About Us
Friend That Cooks Personal Chef Service began offering weekly meal prep service in Wichita, KS in August of 2007 (now in 18 metros, see Services & Rates for details). It started with one personal chef, founder Brandon O'Dell, as part time work to keep him busy between food service consulting projects. Within a few weeks, Friend That Cooks weekly meal prep was such a hit, it grew to much more than a part time job.
Through years of experience in the restaurant and food service industry, Brandon knew the sacrifices cooks and chefs have to make to have a career. He believed there was a better way, and dedicated himself to creating a work environment where talented cooks and chefs could have a career without sacrificing their personal lives working the 60+ hour weeks common in the restaurant industry.
Our Mission
It is the mission of Friend That Cooks to greatly improve the quality of life for our clients AND our employees by providing superior in-home meal prep service and a superior career.
Friend That Cooks fulfills our mission to our clients by creating a work environment for our chefs they can't find anywhere in the food service industry. We attract talented chefs who are used to being overworked and underpaid, and we pay them more than they can make cooking at a restaurant or in a food delivery company. We offer our employees benefits they won't find elsewhere in the food service industry, including but not limited to paid maternity/paternity leave for both full and part time women and men, and retirement contributions for both full and part time employees.
Our Personal Chefs
Our chefs are our business. We sell Friendship, healthy eating, free time, and piece of mind. We do it by attracting the best personal chef applicants, extensively testing and screening them, exhaustively training and supporting them, and rewarding them as well as we possibly can. Our clients love our service because we love our chefs.
Friend That Cooks offers the most personal and affordable way for families with busy schedules, food allergies or special diets to put healthy, scratch made, home cooked meals on the table for their family.
We have families, couples and individuals that use our weekly meal prep service for a myriad of reasons. Some use our meal prep service for weight loss, athletic training, controlling Diabetes, treating heart disease, or simply to ease the schedule of their busy families who don't have time to cook or don't want to cook. Busy moms, dads and couples gain a lot of peace and relieve their stress over meal time through our weekly meal prep service.
In addition to weekly meal prep, our personal chefs have the culinary expertise and large repertoires of creative dishes to provide cooking parties or private dinners for family gatherings, bachelorette and bachelor parties, birthdays, anniversaries, baby or wedding showers, rehearsal dinners and every occasion under the sun.
Whether you want to hire a Friend That Cooks personal chef for weekly meal prep, a party or a cooking lesson, you can rest assured we can provide a service you will love. You will also enjoy a value unlike any other offered by a personal chef in any metro we service.
Visit Services & Rates in the menu for price details for each city.
More About Us
Here's a brief overview of what we do, our history, and who uses our service. Visit our Services & Rates pages for more details and pricing on all our services.
In-home weekly meal prep. We plan, shop, cook, clean up. You heat and eat.
In-home parties and wine dinners. We do the food in your kitchen, you enjoy your guests.
In-home cooking lessons and parties. For groups or individuals, learn to make your favorite dishes using your own equipment in your own home.
- 2007 Founded in Wichita, KS
- 2009 Expanded to Kansas City
- 2013 8 chefs
- 2014 Added service in Chicago and St. Louis
- 2015 Des Moines and Omaha now served
- 2016 Denver added, 20 chefs in 8 cities
- 2017 Indianapolis, Minneapolis added. Physical office opened in Shawnee, KS.
- 2018 Washington DC now served. 40 chefs, 5 full time managers.
- 2019 Introduced service in Dallas. Moved to larger office in Mission, KS.
- 2020 Added service to Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. 63 total employees.
- 2021 Added service to Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Nashville, Charlotte and Atlanta
- 2022 Added service to Asheville and Virginia Beach. 120 total employees.
Who uses our personal chef service?
Friend That Cooks serves busy families and couples who don't have enough time to feed their family the way they would like. We eliminate food stress by planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up, leaving them to simply heat and eat.
Many of our families have members with special dietary needs or food allergies. By cooking from scratch and customizing every menu, every week, for every family, we are able to accommodate any family's food needs.
As an hourly service, the more food our families need to make it through the week, the better value we are. We may not be the best choice for single clients, but couples who use us for more than just dinner find a lot of value in our service, and families find incredible value.