs. And ultimately, we want this to be the platform where a chef graduates from culinary school, and then they don't have to go to a restaurant. If they don't know this is another alternative. They can join the hungry platform. Pay $502,000 a month rent at one of these commercial kitchens. And that's basically all the risks that they take on.

Yeah, I love it. I mean, this is Chefs Without Restaurants, my whole community are people who don't want to work in restaurants. I mean, I've been in food since 1992. And I've literally never worked in a restaurant. And people always say like, how is that possible? Well, I worked in corporate catering, I worked for IKEA. I've worked in r&d kitchens, I worked for FedEx, like I just never wanted to work till like two in the morning, 80 hours a week.

I think most chefs don't want to do that. They want to be their own boss to a certain degree. They want to make the food that they're passionate about. They don't want to go into a restaurant and make the restaurant owners menu. The problem just is that a lot of the chefs are, there's the business side that you've got to bring to the table. That's That's hard. It's complicated, especially in that world. There's a delivery side that's even more complicated and even more messy, you know, finance side, there's just all these different parts and pieces that they don't really teach us in culinary school to the degree that we would need to be able to branch out on our own. And for those chefs that are thinking like, Well, let me open up a restaurant. That's a million dollar investment minimum with you know, 80% failure rate in the first few years. Not something awesome to look forward to and you're just trying to create an alternative for them like hard workers, they make food that everybody consumes and eats and enjoy. So, you know, I think it's time that you know, the industry focuses on The chef's to figure out well, how do we make this work for them?

I in many of my personal chef colleagues have focused on the high end stuff, you know, you've got to trade on volume a lot. If you're doing $12 meals, I would rather do 10 meals at $100 ahead than 100 meals at $10. ahead. Have you ever thought about doing anything like that kind of working on a higher end with a more intimate chef experience.

So we started doing that before COVID, just because our you know, the CEO of x company who had hungry in their office now wants a private dinner party, you know, for a kid's birthday, or for whatever the case maybe that business is, chefs love that business. Because it's, it's fewer you can spend more time on it doesn't mean it's easier. It's just, you know, there's just certain things that makes it makes it more lucrative and better. But the problem is, the reason why we don't go all in on that is the concept behind the hungry platform is to level the playing field for all chefs, there's just not enough, I'll call it elite business, you know, $100 per person meal business to cover all the chefs out there that want to be a part of the platform. So you create a platform that captures, you know, pretty much all of the corporate catering business, and then there's offshoots of that where they want hire in this hire. And that but this Justin can knock out as well.

I guess for me, that was my way of running a restaurant without having to run a restaurant because I really wanted to get into that intricate stuff. But I mean, there are so many people out there doing the corporate catering that this really makes sense for them, in my opinion.

Yeah, we, you know, we had a chef on our we still have a chef on our platform, she's Filipino, she came to this country used to work in the airport at a restaurant, just as a line cook, making, you know, sandwiches and burgers and just American food, she joined our platform, as a total, you know, side business. She's been with us now for two plus years, she makes $40,000 a month, because people love her authentic Filipino food. She's like a favorite by companies. And, and, you know, she's, she's told us, I've never made this much money in my entire life. total economic freedom, she obviously doesn't work at the airport anymore. And her prices, you know, she's doing 10 to $12 lunches per person. But she's pulling in, you know, over 15 $20,000 a month in net profit. So there's, you know, you can go, you can get the high end business and make, you know, make what you need to, and that's really, that's a very lucrative and interesting business there. And then there's the called the mid level where it's more volume to your point. But there's just, there's just so much of it these days, because there's so many companies that are spending on food, to keep their employees happy to keep them motivated. And, you know, my generation doesn't want to have Panera Bread every day, they're very smart about what food they eat. And you can't get that if you just go online, and you're looking at the different local restaurants.

My only thing with the volume is then you also have to employ people, because it's near impossible to do that kind of volume. And then you're back into being an employer and all the things that come along with being an employer, and I think a lot of us get into this business. So we don't have to be employers anymore.

Yeah, so the most I've seen is, they will be you know, the person who's on the platform will have a team could have a team of 123 people, you know, washers cutters, and they all work in the incubator kitchen together as a team. So I've seen that, I'd say probably 60 to 70% of our chefs are, you know, one person shows, but then there's a, you know, 20 25% that have a small team of one or two or three people just because they do produce the higher volume,

I would have thought that you'd have more people with a team that's good to know that it's still like 60 or 70% are doing it solo.

