Lisa Wallace Shares how "I’m The Chef Too!" Moved from Her Kitchen to Kitchens Everywhere!

by The Bloom Report | 24 Aug 2023

Biographies and Interviews

 

When I think back to how I’m The Chef Too! started, it’s hard to believe that it first began as a hobby out of our kitchen when I was eight months pregnant with our third child! I was a classroom teacher for over 10 years and loved my job, it was a creative outlet and passion of mine to take every day concepts from my curriculum and bring them to life through hands on exploration for my students. Once my husband and I started our own family, I decided to be a stay-at-home mom and raise our kids while he worked in the medical field. At that time, our oldest child was diagnosed with an auto immune disease, ADHD and on the spectrum. He had a difficult time learning at school, so I spent a lot of time with him in the kitchen and decided to combine my love of baking and cooking with my passion of teaching and infuse the two together to create interactive educational recipes for him.

 

 

Before I knew it, our relationship started to flourish, and we were connecting in the kitchen like never before. I began to use his favorite topics he loved reading about and re-create them for him from some of my recipes. Before we knew it we were traveling to outer space together and baking galaxy donuts, discovering the layers of earth and chemical reactions as we erupted edible volcano cakes, and even uncovered the properties and characteristics of rocks and gems as we whipped up our own cupcake geodes! Each recipe I created for him was not only FUN but educational! The once dry curriculum that I was teaching to my students in my classroom was now being taught through the vessel of cooking to my child. I started to post our creations on social media, and we soon had a following.

 

One day, I had a friend ask in a joking manner, when can I drop my kids off in your kitchen? That was when I’m The Chef Too! was born. We opened our newly built home to the public and started to offer classes, camps, and parties. At that time, we had two toddlers and a newborn, I really don’t know how we did it! Before we knew it, we were expanding to after school programs across counties. We had such an outpour of people who wanted to franchise our concept, that we started the process of doing so. After finishing the paperwork and filings, COVID hit. I couldn’t believe it; we were devastated as it threatened to close our doors and put us out of business. That was when we decided to box up our experiences and ship them nationwide. It was what saved us! We turned our concept from classes to kits! My husband started to drive and drop off orders to customers far and wide during the shutdown. We couldn’t believe how many we were selling; we could not keep up with demand.  The pivot was the best decision we could have ever made. Since then, the growth has taken us from our kitchen counter to a 40,000 sq foot facility. In order to support our growth, we moved our family from Maryland to Texas to be in the center of the country to ship nationwide. My husband left his job and came on board full time. 

 

 

I began to create all of our educational recipes as my husband learned how manage the logistics of our expansion. Before we knew it, we caught the attention of Universal Home Entertainment, DreamWorks, Disney, and Pixar, and now Hasbro for a multi-year licensing agreement where we launched brand new cooking kits for My Little Pony, Candy Land, Transformers Earth Spark, and Peppa Pig. 

 

I still can’t believe how far we have come. I’m The Chef Too! is now an award winning monthly educational company that blends food, STEM, and the Arts into educational fun. Children can question, create, and invent, all through the world of cooking. Each kit comes with dry premeasured ingredients, specialty supplies and a STEAM activity to enrich and extend the learning experience. Our product takes children on adventures where they not only bake and create, but they get to learn about their favorite topics! It’s crazy to think none of this would have ever happened, if our son didn’t come running into the kitchen when I started cooking without him screaming, “Wait for me, I’m The Chef Too!”

kid chefs kitchen inventor

Tait & Lily, Inventors of Betcha Can't!