Chef Pursues His Passion Despite Challenges

Despite having food allergies, Chef Quincy, strives to provide the best quality culinary dishes to his customers. Photo provided by 820 Consulting, LLC.
Despite having food allergies, Chef Quincy, strives to provide the best quality culinary dishes to his customers. Photo provided by 820 Consulting, LLC.

Chef Pursues His Passion Despite Challenges

By Tia Carol Jones

Michael Chapman loves catering. It is an opportunity for him to be more creative and please his clients. It is his goal to be a food guru, bringing the best quality dishes with the best presentation.

Chapman who is known as Chef Quincy, grew up cooking with his family. After graduating from college and business school, he decided to use those cooking skills he cultivated with his family. He attended culinary school and worked in different kitchens. During that time, he learned different tools, he learned to scale up, how to work for high-end people, how to sign up for events and how to feed large numbers of people with diverse dietary needs.

Running his own business, Q’s To Go Unit, he is overcoming the challenges that come with being a manager, not just a cook. He has a complete staff, which includes a team of people from therapist to publicist to a cook/chef.

“It has allowed me to take myself out of the chef and cooking mindset and get myself a little bit more into being able to see the bigger picture,” he said.

Chapman started his business in 2011 and relaunched in June of 2024. He also had to deal with food allergies, which as a chef, can be a challenge when tasting the dishes he creates for the customers. His food allergies make it so that he tastes food differently and creates blind spots on his tongue. He started to experience symptoms that he wasn’t sure were the result of stress while trying to grow his business. It turned out he was allergic to almost all foods. It is something he has been dealing with for five years.

“If I eat something I’m allergic to, I can taste it perfectly for one second and after I try to taste it again, I’m not going to get the same levels of taste. For a chef, that creates blind spots,” he said. He had to start to rely on his other senses, how food smells, how it looks and how food feels.

With his food trailer, Chapman has a food kitchen on wheels. As a private chef, if gives him the ability to execute a variety of menus for his customers. Oftentimes, as a chef going into different kitchens can be a challenge when there aren’t the correct tools to execute the dishes. Chapman doesn’t have to worry about that because all of the tools he needs are at his disposal in his food trailer on wheels.

“Even with my truck, my most important thing is to enhance catering orders and performance by being able to utilize the kitchen to keep producing fresh replenishment of the food line so that people don’t have food sitting around for hours,” Chapman said.

Q’s To Go Unit has been providing food at Smitty’s Lounge, which is located in Phoenix, Ill. There, he does a pop out menu with items that are his staples, which includes lobster mac and cheese, as well as alfredo and grits, with different proteins that people can choose from. The goal is to provide customers with options.

For more information about Chef Quincy and Q’s To Go Unit, visit chefquincy.com.

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