We recently connected with Aric & Yukari Bianchi and have shared our conversation below.
Aric & Yukari , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a customer success story with us?
Yes, we had a little accidental encounter recently.
We saw someone was looking for a personal chef because her chef had canceled the service for four days before her wellness retreat workshop.
Not all heroes wear capes. Chef Aric’s superpowers were not superhuman strength or X-Ray Vision for sure. But, he came up with a menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that were all different and individual meals for the four days in the shortest amount of time we had. We packed up our truck with most of our kitchen gadgets, groceries for the first few days, our clothes, chargers, and some other stuff we did not know why we had brought to Estes Park.
The person who planned the retreat and everyone else welcomed us with warm, open arms, and we immediately felt at home when we got to their place.
Every meal we brought to their table, they were grateful for, gave us compliments every time, and we loved seeing them enjoying our dishes. Little by little, the ladies started asking us cooking questions or other things such as how we met or how we started our business. We were so happy to know that they were also comfortable with us. At the end of the 4th day, Chef Aric and I were a bit sad when we said goodbye to each of the beautiful ladies as we had been friends for a long time.
We have many reasons why we started our Personal Chef journey, but a time like this is special for us. When we see our clients’ happy faces, it makes our hearts dance, and when we feel a connection between our clients and us through our food, it’s like magic just happened. We felt that our relationship transforms to be more intimate and personal. That moment is our highest moment for being a personal chef, and we sure crave it.
The funny thing was the universe knew that our previous plans had been shuttered earlier (just like her original plan), and it opened up an even better opportunity like this for us! What a great experience we had with them! After all, everything works out the way it should, and it did!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born and raised in Colorado, lived in Japan from age 14 to 20, and my wife Yukari and I lived in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a little over two years. My mother was Polish, and my father was Italian. As you can see, all those aspects define my cooking style.
I like to take dishes you know very well and reimagine them into something recognizable but different – to a new level. I love world cuisine and specialize in blending different cultures into my dishes. My cooking experience mostly comes from the professional restaurant world, as I studied with some of the best chefs in Colorado. I provide everything I know to you and your family. I am so excited to serve you.
We’re a husband and wife team with multiple years of fine dining experience, and multi-cultural background, proudly based in and serving the Denver/Aurora & Metro Denver Area in Colorado. Our mission is to bring professional dining to your table for you, your friends, and your family and to make an unforgettable dinner on your special day.
Our Company’s name has a deeper meaning; We use “U” as “You” and “I” in English, so it’s “YOU” and I. But “YOU” means Friends, and I mean “Love” in Japanese as well, along with the Chinese Character 友’ which symbolizes ‘Friend’ and ”愛’ which symbolizes ‘Love.’
Personal Chef Services is still somewhat new to many people, and we love our clients to have a fine dining experience with elegant, delicious, and thoughtful dishes without leaving their homes. Chef Aric and I get to know our clients individually, their favorite cuisines, their likes, and dislikes, food restrictions, and allergies that we may need to know at our complimentary consultation. Chef Aric creates a unique menu just for them, and he will adjust the menu until they are happy with the proposal. We go shopping and hand-pick the best quality food a few days before the event day. We prepare, cook, and serve it, and clean the kitchen at the end of the party. The clients and the guests can relax and enjoy each other without worries or distractions. We have only one reservation for the night, and our focus is completely on them.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I lived in Osaka, Japan as an exchange student for seven years. I went to an all-boys Buddhist high school and learned Ken-do (a Japanese form of fencing with two-handed bamboo swords; it developed as a safe form of sword training for samurai.) Ju-do, and enjoyed tea ceremony lessons. (I learned Urasenke, The founder was Sen no Rikyu who is best known for perfecting the Japanese tea ceremony)
I started working at a club when I started going to college, and there was a food truck that served tacos, nachos, beers & margaritas nearby. I met my wife Yukari there. We sat next to each other at a bar, had a casual conversation, and ended up working at the food truck together. Since then, we have been sharing our lives; the fact is, it is our 30th anniversary in September. Working together for the last few years has been a blast. She has good computer and social media skills, and she helps me when we have a private party/event, so I can focus on menu creations and execute each dish for our clients to have the best experience.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I am not sure this applies to your question, but we have been focusing on our business from the beginning. When we started, it was our top priority to establish our business. Of course, we could not rely on our business to kick in right away, so we had other side hustles to make it grow. My wife Yukari is supporting us by training dogs (previously, she had her dog training company for 12 years), dog walking, and pet sitting. I was more all over. I took handyman jobs, took several bartending shifts, and helped clean kegs at a local brewery. You name it. Thankfully we are slowly starting to see that our business is growing, and we are happy that we do not have to rely on other side hustle gigs too much anymore.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.unipersonalchef.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/unipersonalchefservices
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/unichefco
- Other: TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@unipersonalchef
Image Credits
Yukari Bianchi