We recently connected with Amanda Deguia and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I believe I stand apart and different from other caterers in this industry for a few reasons. One of my main differences is my offering of customized menus per client. My belief and vision is that the goal of a caterer is to cater to the client-specifically speaking, the choices shouldn’t be limited to set menus that gets repeated to every potential client. Diversity and inclusivity with the client, seasons, and product sourcing are my requirements. Custom menus are well known among private and personal chefs, however, it’s almost unheard of in the big scale catering world. Reason being, from my understanding and experience, to scale such an idea to large events can be extremely demanding and exhausting. BUT, why follow the norm? Why follow what other’s have done that’s known to work? Go out of the box, think and do big, START a trend rather than follow it! You get recognized when you’re doing something different that works, not something that’s been done a million times over.

Another big standard that I believe sets me apart is strictly cooking (and advertising) organic, local, pasture-raised, grass-fed, and wild. It’s easy for the family or smaller size groups to cook and eat using these principles, but imagine cooking and feeding an event of 100-150. Sourcing specific and quality product can be difficult at times, but it can be done. The time I take in specifically sourcing ingredients with farmers and ranchers locally, and building the strong relationships needed for that community and support, is something I hold close to my heart. Supporting local and quality product isn’t just great for our community, but for our health and body also. Which leads me into another huge standard I have-feeling good with what you eat is directly connected to the products you use. I’ve personally changed my eating about 8 months ago and have never felt better. Learning and growing my knowledge of organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, and nutrient dense foods and deeply impacted the way I cook in my business that I actually took a few months to fully grasp the effect on integrating this way of life and cooking into my business. Since I’ve made the conscious switch, I feel the most alive, aligned and driven with my business than I’ve ever felt. Quality product doesn’t need much work and should be celebrated by each individual that works with it. Local and organic product shines through unmatched by conventional produce and lights a fire within me every time I create a menu.

Using my experience from restaurants and this fireball vision, my business is as unique as they come. Every single client has seen and tasted the passion and intentionality of each dish and ingredient I use from menu creation to table. This is how I set a new standard of catering and stand out within this industry.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So my story of how my business came to be is quite a tale and a fun ride, but we’ll keep it short for the sake of the interview and reading forever haha.

I’m a San Diego native, born and raised from south bay-Paradise Hills specifically. I got into cooking from my grandma, who taught me how to cook and some traditional Filipino recipes over time. That was the beginning of my love for food and cooking, with the help of 2 of my most favorite shows, Great Chefs and Great Chefs of the World. Bouncing around from different interests and career paths, I finally found myself in culinary school in 2007 (thought I wanted to be an officer in the army, aeronautical engineer, and even aviation mechanic). Started my first kitchen job while I was in school and graduated in 2010 with starting at a new restaurant under a famed 5th generation French Master Chef. This was my defining time as he saw my potential and took me under his wing to mold me into a strong cook, and now chef. He had been my mentor for nearly 10 years, as I moved around from a restaurants in San Diego, both with and without him. Landing back with him for my last savory position in restaurants, I moved onto baking and pastry with his friend who’s also a 5th generation French baker. Here is where I spent my last few years directly in the industry, learning the ropes and beginnings of breads and pastries. At the sort of ending of covid in 2021, I was injured and couldn’t return to kitchen work at full capacity after physical therapy. This is when my business was born, under my rehab time and working with a business and life coach. From here, the business story began with different routes being offered, understanding what I want and defining myself as a chef, and why I started an LLC in the first place. Fast forward to now, 2 years in, I’m stronger than ever, learning so much about myself and my business, and what envision and dream of as success.

In this learning and growth, I’ve defined what I want to offer in my business as a cater: private dinners and event/special occasion catering. I put more emphasis on event/special occasion catering for the main reason that I find it more beneficial to connect and network with a larger group, to tell my story of food. This allows me to reach a bigger and broader group of individuals and really build a community and following of my passion and creativity. I still love private dinners and actually do them quite often, but if I had to choose 1, it would be larger events, with the end goal of weddings.

Like I mentioned, my focus with my food and vision, is to bring awareness to the food, the products, the sourcing. I’ve worked hard on building strong relationships and foundations with the specific farmers and ranchers that I use, and really understanding and sharing their story of the products. We work together to showcase the amazing and hard work that goes into the nurturing of these ingredients, from seed to plate. The intentionality of every small detail that I put into all my work is really shown, felt, and tasted by each bite by each client.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Oh this is a good one. Capital, there is none! I pretty much started the business on a whim, with whatever money I had sitting in my account. There’s a beautiful story behind this that I would love to explain in more detail in person if you’d like to hear it! But really at the time, my coach saw a need for more income for me and with how I talked about food so much he pushed me into creating an LLC. I literally put the startup fees on my credit card and used whatever cash sitting in my checking to buy supplies and start cooking. Obviously this was also during my rehab for my injury so I couldn’t do much, which I started the business by selling charcuterie platters-with the help of a friend to do the heavy lifting and cooking. From there it was literally a game of playing cash vs credit card, all on my own. No investments, no pre-saved money, no planning. Hit the ground running and have been going ever since. It’s not easy nor has it been all butterflies and sparkles. I’ve definitely hit a few moments where I had no idea how I was going to pay bills the next month, but trusting and having faith that it’ll all work out, and that this is what I’m meant to do, has kept me going, and stronger each time.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting in business, whew! I’m sure many entrepreneurs have a ton of stories and I’ve got a few in just these 2 years. The first and major one that comes to mind is shifting how I cook for business. The end of 2022 was my busiest and most successful month of the whole year, but I was starting to feel disconnected and almost disassociated with my business. I had a 2 mini breakdowns (which isn’t new) and barely pulled off 2 events. The start of 2023 was slow, and barely had anything booked, which was perfect time for me to rest and catch up on life. Because of how the previous month ended, I heavily contemplated if I still wanted to cook, and even own a business. I went into a hole, if you must, and really dived into my purpose and meaning of life. It finally came to me, after about almost 2 months, that my reason for disconnect is the way I was personally eating wasn’t aligned with my professional cooking. As I started to shift and pivot the business into a new model, including a deep rebrand, my vison and path forward became so much clearer. Feeling like I emerged from the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly, I’ve been the busiest as I’ve ever been, with intentional and aligned bookings that feels so good down to my soul.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.asd-catering.com
• Instagram: @asd_catering, @amandadeguia
• Facebook: facebook.com/ASD.Catering.LLC

Image Credits
Mike Odom, Odom Media @odommedia Angie Huang, A Huang Photo @ahuangphoto