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 we're 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
College Chefs Project 2020 Results
It’s hard to believe that 2020 is already here! At College Chefs, as of 2018, we had accomplished many great things when it came to the people, the food, and the service. In 2018, we set many progressive goals such as a more comprehensive parental paid leave plan, responsibly sourced meats and produce, environmentally conscious programs to reduce waste, and many more! Completing these goals in just two short years was no small task, but it’s a reflection of our commitment to improve our employment opportunities for our staff, the quality of our food, and our service for our clients. College Chefs is very excited about the progress we’ve made as a company, and we’ll continue to strive for excellence through PROJECT 2020.
Our People
Original 2020 Goals...
- 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/new fathers after 1-year of employment.
- Offer adopting parents and LGBT families similar parental leave benefits.
- Pay wages 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.
Our 2020 Progress
- We are now able to offer this benefit to all expectant/new mothers!
- We are now able to offer this benefit to all new fathers!
- Adopting and LGBT families will receive the same parental leave benefits!
- College Chefs still maintains this as a goal. We strive to keep our cost of service in line with our industry, while providing a high quality of life to our employees and unmatched value to our customers.
- College Chefs management is 30% female, exceeding the national average!
- College Chefs does offer the opportunity for our chefs to connect with Summer Camp Chefs Program! We will continue to search for more areas to support our Chefs over the Summer break.
- College Chefs is excited to announce that we’re partnering with Escoffier online. We will continue to develop partnerships so that our staff is easily able to continue their culinary education if interested!
- College Chefs discovered that consistent wellness programs provide more overall benefit to the health and well-being of our valued employees.
our food
Original 2020 Goals...
- Replace 100% of the non-organic produce with organics.
- Utilize grass-fed, grass-finished beef in 90% of houses and as a staple to the menu.
- 100% Antibiotic free, humanely raised chicken on our menus.
Our 2020 Progress
- College Chefs has partnered with US Foods and ProAct Produce to provide organic produce to all of our chefs and customers!
- Due to popular demand, we concluded that students prefer conventionally raised beef. Conventionally raised beef products will continue to be available in addition to grass-fed beef.
- All chicken sold in the US is added hormone and antibiotic free once it hits the market. “Humanely raised” continues to be subjective in the poultry industry.
our service
Original 2020 Goals...
- Offer reusable Late Plate containers to all chapters to reduce and eliminate unnecessary waste.
- Offer all chapters that wish to use it 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.
Our 2020 Progress
- Reusable late-plate containers are available to all chapters!
- College Chefs has launched a brand new mobile app that allows users to view menus, request late plates, communicate dietary restrictions, rate meals, and leave feedback. An attendance tracker is also in development stages!
- 100% Recycling will be an ongoing project. College Chefs is committed to sustainability and we have already created a National Tracking system for recycling and composting!
- College Chefs is still working to improve here. This is not practical yet, but still in our line of sight!
- A College Chefs all-encompassing online customer portal is in the works! This should be completed in the 2020/21 academic year!
join the food
Revolution
If you’re a Chef looking for something a little different, send in an application! 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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