Yeah, no, they are. They're the average, you know, on our platform was closer to 10,000 a month, it was like eight to 10,000 a month. And that's much more manageable for one person. You know, depending on what the order is, you know, they might be clicking every day, a couple times a day, they might be cooking twice a week, because it's bigger volume. So it just depends on on what these orders are. And, you know, in New York, we launched in New York and Boston, Atlanta, DC, Philadelphia, and Austin in Dallas. And, you know, these are all markets where food to the office, you know, I mean, all the markets in the US really pre COVID food to the office was just the norm. So we will strategically go after the ones that are very dense, lots of foods going into the offices and we knew we would be able to capture that audience.

So do you have any big new things on the horizon you're working on?

We during COVID we launched hungry virtual experiences which was putting our ships on Zune and having them teach Microsoft Google's you know, these companies how to cook a dish for one hour. And that was the company's way of keeping their employees engaged on the zoom and having fun, but we would also send chips of food and cutting boards and knives and different parts and pieces for that experience, that business rocketed to the moon very, very quickly. You know, we went from zero to over a million dollars a month in just a couple couple months it was it was, you know, incredible growth. So we are growing that business and expanding it, even though people will come back to the office, there's going to be still a big portion of the market that that stays virtual. And so they will always want to be involved in the team activities. So what we're doing is creating these hybrid experiences where you can be at home, you can be, you know, in California and Texas in the office, and everyone can engage in the experience, whether you're live or whether you're on zoom, with these very well designed kits that we send people in a really talented, you know, Chef, most of our chefs are celebrity chefs or TV chefs, so they put on a really good show.

So many people have great ideas, but they can't execute, you've started really successful businesses. Is there a track? Like what do you attribute your success to?

You know, if you are starting a business, I my My first suggestion is something that my brother, who is my co founder in these companies on taught me, which is fine to co founder. The reason for that is the next point, which is don't stop. The reason why I think, you know, entrepreneurs are generally the ones who are successful, why are they successful, it's mainly because they don't stop what they're doing. They just keep going and they keep going. Even if they keep hitting, you know, one wall after another, they will keep pivoting and go pivot and go. And the only way to really do that and stay motivated is if you have a co founder, who is constantly helping cheer you on. And then when he's down, you're up and you're down, he's up, it helps make sure that you don't stop, and that you do continue to move forward and pivot and move forward. At some point along that that line of pivoting, what you offer will fit with what the market wants. And then that's when the business is really born and it starts to take off and it starts to grow. But to get there, there is a little bit of a grueling process of hitting lots of walls, having super sad days and nights where it doesn't work, cheers, all that stuff. And a co founder will help you get over these humps and these hurdles. If you're alone, it's really, really hard to do that, it's very easy to say, Oh my God, this isn't gonna work, I'm done. I'm going to go back to a nine to five.

But it's also hard to find a co founder as someone who's I don't know, I've tried to bring a couple people in with me and you think you have the right fit, and then you don't have the right fit. And then you feel like you're starting from scratch again, I think, you know, personally, I've gotten a little gun shy, you know, you you bring someone on, you bring him into the inner circle, you try him out your work together for a year or so. And then it's like, they're not the right fit. And then it feels like starting from scratch again.

Yeah, finding a, you know, there's probably, you know, books that are written on how to find a good co founder. You know, one of the reasons why my co founder is my brothers, because there's a level of trust that is inherently there. You just know the person's DNA, you know, what they're thinking how they think, you know, what you can, you can rely on them for. So, you know, finding a co founder that you've never met before is not probably ideal, you definitely want to look within your own network, who's like minded, who has the same energy, and who's very, very trustworthy. And who wants to be an entrepreneur as well. And usually people find those folks in college, at some point along their educational career, or, you know, at their first job together, they came up with an idea. But yeah, it's not easy to find, find that right co founder. Well, besides

your brother, who do you really admire, it can be someone in business, someone in the food world, or just someone personally,

you know, I honestly probably say, my dad, because, you know, he's a person who came to this country, you know, overseas 30 years ago, couldn't speak English, work, the, you know, McDonald's every, you know, all those jobs and trying to figure out how to make it work. But he was very entrepreneurial, started his own company, a construction company than a home building company. And it was success after success. And kind of watching that as I was younger. just the sheer hustle that a human being can have to just not stop and just keep going and keep going. I think that helped teach me you know, I went to law school, I was supposed to be a lawyer. And I think it showed me this is a much more exciting path. This is a much more rewarding path to be able to employ people and hire people and grow businesses. So you know, I probably answer that question and say, my dad,

it's inspiring to see someone in your family specifically kind of lead the way like that, you know, my dad didn't start his own business, but he worked at the same company for 40 years, I guess for for better or for worse. You know, I saw a lot of good things, but a lot of that also pushed me to not want to work for the same company for 40 years and to kind of go out and start my own thing.

