We recently connected with Daniel Florence and have shared our conversation below.

Daniel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Many have asked what does “Frolic & Detour” mean, or where did it come from? The year was 2020 and COVID shutdowns were in full swing. I was a full time airline pilot at the time. But I was still pretty junior at my company. I knew that the future wasn’t bright regarding my seniority number at my company and the talks of pilots being furloughed across the globe were palpable. After the attacks on September 11th, 2001, thousands of pilots were furloughed–in some cases–up to a decade. I felt the scale of COVID’s negative effects on our industry were way worse than 9-11. So I was getting prepared to be absent of my airline job for up to a decade. Efforts to find any other flying opportunities were slim to none. For the first time in my life I was thrown off my career path and was walking blind, so to speak. It was an odd feeling as all I ever wanted to do was be a pilot. I was finally at the pinnacle of achieving my dreams and the rug was about to pulled from under my feet. My only other passion besides flying was cooking. As I reluctantly left the airline, I decided to earn some experience in the restaurant industry as a line cook before going all in on a food truck business. I started an Instagram page dedicated to my food creations but it needed a name. The name of the page would ultimately be the name of my food truck (or so I thought). My wife at the time was a Paralegal and knew of the legal terms “frolic & detour”. She suggested the name for the page and future business. Naturally, I liked the way it sounded. It immediately made sense considering my unexpected and unwanted detour from my airline job. And while the word “frolic” might come with some…interesting…connotations, I liked the idea of energetically and playfully moving about the food industry much like a private chef would. The term in a legal sense has similar meaning. According to Cornell Law School: “Frolic and Detour is a phrase describing actions taken by an employee that fall in varying degrees outside of the scope of employment. Generally, a “detour” constitutes a minor departure from an employee’s duties but is still considered acting within the scope of employment, whereas a “frolic” would be a major departure from the scope of employment undertaken for that employee’s own benefit.” So the name suggestion by Lauren was an immediate hit and made sense. Eventually, I determined I did not want to start a food truck business (for reasons I won’t get into here). But over the years, the Instagram account eventually transformed into my Private Chef Services page. I post some personal and flying content on there occasionally, but it is ultimately my main marketing tool (besides word of mouth business) for my Private Chef Services operation. Check it out! @frolic_n_detour.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve always loved to host friends and family wherever I have lived. From pre-gaming, to dinner and after parties, I love to bring people I love to my homes and take care of them through food, drink, and fun. It wasn’t until 2012 when I stopped just ordering pizzas and started trying to actually cook for people. The practice and passion has grown exponentially ever since. Every dish I’ve made is a learning lesson and the dishes get refined over the years. This passion for nurturing my guests is what motivates me in the Private Chef world. To get paid for your passion, I think, is a huge life victory. I love meeting with my clients (new or repeat) and consulting with them for their events. To figure out what dishes they want, buffet or plated, how many courses, how to work around food allergies, etc…is a fun challenge. I am addicted to the whole process. From consultation, menu building, practice, prep, logistics, set up, figuring out how to operate in a kitchen I’ve never seen, making sure I bring exactly what I need, executing with timely precision, guest interaction throughout the event, to clean up and packing up…the entire evolution is a lot of work but extremely rewarding. When the guests are satisfied, it makes the level of effort worth it. I truly thrive when I know that I’ve had a role in bringing someone joy. And in this business, I bring them job through my food. When I know I’ve nailed an event, I’m on cloud 9 for several days after.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I affectionately call my Private Chef business my “side hustle”. Since I am a full time airline pilot and a full time dad whenever I am home, you can imagine there is little personal time, let alone time to run a second business. For this reason, I am very selective about my bookings and usually only take up to 2 events a month. While I would love to do more, it would be irresponsible of me as a dad, and not fair to myself, to take on more than I currently am. Some people ask me if I will leave my job as an airline pilot and run this side hustle as a full time business. As passionate as I am about cooking and nurturing others through my food, flying has always been my number one passion. I love flying and “nurturing” customers through my safety centric skills as an aviator. Besides the personal gratification I get out of flying and traveling the world, I get immense satisfaction being at the controls and knowing I am directly responsible for the safety of over 300 customers at a time. I love the idea of not only flying safely, but connecting people to friends, families, taking them to their vacations, or bringing them home after long trips away. I will never leave my flying job until they make me quit. The last event I did, the guest of honor told me, “This is no side hustle, you have serious talent”. I love that feedback. I know I could do this full time if I really wanted. So, as time and life allows, I’d love to grow my business by having a handful of private chefs on my roster along with other employees. With a dependable and trustworthy roster, I could indeed take more bookings and assign chefs, prep cooks, and servers to their events. So, if anyone is interesting in working for Frolic & Detour, let me know!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Most of my clients come from word of mouth or followers on my Instagram.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @frolic_n_detour

Image Credits

Plating – Christine L Coker
Black & White – Sarah Marie Marko