Boyer Derise, owner/founder of Good Eats Kitchen, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss his career journey as a professional chef. His story is really one of being an entrepreneur who has learned to evolve and adapt to meet the needs of today's world, especially with the challenges of the pandemic.

Boyer, a Delcambre native, always loved to cook and be around the food industry. His uncle had a diner and by the age of ten, Boyer was flipping burgers. He began his professional culinary career after graduating from the Louisiana Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge along with other local chefs such as Chef Colin Cormier of Pop's Poboy's. He learned how to cook in a traditional French culinary style and also was taught the mechanics of running a kitchen and the economic realities of keeping a restaurant open.

He began his professional culinary career with Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse in Baton Rouge. That was the beginning of a 10-year career with Fleming's, where he was the youngest Executive Chef Partner in the company’s history, taking the helm of his own kitchen at age 25. Fleming's was going through an incredible expansion phase growing from 20 to 62 locations in four years while Boyer was employed with them. (Paul Fleming, a Franklin native, was the principal behind Fleming's along with Bill Allen, and then founded PF Changs and Pei Wei; he now owns Paul Morton's American Grill found throughout the Western U. S.)

The training Boyer gained from his time with Fleming's gave him more hands-on relevant learning than any classroom education would have afforded him.

Boyer also had the distinctive honor of being selected to cook for Team USA and Dignitaries at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. This came about through his future wife, Katie, a pastry chef who had first worked at the Turin (Italy) Olympics with Behind The Scenes Catering who works for NBC. Boyer networked through Katie and was hired by Behind the Scenes to run catering Olympic Pavilions for Omega and Johnson & Johnson. Although incredibly challenged by having to work with young chefs who spoke no English while putting in 20-hour days over four weeks, he looks back and realizes the experience was life-changing. As a young man in his 20's, not a bad way to learn to "adapt and overcome" in a similar mentality exemplified by the Marines.

Boyer was in a sales role with a local seafood company when he started doing meal prep in 2016 for his sister to keep her "dress ready" for her wedding. Good Eats Kitchen, in Boyer's mind, came about by accident in connection with him helping his sister and re-engaging with his first love, cooking. Timing, of course, is everything when one makes the leap from having a "side hustle" to focusing full-time on the endeavor.

Starting out working in his home kitchen for a few people at $8.00 per prepared meal, word of mouth grew this side hustle exponentially. He had always liked the 'grab and go' healthy meal concept, especially after living in Austin while working for Fleming's. For a year, he cooked out of his home kitchen; in 2017 he pulled the plug on his day job and took the plunge full-time in what would be branded as Good Eats Kitchen. His focus has always been on "just good food", without being pigeonholed into the low calorie/Keto option. It's whole food cooking, according to Boyer Derise.

Customers can order line at https://mygoodeatskitchen.com/ or walk into Good Eats Kitchen in the Oil Center at 1116 Coolidge Blvd., Suite F. Meal choices are sure to please everyone. Chef Boyer Derise's favorite meal is the Chicken Piccata and from day one the best-selling meal has been the Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas. You can find options such as a blackened redfish or Indian Butter Chicken, and many many more! As Boyer says,