Family info: I live with my husband Kyle and two sons, Quintin (five) and Desmond (two and a half).
Pets: Two dogs (Lola and Zeke) and four chickens (Pepper, Blue, Queenie and Nelly).
What is the name and description of your business?
Feast & Fettle is a fully-prepared meal service that delivers across the Northeast. Cross grocery shopping and cooking off your to-do list, and order food for the week ahead right to your doorstep. With weekly-curated menus—complete with entrées and sides, packable lunches and family dinners—F&F has something for every kind of eater around your table.
Before starting Feast & Fettle, what did you do?
Ahead of launching Feast & Fettle in 2016, I was a personal chef and nanny to a wonderful family with three young girls. There I witnessed firsthand the chaos enveloping many households with kids. At the height of it all was the evening routine—juggling homework, preparing dinners, crafting lunches for the next day, and (after all that!) the bedtime hustle.
Eventually, I started working as a personal chef to many more families and it struck me deeply how something as essential as dinnertime could become a major stress point. Through my work—thoughtfully sourcing, preparing, and packaging meals for the week—I saw a transformation in the lives of my clients. Dinner shifted from a chaotic obligation to a time of connection. Witnessing the weight lifted off parents’ shoulders and seeing families genuinely enjoy meals again filled me in turn with immense joy.
Working as a personal chef fed pretty directly into starting Feast & Fettle, which I launched with my best friend Nikki. We got our start in a shared-use commercial kitchen at a Rhode Island culinary incubator non-profit called Hope & Main.
What did you have to do to start?
At the outset, Nikki and I wore every hat: We hand-selected ingredients, prepared and packaged all the meals ourselves, and then personally delivered each order. And that’s not to mention dealing with the branding, accounting, and marketing. We experienced a lot of sleepless nights troubleshooting this or that—whether that meant getting our first website up and running or refining a recipe.
What have you learned in the process of starting your own business?
Over time I’ve learned to embrace the journey at each stage, whereas back when we first launched I was overly fixated on getting everything “right”. If I could, I’d remind my younger self to shed the fear of failure and emphasize the importance of persevering through tough moments and having faith in the process.
As a business owner, I’ve also learned how crucial it is to be flexible and willing to adapt. For example, at a certain point I realized Feast & Fettle wouldn’t survive without formally written recipes. Like many chefs, I was reluctant to write down recipes as I preferred to cook with fewer boundaries, relying on techniques I had honed over the years. But I chose to evolve in the direction our business was growing, and our recipes became essential for scalability, inventory management, and placing purchase orders.
Finally, Feast & Fettle’s mission resonates on a much deeper level now that I myself have become a mom. Now I’m more than just a witness to the daily chaos of raising kids; I wake up to it every morning. In the midst of everything, it’s become all the more important for me to find the time to pause and soak in those precious family moments. So even for me, getting F&F deliveries has been integral to maintaining routines and connecting over dinner every night. And that’s especially the case when I’m working on a tight deadline—for instance in writing my upcoming cookbook.
What is the mission of Feast & Fettle?
Our mission lay in simplifying mealtime for busy families and individuals juggling endless responsibilities! I say it all the time, but from the outset, Feast & Fettle was never just about food. It’s always been about helping people reclaim time in their busy lives to just slow down and take a breath. And the way we approach that is through simplifying mealtimes—to make delicious and nourishing family dinners not only more accessible, but achievable on a regular basis.
What is your best tip for others looking to start their own business?
Launching a business isn’t a linear path; it’s about navigating the rollercoaster of ups and downs. So anticipate mistakes and be ready to learn from them, because success lies in being equipped to unearth valuable lessons and solutions from within the fluctuations.
Just for fun, what are some of your favorite books?
My recent favorites are: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and The Change by Kirsten Miller.
Where can we learn more about Feast and Fettle?