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

Alright, Nicolle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I started my company in 2016 I really struggled to find a name that fit. I initially felt very strongly against using my own name, for a variety of reasons, but I couldn’t come up with anything that felt right. So I ended up using my own name and calling it Nicolle Walker, Personal Chef Services. In 2020, I met and started working with a business coach and she began pushing me to change the company name. I had expanded my business, hired employees and it really felt constricting to carry the name of a single person when really I had built a team.

After multiple brainstorming sessions over about a 4 month period, we were on the phone again trying to find ‘the name’. I I asked her to hang on as I had received a text from a longtime client and I wanted to make sure everything was ok. The client had sent me a picture of an empy plate that was shmeared with the remains of something I had cooked for them that week, with a note that said ‘look what he ate!’. I laughed and told my coach I had gotten another picture of an empty plate, and how much I loved that my food made people so happy. We both got really quiet for a minute, and I whispered ‘Love & Plates?’ and she squealed. That’s how Love & Plates was born.

Nicolle, 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 began cooking as a second career in 2005 (I worked in hollywood for 8 years previously). I learned to cook in college as stress relief, and as I was looking at stepping away from the movie industry I felt a real pull towards the culinary world. After a quick stint in culinary school in NYC, I began running the food program for a gourmet shop on the Upper East Side.

I spent the next 10 years or so moving between high end catering in North Jersey and running Operations and Front of House for a large restaurant group in Manhattan. But when my youngest child was about 3, the burnout became very real. I was lost and feeling like a failure at work and at home. We had begun seeing some things with our oldest child that gave us pause a few years earlier, and had received an Autism/ADD diagnosis in 2013. I realized that I need to make a change, for myself and for my family.

I quit my last job in Manhattan Christmas of 2015, and spent a few months trying to figure out my next steps. This was around the time that meal kits started to break through, and I used to joke with people that I could cook their kits for them. Then one day somebody said OK. I kind of laughed but as we talked more I realized that even the kits were too much for a lot of people, and they really needed something that was even easier than that. I began playing around with concepts and began offering myself as an in home personal chef. We could create menus specific to each family, then I would do the shopping (or they could with a shop list from me) and I would come to their homes and cook and package up their meals. I quickly filled up my weeks with friends and friends of friends, and the original business was born.

As people began to learn about what I was doing, I began to receive interest from people who were dealing with dietary restrictions and health concerns. People with health conditions like autoimmune disorders, cancers, even professional athletes were reaching out. As I began doing the research to help each of these clients, I began to really see the connection between what we eat and how we feel. As I began applying these theories to my client’s health, I also began applying to my own and my family. I became a huge advoate for eating healthier. This led to learning about eat locally. I began to meet farmers here in New Jersy, and learning about how they grow and harvest. Learning about how eating locally was more sustainable, more price conscious, and healthier. The new iteration of the business was born. We began to rely on using as much local sourcing as we could. We became known as the people to call when you were sick, and when you needed to make a change. By the begining of 2020, I had grown my team to add 4 cooks and several admin. We were working in close to 20 homes a week, and loving everything we were doing. But then Covid hit, and we shut down overnight.

In 2021, I decided to try it again, but with a different format. I rented a commercial kitchen, called the farmers and told them I would take whatever they weren’t selling at the markets, and I started building family style menus that could be personalized to a point, and started sending out menus to my old client list. Withing a few months, we were back! For the last 2+ years, Love & Plates has been known as THE meal prep company to call for locally sourced, sustainably prepared meals that allow you to live your best life while still adhering to the pricipals that are important to you. As a company we support as many other small farmers, makers and companies that we can, we compost, we use recyclable containers and also offer a plan that allows you to use your own glass containers each week if you so choose. We are fierce advocates for food access and equity. We donate portions of our profits to organizations likeWorld Central Kitchen that forward the mission of feeding everyone who needs it. I sit on non profit boards built around food rescue, and I do my best to live these principals every day.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn the unconscious idea that I was irreplacable. That it always had to be ME. As I was getting ready to start building out my first team and make my first hires, I struggled with finding someone that I felt was going to do thing exactly like me. I had a business coach at the time, and one day she said to me “you WANT to find someone better than you, that’s the whole point of this’. I had to learn that it was ok for clients to not always be able to interface with me, that there were others out there that could do certain parts of the business better than I could. And that that was OK. It was a hard lesson, but I am so grateful for it.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think that I have built my reputation on being honest. My business is almost exclusively word of mouth, I think because food is so personal. You can see all the pretty pictures you want, but if the prettiest food doesn’t taste good, or the person making that food isn’t honest about what they are doing, then it doesn’t matter. I have always done my best to do what is best for each client individually. I am honest about what I can and can’t do. There are so many health conditions that I can work with, but there are some that need a finer point than I can give. or they need someone more often than I can commit to. I try to never make commitments that I don’t think I can keep. And I won’t work with someone that I don’t think I can help. My services are meant to make people’s lives easier, and if I can’t do that, then it’s not my space.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.loveandplates.com
• Instagram: @loveandplatesnj
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveandplates
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolle-walker-0a42a4
• Yelp: Love & Plates

Image Credits

Amanda Richardson Photograpy