The work culture was great. I was given lots of creative freedom. Good work and life balance. Good insurance benefits.Lots of paid days off and good support from management.
4.0
Executive Chef (Former Employee)
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our vision
We love food. And were ready to serve ridiculously good food at your University.
We’ve all heard it before. Crappy college food. Burned out Chefs. With no end to either problem in sight, something needed to change. College Chefs Owner, Chef Kevin Gadus, was on a mission to revolutionize the Chef industry. A company built for Chefs, by Chefs. We get it.
In the beginning
Chef Kevin Gadus was College Chefs, hustling around the University of Illinois in 2008, providing a one-man food service to a handful of Greek houses on campus. Eventually, Kevin crafted a system that provided him the opportunity to harness his passion and creativity for cooking, while spending his nights, weekends, and holidays with his two daughters.
A dream come true.
Today
College Chefs continues to revolutionize the industry, employing classically-trained Chefs in Fraternities and Sororities across the United States. College Chefs now extends coast to coast, creating Cool Food and giving our Rockstar Chefs the lifestyles they crave: Cook your heart out during the day and live a balanced lifestyle on nights and weekends.
Tomorrow,
we will expand on where we've been by providing even healthier, ethically-sourced food choices for our Chapters, as well as fabulous new benefits for our employees.
* We love strawberries to the point where we made it to our logo.
shaping our future
CollegeChefs Project 2020
"At College Chefs, we have already accomplished many great things when it comes to our people, our food, and our service, and we are proud of what we have accomplished, but we are not yet satisfied with where we are."
People
Currently we
- Embrace culinary freedom: Offer menu freedom to Chefs. No corporate menu rotations
- Provide dependable, full-time jobs to all employees
- Offer affordable health insurance to employees’ families
- Offer affordable dental insurance options to all employees
- Health benefits: Offer a free PPACA health plan to all employees
- Pay ALL staff over the Fall, Winter, and Spring Breaks (providing equivalent of 4-6 weeks of paid vacation), provided that they agree to complete the academic year
- Provide a 401k retirement plan and make it available to all staff
- Offer a family-friendly work schedule that is nothing like the meat-grinder that is the restaurant industry
- Pay a Chef wage that is in line with the national average while offering a superior quality of life to the traditional restaurant grind
- Employ more female chefs than the national average
By 2020, we will ...
- Offer 6 weeks of paid maternity leave to all expectant mothers after 1 year of employment
- Offer 2 weeks of paid paternity leave to all expectant fathers after 1 year of employment
- Offer adopting parents and LGBT families similar parental leave benefits
- Pay salaries that are 20% higher than the median national hourly chef wage
- Employ female chefs in management exceeding the national average
- Offer summer employment opportunities to all staff
- Provide culinary continuing education options for all staff and management by leveraging existing and new relationships with culinary schools
- Gift a rockstar “vacation for two” to all employees after 5 years of service, starting with the sixth year of employment and repeat every 2 years, into eternity. What we mean is we will actually buy them a ‘trip to paradise’ every 2 years and force them to take it! We think this is legal.
our food
Currently we
- Reduce the use of processed food products to a minimum
- Cook from scratch using real ingredients made by Mother Nature
- Serve Grass-Fed, Grass-Finished Beef in most markets as a complement to the menu
- Local produce: Use local produce vendors in all markets
- Utilize hormone-free chicken in all houses
- Eliminate the use of all artificial sweeteners (with the exception of Stevia) in food preparation
By 2020, we will ...
- Replace 100% of the Terrible 20 produce items with Organics
- Utilize Grass-Fed, Grass-Finished beef in 90% of houses and as a staple to the menu
- Utilize 100% Antibiotic-Free, Humanely-Raised chicken on our menus
"These goals will not be easy to put into practice, but they are achievable. We will continue to confront our own challenges and raise the bar we have set. If we strive to push the envelope for bettering our people, our food, and our service, we will continue to blaze a trail and widen our position as an industry leader in Sorority and Fraternity Food Service."
our service
Currently we
- Create a custom menu for each chapter -- no corporate menu rotations
- Donate to chapter philanthropies at least once per semester
- Allow students to access their menus online
- Offer a free app to request Late Plates and other interactive eating functions
- Offer natural flavored waters as an alternative to sugary drinks at no additional cost to all chapters
- Execute routine, anonymous customer surveys multiple times per academic year
By 2020, we will ...
- Offer reusable Late Plate containers to all chapters to reduce and eliminate unnecessary waste
- Offer all chapters a free meal check-in system to monitor and track meal attendance
- Recycle 100% of cardboard, plastics, and other waste that is readily recyclable by creating an all-house recycling program
- Partner with chapters to create a practical and safe on-site composting system
- Have an all-encompassing online customer portal where chapter leadership can pay bills, verify meal attendance projections, implement number changes, cancel meals (for future meal skip credit), plan special events, etc
join the food
Revolution
If you’re a Chef looking for something a little different, why not give College Chefs a try? We think that you’ll love the freedom the job allows. Are you looking for a Sous Chef, Kitchen Assistant, or Dishwasher position? We think you'll love us too!
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