Kimberly Parris, 42, is a jack of all trades. She’s a mom, chef, entrepreneur and innovator.
The Rosedale resident has spent the previous 20 years of her life on a journey the place she began as an educator earlier than happening to determine a profitable catering enterprise. At present, Parris can also be creating an app designed for Black, Indigenous and Different Individuals of Coloration (BIPOC) meals companies and agriculturalists.
Parris’ story started when she moved to Rosedale in 1995 to attend Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside. On the time, she dreamt of changing into a lawyer. By the point she graduated, she went to Temple University to check legislation, and, about midway by, she shifted gears and attended York College, which led her to begin a profession in schooling.
In 2007, Parris started working for nonprofit organizations that partnered with the Division of Training to deliver school readiness providers to at-risk highschool college students. As an educator and teacher, she needed to indicate the scholars {that a} school schooling was obtainable.
“I needed them to acknowledge that they’d a number of choices, and I felt that as a result of they had been at-risk college students, they weren’t being introduced with all of their potential choices,” she mentioned.
Parris nurtured her lifelong love of cooking whereas juggling her profession in schooling and tasks as a single mom.
“I had been cooking since I used to be eight. I keep in mind the primary time I ever cooked a recipe from scratch was from my Highlights journal,” she mentioned.
Following her true dream
One fateful day, throughout a storybook studying, her daughter, who was 4 years outdated on the time, requested her what her dream was. “I used to be speaking to her about what her dream was, and he or she was telling me on the time she needed to be a marine biologist or a fashionista, after which she circled and requested me, ‘Mommy, what’s your dream?’” she mentioned.
Parris mentioned she was taken off guard for the time being, however she responded saying: “You understand, I really feel like I need to cook dinner as a result of I really like doing that.” That very same night time, Parris was placing collectively lesson plans when an advert popped up for culinary college. “I mentioned, effectively, if that wasn’t an indication then I don’t know what’s.”
Later that yr, Parris attended New York Restaurant Faculty within the evenings whereas juggling her 9 a.m. to five p.m. job and nurturing her shut relationship along with her daughter.
Culturally, Parris grew up in a Bajan and Trinidadian family, consuming meals imbued with vibrant spices and seasonings. She recalled her shock when she discovered to sear a rooster breast utilizing solely salt and pepper.
“I keep in mind being so shocked that this little easy rooster breast with salt and pepper was scrumptious.” Even her household was greatly surprised. “They had been like, ‘that is scrumptious, what did you placed on it?’ I mentioned, ‘salt and pepper.’ I walked away and so they adopted me into the kitchen,” she mentioned, laughing.
Parris believes culinary college taught her an array of recent cooking strategies and laid the inspiration for operating a profitable enterprise later in her profession. It additionally taught her perseverance.
She recalled a time when her teacher didn’t imagine she would make it within the trade. She was decided to show him improper.
“I keep in mind my professor, he had informed me… he wasn’t positive if I used to be going to make it in eating places. I like challenges, so I might go residence and each alternative I bought, I might observe my expertise,” she mentioned.
By the point her sensible examination got here, she had the second-highest rating in her class. Parris mentioned that was one in all many situations throughout her time within the trade when folks would usually second-guess her or be shocked when she was in command of the kitchen.
She attributes this battle to the realities of the male-dominated culinary trade, exacerbated by her even rarer standing as a Black girl in central restaurant roles. She labored in key positions at Eataly, Complete Meals and standalone eating places.
“Once I was operating a number of eating places directly, and they might ask for administration, or they’d ask the chef to return and contact the desk, I feel there was just one time that the particular person wasn’t shocked that it was a Black girl that got here to the desk,” she mentioned.
Culinary profession takes off
After graduating from culinary college in 2009, Parris was determining the subsequent steps in her profession. She utilized for and took part in two in style meals competitors reveals: ‘Rocco’s Dinner Social gathering’ and the Meals Community competitors present ‘Chopped.’ She received the Rocco’s Dinner Social gathering competitors, however her pilot episode didn’t air, leading to a partial compensation of the $20,000 prize.
