What: Hello Cheffy plays matchmaker between professional chefs and people who want to hire chefs to cook for private events, usually in the patron’s home.
Expected pay: $20 + per hour
Commissions & Fees: 12%
Where: California’s Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and Ventura counties
Requirements:
- Culinary training and experience;
- pass background checks, including a criminal background check;
- appropriate food handling licenses;
- personal liability insurance is recommended but not required
Review:
Hello Cheffy plays matchmaker between professional chefs and people who want to hire chefs to cook for private events, usually in the patron’s home.
The way it works: The patron comes to Hello Cheffy, describes the event — the date; number of people; the occasion; any specific requirements or dietary restrictions — and Hello Cheffy puts the proposal to out to bid. The chefs willing to work in that area and day create proposals that include a menu and the net cost to the client. This cost should factor in your profit. The patron considers the bid and decides which chef to hire.
Outside of the initial selection process that puts chefs on the platform, Hello Cheffy does not have any say in how the chef prices his/her offerings or how he/she delivers. The site simply collects the payment and charges the chef a fee of up to 12% for the matchmaking and payment collection service.
Because the people willing to hire chefs for private events tend to be well-heeled, “they don’t tend to be tremendously cost-conscious,” according to a Hello Cheffy official. That should allow chefs to earn considerably more than $20 per hour. Meanwhile, the site believes that it provides marketing and payment collection at an effective price.
Notably, unlike (the late great) Josephine, Dish Divvy and EatWith, this is not an opportunity for good cooks who are not yet professionals. Hello Cheffy regularly turns down applicants who don’t have the requisite training and experience. At present, the geographic reach of Hello Cheffy is also severely limited.
Hello Cheffy eventually hopes to expand geographically and pick up more mid-market clients, which could be a mixed bag for chefs. Middle-market clients are more likely to be cost-conscious and consider potentially cheaper options, like hiring a caterer. That could cause job seekers to engage in counter-productive price-cutting as they do on some of the broad employment sites, such as Upwork.
However, at the moment, the opportunity appears to be better than average, if you happen to be a qualified chef in Southern California. Other cooking platforms to consider: EatWith and Feastly.
What their chefs say:
At this early stage, we have yet to find anyone willing to review the site. If you’ve cooked for Hello Cheffy, we would love to hear from you. Please hit “contact us” and tell us about the experience.
