We recently connected with CHAUNDREA SIMMONS and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, CHAUNDREA thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?

I might be a bit biased because a lot of my friends have supported me from the very beginning and maintained a consistent customer relationship. I think that you should not be hesitant to ask the people that love and care about you to also support you. Don’t take it to heart if they don’t have the capacity to support you but you will never know if you don’t ask!

CHAUNDREA, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started Shea because I wanted (and still want) to show people that vegan food isn’t restrictive, that they can still have a beer and eat something that was harvested by a local farmer 5 miles away. Shea began as a vegan pop-up series in Cleveland, Ohio. I would host 4-course dinner parties at local breweries and coffee shops to highlight these local business offerings and vegan food at the same time. There are many neighborhoods in Cleveland that have a lot of fast food restaurants and limited healthy food options. A lot of heart diseases and preventable diseases are attributed to the food that is easily accessible in these neighborhoods. I strive to prove that taking small measures toward your health, such as eating a plant-based diet one day out of the week, could greatly impact your health. Since starting these pop-ups, Shea has expanded to include private dining and catering, not just to the vegans of Cleveland but many omnivores that understand that a meal prepared with vegetables can be just as satisfying. As veganism grows globally, Cleveland’s food services have been very slow to catch up: we only have one fully vegan restaurant in the city of Cleveland. I am hoping to promote healthier eating to the residents of Cleveland by providing one delicious meal at a time.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I’ve had a lot of success with building my reputation by consistently maintaining high level service and using quality ingredients. I am sure to let keep my commitments and communicate well, cranking out delicious food doesn’t hurt either!

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I used to be very bashful about telling people that I was a vegan chef. There were people would get very defensive about their food habits and try to convince me that the way I ate was wrong. After a lot of those conversations, I stopped mentioning what I did for work. Recently, I’ve become more comfortable with sharing that I am a chef. Although, I have found some people automatically get defensive, I’ve learned how to shut the conversation down and put more of my energy into the people that get excited when I tell them what I do. Shifting my focus to these potential clients has brought me much more success than even placing an ad on Facebook!

Contact Info:

• Website: eatshea.com
• Instagram:www.instagram.com/veganhouserules
• Facebook: facebook.com/veganhouseruless