Three local chefs are standing by to cater to your food needs — holidays, dinner parties, weekly meals — so you relax and enjoy your guests or prop up your feet after a long day of work.
Chef Shawanda Simmons of Passion Eats Catering got her start bringing her home-cooked leftovers to her workplace. The response was immediate and strong.
“They were like girl, you need to package this thing up,” Simmons said. “We offer fresh chicken wings, catfish, spaghetti. Seasoned green beans, we’re known for green beans. Collard greens. Our mac and cheese is to die for! We do red beans and rice. We do stuffed chicken meatballs, turkey meatloaf. We are a traditional soul food caterer.”
Once she started catering the jobs rolled in: celebrities, news anchors, aldermen, even a governor. She was often asked where people could get their hands on her soul food outside a special event. That led to opening a storefront in Oak Lawn and expanding to her newest Oak Park location at 7103 W. North Ave.
The location is optimized for catering, but you can also order and pick up. She offers what they call the Oak Park Family Feast. It’s food for 15 people: chicken, fish, five sides and corn muffins.
“All of our products come in fresh and are cooked fresh. We cook to order. For example, if you order some chicken wings from us, they’re going to literally be dropped 15 minutes before your scheduled time to arrive,” Simmons said.
Su Jang is another local chef. She cooks at the new commercial Hub Kitchen in River Forest and offers catering for all sizes of events. Her specialties are seafood, like her shrimp fra diavolo and crabcakes.
“We do small personal events where we’re going into someone’s home to parties with plated meals for a hundred people. We also have full bar service, with certified bartenders. And it goes beyond the food, we make sure tables are cleared and check that bathrooms are stocked and clean. People are like, ‘oh my gosh, I was able to enjoy my party. And I didn’t have to worry about cleaning up,’” Jang said.
This personal touch is part of what makes her New Rose Catering special. Jang starts with a menu, but then asks questions about favorite foods, allergies or intolerances, and will even do a tasting in advance. The fee for that consultation is deducted from a booked event’s bill.
Another offering is weekly meal deliveries.
“My unofficial tagline is solving the dreaded ‘what’s for dinner’ question,” Jang said. “Everything we make is homemade, seasonal. It’s just a healthier approach. There’s a lot of people who don’t like to cook. But then they’re like, ‘We really like ordering from you because who knew my kid really liked Brussels sprouts?’ It takes the pressure off busy families.”
Jang posts the menu for home delivery on her website each week. She incorporates both seasonal produce and eating trends. For example, she has noticed that people want lighter fare the week after Thanksgiving each year.
Another take on catering is Bethanny Alexander’s Kind Café and Catering launched in September 2024. The “café” part of the name is aspirational. Right now, she is concentrating on catering. All of her options are vegan.
“I think there is this misnomer about vegan food — that it’s weird or there’s going to be strange ingredients. It’s just food, just plant based healthy food. It’s food for everyone, because you can still make hearty soups and sandwiches and main courses and desserts and all of that and have it be made from plants,” Alexander said.
This past Thanksgiving, Alexander created a special menu, which included mushroom parsnip pot pies and cranberry pecan cookies.
“If you’re hosting, I can either do all of it for you or I can just supplement what you are doing. If you have vegetarian or vegan guests, wouldn’t it be nice to give them an entree that they can have so they don’t just have to eat sides?”
Her food is developing a following. Several customers have asked for her to create a weekly meal delivery option, but for now, Alexander is balancing a career as a real estate agent with her catering passion. Her solution is “souper” Sunday. Each week, she stirs up a batch for delivery. Recently, she made tomato and lentil soup to celebrate the final harvest of tomatoes from her garden.
Whether you are planning a blowout event, wanting to concentrate on your family at a birthday party or wishing someone else would worry about what’s for dinner, these three local businesses have you covered.