We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jenni Burdette a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jenni, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.
The beauty in owning your own business is having total creative freedom! If you’re more of an artistic type you know that having perimeters around your creativity can be less than inspiring. When I worked in the kitchens of restaurants there wasn’t a lot of freedom. There were strict recipes, plating and guidelines that corporate would have in place. A really cool thing about being independent is you get to call the shots on how you want it! For me, that means creating an entire experience, down to every last detail to make it the most personal to the client. My services extend beyond just delicious food and also include party planning, table settings, meticulously arranged florals, balloon garlands and custom menus. It’s the details that really make it so special!
Jenni, 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 my journey with food getting really into healthy cooking. I learned about macros and working within the constructs of only using whole and natural ingredients. For me, it was more of a lifestyle change. I spent a year watching YouTube videos, reading cookbooks and a lot of trial and error before I took the leap to go to culinary school. Naturally, I’d always been inspired by aesthetics, perhaps some of it was OCD. But I loved the ritual of setting the table, creating an ambiance and celebrating life. Not just the big wins, but the day to day practice that comes with sitting down to a meal shared with others and appreciating life’s abundance. So cooking and creating a beautiful space to enjoy it was sort of my love language.
What am I most proud of? That’s an easy one – I built a business doing what I love and a client book of people who appreciate it.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
While I was working in the restaurants I would cook on the side. Dinner parties, meal prep or the occasional cake. I answered an ad on craigslist for a personal chef and it ended up being a prominent family in Highland Park. I loved working for families so much I left the beat down of the restaurant industry. This family referred me a lot of business amongst their friends and family and my network grew. I never considered being private, I couldn’t find a chef that was willing to let me work with them so I had to figure it out on my own.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
I don’t spend any money on advertising. Luckily my business is organic, mostly word of mouth or google search with great reviews to back me!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.craftandharmony.com
- Instagram: craftandharmony