Parris mentioned her expertise paved the best way for her to give up her instructing job in 2010 and begin her private chef and catering business- initially known as KParris Catering and Private Chef Providers.
Her first massive gig was with a big nonprofit group, the place she catered an occasion attended by 500 folks. She discovered different opportunities- catering for the solid and crew of Chicago, the musical- earlier than she moved to work on her enterprise part-time whereas rising up the ranks in Complete Meals’ culinary and administration departments beginning in 2012.
Her time with Complete Meals led her to run the Ready Meals Division at Complete Meals in Union Sq. and Columbus Circle earlier than she opened the East 86th Avenue retailer because the Ready Meals Crew chief.
All through the years, Parris’ profession has taken her to many locations. In 2015, she started working at superstar chef Marcus Samuelsson’s restaurant at JFK Airport.
After Samuelsson’s restaurant, in 2017, Parris turned a sous chef at Verdure and Rise e Risotto inside Eataly and finally labored her approach as much as chef de delicacies on the in style Italian market situated in Manhattan.
Later that yr, she was injured on the job, and Parris knew it was time to begin phasing out of Eataly. “The plan was by no means to remain in eating places so long as I did. The plan was all the time to run my very own enterprise,” she mentioned.
She continued to work at Eataly, biding her time as she devoted a part of her schedule to her enterprise. By 2018, she rebranded Okay Parris Catering and Private Chef Providers because the CaribDiva and began to do pop-up dinners, which turned her calling card. “I catered weddings, particular occasions and curated experiences with these dinners,” she mentioned.
Going all in on the enterprise
In 2020, she determined to begin engaged on her enterprise full time, proper earlier than the pandemic shut the world down. The COVID-19 pandemic made Parris instantly pivot, and the pop-up dinner expertise went contactless. The dinners turned a three-course delivered meal with a small reward and recipes. “That turned very talked-about and bought me a characteristic in New York Journal, in Grub Avenue that yr,” she mentioned
Parris turned very profitable regardless of the challenges of the pandemic and netted six figures in 2020 and 2021.
CaribDiva blossomed, resulting in the opening of one other distinctive enterprise known as Cuterie, which was impressed by charcuterie boards. Cuterie is a meal service supplied to storefronts that do not need kitchens. Parris creates themed containers of mini-meals, full with snacks and sides from BIPOC and women-owned companies she companions with.
“I took it one step additional and thought this may be a extremely dope approach to spotlight different meals creatives, different cooks, different girls of shade meals companies and locations that don’t get the shine they deserve,” she mentioned. Parris mentioned she and her workforce did their due diligence to analysis the companies they accomplice with, and took time to characteristic the founders of the assorted companies on social media.
When Parris began Cuterie in 2022, she aimed to work with 125 companies. She was capable of characteristic 25 of these companies in Cuterie containers and was awarded a grant from a program known as Self Made. To assist scale her enterprise, Parris additionally accepted a place in a enterprise capital incubator program.
From there, she began a profitable crowdfunding marketing campaign. By 2023, she had doubled the variety of companies she labored with and had the chance to supply her providers at a Morehouse Faculty occasion. At present, Parris is creating an internet market by her CaribDiva website to promote Cuterie merchandise.
Parris didn’t finish with Cuterie—presently, she is engaged on an app known as FoodNoir, designed to be a market that brings a systemic answer to meals inequity by offering nutritious meals and highlighting BIPOC meals and agricultural companies.
Parris says shoppers will use the app’s map characteristic to search out nutritious meals choices of their space whereas supporting BIPOC companies. She additionally plans so as to add an incubator side of the app to assist aspiring small enterprise entrepreneurs launch throughout the trade.
Parris spent a yr doing analysis and improvement and enrolled in Apple’s Entrepreneurship Camp. She presently has a Kickstarter marketing campaign to fund the app improvement.
As for what Parris hopes for sooner or later? She says she needs to maintain on serving to and provoking others.
“I didn’t intend to be a disruptor. I simply needed folks to be seen—I simply needed to be seen. I needed anybody who’d ever been within the meals trade that may have been like me to have the house and the capability to be seen as effectively. So I might say that that’s the objective.” she mentioned.
