Your eighteen years of enthusiasm and loyalty has been deeply and personally felt. Getting to meet and know so many good people has been a gift. We did not know, had no inkling, of how profoundly we would be moved by our patrons. We knew that at the gut-level required to make the necessary sacrifices and to risk everything we had - and more - to make it happen.
John and I knew that our concept could work and be something special. Sheree Press, Deidre Knutty Williams, Shane Williams and Germaine Wellington round out A Chef’s Kitchen’s family of Incomparables. The other members of our small team, each essential to a complete and successful experience, are likewise committed top-tier professionals and human beings. They took the time to make themselves available to help, no matter how busy they were. They were sought out during the daytime prep hours and while shopping at the grocer’s. They weren’t only asked for advice during service, but by email and phone. They wrote recipes – that worked! – and patiently answered all questions until the answers were understood. John and Nick shared their knowledge of food science and food history in an understandable and relatable way. Their chemistry added another dimension to everything they did. They handled it all with aplomb and such expertise that they made it look (almost) easy. Leaving twenty-seven people hangry was a constant risk because there was no backup food to serve if it all went south. John Gonzales’ and Nick Allen’s world-class culinary skills were executed to a high degree of excellence, in front of a live audience, five nights a week.
The former remains a daunting task, but we have accepted defeat of the latter and are permanently closing A Chef’s Kitchen, a place without peer. The struggle since then has been to come to terms with losing John and to search for a way to continue without him. The unthinkable happened in October 2021. A Chef’s Kitchen’s closure stretched out - and stretched us - until our scheduled re-opening date of November 2, 2021. Our small wine shop opened again in May 2020, but our unique business model made social distancing during our dinner classes impossible. Our twenty-seven seat ‘restaurant’ operated continuously, except for brief hiatuses to northern Michigan, through Mawhen we closed due to safety concerns over COVID-19. What a drag it must be, we thought, to pay good money to sit in that television audience and be tantalized by aromas of deliciousness without getting to savor any of it.Īn idea was born that refused to be ignored and lead to our opening A Chef’s Kitchen on August 13, 2004. We were brainstorming ideas for a business that would allow us to spend more time together, as a family and in northern Michigan, but we kept getting distracted by the sounds of the cooking show blaring from the televisions at the bar. Nearly twenty years ago, John and I were sharing a Cobb salad at a sports bar while on vacation in Michigan.
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