Yeah, I think what your parents do very much shapes, you know how you end up, you know, turning out, essentially, whether you do what they do, or they go in totally opposite direction. My brother was an entrepreneur after he got out of James Madison University undergrad, and kind of watched him that I wanted to do that. And now his success, my you know, my success. And now my sister who's now in the working world has started her own, you know, company as well. So kind of, everyone's kind of following in that in those footsteps. And I try and meet with a lot of friends who do work at other companies. And it's like a mission of mine to pull them out, and have them do what they want to do, which is, you know, they all got an idea and a concept and something that they're more passionate about. It's just about taking on the risk and being okay with, you know, being comfortable with, you know, the the level of risk that that entails.

And I think surrounding yourself with people who are supportive. I mean, there's, there's caution, but I know when I went to start my own business, there was a lot of people who are very comfortable and their jobs, and they didn't understand, you know, I was at a job that I had been at for 10 years with all the benefits and bells and whistles, and they just couldn't conceive of me starting from zero in their opinion, and a lot of them weren't supportive, but a lot of them were and I think also surrounding yourself with the right people.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, I'll say it's probably not for everyone. It is, you know, at certain times, gut wrenching, it is very difficult. It's not easy in the first year, so, but the big bud is, if you are successful, if you do make it through that, you know, there's really no cap or no ceiling on what you're able to accomplish, having the right people around you, you know, as you're doing that is important. You know, talking to other founders and entrepreneurs who are doing it successfully. Creating that friend group is important, just you're going to learn a lot from them. And it also just the main piece of this, like, Can you stay motivated through the tough times? My thing, you know, personally, I believe most businesses fail not because the idea is bad. Not even because the execution is bad. It's because at some point they got demotivated just stopped. And versus, you know, rather than trying to innovate and fix and continue,

and if anything this past year has shown, everyone, you, you know, have to either adapt or you you don't. And then

I think that this generation of entrepreneurs will be incredible. Over the next few years, you will see lots of incredible companies being born, this generation that went through COVID, and was forced to figure out how to do things differently. They're going to be natural entrepreneurs and natural picketers and natural innovators. And so what we should see out of this very, you know, again, crappy time, is on the other side, a lot of, you know, amazing businesses that are going to, you know, help people in general, you know, live better lives and do better things.

So is there anything you want to leave our listeners with, before we get out of here today?

You know, for the, for the folks who are in the culinary industry, and you are thinking about, you know, how do you start your own business and all the things that come with it. best advice is take that leap, try it, you know, the risk is, it's risky for everyone, but very rewarding if you keep on going at it. If you find platforms like hungry, and others that help kind of ease you into it even better. But there's a lot of amazing tools out there that can that can make an entrepreneur successful. And there's lots of innovating, that that needs to happen in the culinary world. It just needs some some really great people to to make it happen. Again, this past year, we've seen a lot of changes that COVID and just the state of things in the world have kind of sped up some of the changes that I think need to happen in the restaurant industry.

So it's, I'm optimistic for the future there.

Yeah, yeah. Same. I think we're gonna see some amazing things over the next few years.

Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate having you, if any chefs want to start working with hungry, what's the best way for them to start?

If they visit our website, hungry, calm, they can apply to be a chef right there. And you know, we have a whole chef network team, they'll get back to them quickly. They'll talk to them, and they'll put them, have them, you know, apply and go to our process. And then hopefully, they'll be on the platform.

It sounds great. And I really hope some of our chefs reach out and can start growing their business even more. Very cool. I appreciate you. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thanks so much. And to all of our Chefs Without Restaurants listeners, this has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. As always, you can find us at Chefs Without restaurants.com.org and on all social media platforms. Thanks so much, and have a great day. Thanks for listening to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. And if you're interested in being a guest on the show, or sponsoring the show, please let us know. We can be reached at Chefs Without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.