Why yes, I would like a private chef in Aspen.
We have been doing this for a while now and we at Gather and Forge would like to think that we kind of know what we are doing. We came up with the idea of Gather and Forge because of the lack of home cooked meals in the kitchen and we wanted to be the solution. A solution that would be fit for a kind and his queen while they are vacationing in Aspen, Colorado is now what we are thinking is going to be our best move.
When we think of the service that we have built in Austin, Texas we think of the people that have helped us get this far. In fact, without any of them we wouldn’t even be thinking about actually making a marketplace for chefs in Aspen. We kind of touched on this in the last blog post but we wanted to put it even further in the air and let the humans of the internet allow us to take this crazy idea to Colorado and make something out of it. You see, we are not just a private chef company, we are a solution to a problem. The problem you ask? Is to get healthy and delicious food into the bellies of people that have been on the slopes all day, enjoying what the great outdoors has to offer!
While we were brainstorming about the next places to go with out services we went over the almost every place imaginable. Being that we are based in Austin, we thought about going to Houston or Dallas but what we really wanted to do was to create a lifestyle brand. A company that allows it’s clients to live loose, and what better way to do that than food. One thing that we all know is that food is non-negotiable.. we all need it. Some of us like it easy, and some of us like beautifully articulated and thoughtful dishes that send us into our wildest dreams as if we were on a magic carpet in the movie Aladdin.. I cannot believe that I just typed that. Anyways, back to the meat of the story. That magical place, as many of us know it, IS Aspen, Colorado. What did Lloyd say to Harry about this amazing place? Let me refresh your memory if you have not seen the movie Dumb and Dumber in a while.. “ A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little place called ASPEN.” Even Harry and Lloyd knew that this was the right place to be.
Offering a private chef service really is not for everybody. Actually, we have to really think quite a bit when we are thinking about offering our services in a different part of the country. Austin has been so good to us that we have to make sure that we are remaining focused on building systems that will support a personal chef service here in Aspen, Colorado. There are a lot of things that are involved with this service that many people are not aware of. Typically, we are dealing with quite an elitist crowd and with that comes private jets, huge houses, expensive belongings… you get the point. Making sure that all of our clients are taken care of is our biggest concern, as it always has been and we won’t launch in Aspen until we are ready and able to make sure that can happen. Knowing the space, people and grocery stores are the first things that we need to wrap our heads around. We are getting pretty excited… maybe too excited!
Many people don’t know this but I (Ryan Francis) spent a lot of time in Colorado when I was just out of my failed first year in college. Colorado was pretty much where I found out what “fine dining” was. It changed the course of my life and I didn’t even know it at the time. I started out as a bus boy in a restaurant called Allred’s that was located in Telluride, Colorado. Of course, like anybody on this planet would, I fell in love with Colorado. It has always been a secret goal of mine to go back with an idea and really make a crack at it. There will be more to come on the blog about the Aspen thing. Who knows, I might even want to bring a little Texas fair to there. The Inn at Little Nell is where my mentors came from to open their restaurant here in ATX. Maybe I will go back and give a little bit of love, but in a new technologically savvy way. Peace!
-Ryan