A local man has started a fresh-meal delivery service in Medicine Hat as a way to offer people good, home-cooked food at times they tend to turn to take-out. The service currently runs on Fridays but creator Chris Walne hopes to make a full-time gig out of it.--PHOTOS COURTESY STREETCHEF FACEBOOK
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A Hatter has started a new food preparation and delivery service where he cooks meals, packages them and delivers them right to the doors of people who order in the community.
Streetchef is on its fourth menu since starting operations about six weeks ago, says Chris Walne, creator and chef for the new service. Streetchef currently delivers one day a week, on Friday.
“What we’ve done is pre-made meals, fresh, with a new menu coming out once a week or maybe twice a week depending,” said Walne. “Because I work up north as well, so I’m just doing this on some of my time off to see if it will roll out. We make pre-made meals and then we get them delivered out to people. So, they’re all fresh meals, healthy meals, there is family meals, and we have some vegetarian options and keto options as well.”
Walne is a kitchen service manager in northern Alberta and says if Streetchef becomes successful enough, he hopes to turn it into a full-time job to stay home with his wife and two kids.
He joined the British army when he was 18 years old and says that’s when he started cooking. Walne is originally from Wales and moved to Medicine Hat in 2014.
Delivery requests have been flooding in, says Walne, and he believes people are tired from the pandemic and don’t always want to cook their own meals.
“It’s hard when you’re in lockdown and people have been isolating, they can’t get out and they just end up ordering pizza and quite a few people are sick of it and they want something fresh, so that was one of the reasons we started,” he said.
The current menu includes a beef and vegetable pie, sweet and sour pork and rice, a herbed crusted salmon and more. Streetchef allows people to order single meals, meals for two or even to feed the whole family.
Walne says the support from the community has been overwhelming and he just wants to cook good food for Hatters.
“The support has been amazing from people I know to people I don’t know and pretty much everyone has come back so that’s a good sign and it just keeps adding more people slowly,” said Walne.
People interested in ordering a pre-cooked meal from Streetchef can message them on Facebook or call 306-330-9428.
