We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Leo Hudson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Leo, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

I’ve considered this question several times over the course of opening the doors to my cooking experience. Now that I know most of the ins and outs of opening a business I really understand the meaning of the phrase time is money.

I spent almost a year paying rent for a location that I couldn’t use due to delays caused by the city. That ended up costing me over $12k in rent that did nothing but line my landlord’s pockets.

Trying to get my contractor, architect and the city officials on the same page was like herding cats. This caused me to spend money on construction that I ended up having to remove. Ultimately that cost me another $10k that I could have saved by having one point of contact.

In my dream of the perfect opening of my cooking experience, I would have first paid a little more up front for a location that has more visibility and already had most of the items I had to install. Like a 3 compartment sink, grease trap, and electrical hookups for ovens and hoods. Right away that would have put me in a better situation because I wouldn’t need to wait on the city to approve my tenant improvements and I wouldn’t have had to buy all the above mentioned items.

With the money I saved from moving into a location which was ready to go I would have invested my signature spices and sold those on the side along with recipes to gain more of a passive income. Being solely reliant on selling classes when you haven’t gotten your name out as much as you’d like is a Hussle.

Finally, now that I’m familiar with the city employees and know who makes the final decisions on business issues like mine, I would have gone straight to the top to hear what I can and cannot do from the horse’s mouth. This would have been huge to avoid all the “I’m not sure about this, let me call my manager…” who then has to call their manager and so on and so forth.

I would have reached my goal faster, spending far less money and with far less of a headache. You live and you learn and I definitely learned a lot through this process.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always been interested in food and cooking. The science behind creating delicious meals fascinates me. Even during my 14 years in the insurance world cooking was my Zen after a long day managing a team handling auto accident claims. When I knew there was no getting through to a customer I would drift off and start thinking about what new exciting dish I could make for dinner that night. My self taught culinary skills started to get exponentially better. I graduated to catering parties, working private chef events and getting a decent following. All while working insurance.

Fast forward to 2020. Covid brought a lot of change including re-evaluating my situation. I decided insurance wasn’t for me anymore and I wanted to go 100% culinary. I used my savings plus a kickstarter campaign to get the funds to create Chef Leo’s Food Lab. I wanted to create a cooking class that was more laid back than what I had experienced in the past. I didn’t want an emotionless chef explaining what a knife is for 30 minutes just so you could make a very basic meal. Speaking of, I didn’t want my meals to be basic. I wanted customers to come in and create something they never thought they could create and see how easy it was. I wanted customers to share my passion for cooking. So this is what I created in Chef Leo’s Food Lab.

I love cooking and you’ll see that immediately when you come in the door. I treat everyone like family and let you know that Mi Cocina es tu cocina. I go over some safety points like knife and oven safety but I stress that the point of this class is to have fun and no one ever “messes something up”. Like Bob Ross said, there are no mistakes just happy accidents. Unlike other classes, the theme changes daily and we make about 5 different courses. Also we come together when it’s all done to have a family style dinner. You leave with recipes, new friends and a full stomach.

I am most proud of the customers who have come in with a less than glowing view of their own cooking skills and left with a confidence they didn’t have before. They leave talking about what they’re going to cook that weekend because my class just energized their creativity.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I have been using Squarespace to build and maintain my website since opening. Squarespace has been a tremendous help in getting all of the things i need to keep my business running in once space. It takes orders, it calculates tax, it has macros to create letters and much more. The website builder on Squarespace is also the most user friendly interface I’ve ever used to build a website. I was able to create a beautiful page knowing very little about web construction. The only con I have experienced is the cost. The basic website isn’t too expensive but when you start adding online sales, advertisements, additional pages, etc. it begins to add up. Otherwise it is an excellent resource for a small business.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

After being in corporate America for 14 years I had developed a sort of fake self. I had the fake corporate laugh, I talked about things a certain corporate way and I simply lost myself to a business version of me. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great persona to survive and climb the ladder in the office but it doesn’t generate a lot of comfort to people coming into your establishment for a good time.

It seems strange to say but unlearning how to be fake and re-learning how to be my genuine self has been difficult. Once my kitchen opened I realized I needed to find that old self, so I started going back to the things that made me happy. I was a runner before I got deep into the corporate world so I restarted my running routine. Running 20 miles a week has not only improved my health it’s improved my general mood. I also got back into meditating which reduced my stress levels so I wasn’t on edge for most of the day like I had been in the office. Lastly, I started traveling more. Experiencing new people and new places worked wonders for my psyche. Leaving town without worrying about what work was going to greet me when I went back into the office was a weight off my shoulders. I could actually enjoy my experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: Chefleotonight.com
• Instagram: @Chefleotonight @leohudsoncooks
• Facebook: Chef Leo’s Food Lab
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfMW9nTePFoduWOJ3tE8-WQ/featured
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/chef-leos-food-lab-mesa

Image Credits
Emilee Jensen TechBees Events