As I searched for food-related team building activities, I came across Executive Chef Events. This company hosts Iron Chef-style team cooking events in many areas of the country, including the Bay Area.
According to their website, when your team arrives at an Executive Chef event, they will be greated by hors d’oeuvres and smiling faces a’plenty, and after they spend some time mingling and relaxing, they will be divided into teams, and challenged to work together to great their own amazing dishes. Once the competition or class portion concludes, everyone will then sit down together to enjoy the foods they have created.
They can host the cooking classes and competitions at a variety of venues (lots of which are listed at their website: http://www.executivechefevents.com/venue-options.php), as well as other venues of your choice, like art galleries, convention centers, or commercial kitchens. Executive Chef can host groups ranging in size from 15 to 2,000+ people. They’ve hosted groups from major companies like Google, Gap, and Autodesk. They can host dedicated offsite team building activities, or work with a hotel and host breakout sessions during a conference or similar event as well.
Executive Chef event have excellent, 5-star ratings on Facebook and Yelp. One Yelp reviewer said of her group’s experience:
SUCCESS! We wanted a “knock your socks off” event for a hard working team and Executive Chef’s Iron Chef competition, combined with the beauty of Thomas Fogarty Winery, filled the bill with flying colors. The setting was ideal, the weather fabulous, and the organization of the event stellar. Our group can be similar to herding cats, with an abundance of A types, and the Exec Chef crew kept everything right on track. Smashing success!
Executive Chef offers a few different types of team building activities perfect for offsite events, or breaks at an annual company meeting. They are a well-rated, excellent option for team building activities. And they were founded right here in San Francisco.