Tana Duncan began her catering company, Salt & Stone, in 2017, and has been serving hungry mouths from Napa to Big Sur ever since. She’s no newcomer to working in the food and beverage industry. Twenty-two years ago, Duncan started working as a short-order chef in Whitefish, Mont. She says she’s always had a sensitive palate. She traces her passion for nutrition back to the Warped Tour as a teenager.
These days, the personal chef videos have been taking social media by storm. And though Salt & Stone is a catering business with clients in Los Gatos—now including Second Story, along N. Santa Cruz Ave—she still takes on private clients. The name Salt & Stone comes from the ingredient salt being the foundation for many dishes, and stone symbolizing solidity.
Building the foundation
Duncan’s business took off when she started bringing on bigger clients, about a decade ago. “We serve two people with an eight-course dinner, all the way to 200 people,” she said. Duncan is the founder and CEO; Abril Ramirez is the head chef. The pair have known each other since working together in 2014 at Paradise Beach Grill in Capitola, when they bartended alongside one another as a side gig. Ramirez went on to work at restaurants in Mexico City and San Francisco. Duncan asked Ramirez to become her head chef, and the two began working together on the menu.
Duncan has taken a slow-and-steady approach for the last nine years. She says she sure doesn’t want to compromise on quality. That needs to come first, no matter the headcount, she adds. In June, Second Story in downtown Los Gatos—which opened a year-and-a-half ago—began offering Salt & Stone food on Wednesdays. Customers planning to check out their new menu at Second Story can look forward to oysters, ahi crudo, meatballs and Cesar salad. Salt & Stone caters to an array of clients from the tech sphere, to athletes, to the Albanese family that owns Joseph J. Albanese Construction. Their fare was highlighted this spring at the Los Gatos Estate and Winery, owned by Alexa Ingram-Cauchi, who was featured in the Los Gatan, last year.
Farm-to-table, in suburbia
Duncan believes that, as with all industries, it’s important to have a range of price points and accessibility. “I worked the most I ever worked during Covid, because we transformed the business where I had private in-home clients,” she said. It was all she could do to keep up with demand, she recalled. Duncan says the exposure to restaurant quality food at home, thanks to home delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats, has made the idea of private chefs more accessible to the average person. Duncan says people soon find that hiring a personal chef can be more affordable than you might think.
In contrast to much of the food world, which is often male-dominated, Salt & Stone’s core team is a group of four women. On top of being a CEO, Duncan is a mother to a 17-year old son. “I think being a parent and running a business is an incredible feat, since both of those are full-time jobs,” she said. “If someone is getting married and your kid is sick, the show must go on. It’s a lot of work, and I have so much respect for anyone who has the gumption and zeal to make that happen for themselves.” Duncan got in contact with Second Story through one of the owners, Jamie Garland, when Salt & Stone was providing the food for a business retreat.
Lily Sauer is the event manager for Salt & Stone’s catering business. “I handle front of house, rental orders and florals, and less in the food,” said Sauer. After becoming friends about a decade ago, Sauer was brought on by Duncan to work some gigs. That blossomed into a natural business relationship. She’s been full-time since 2022. Sauer, who grew up in Santa Cruz, is also a new mom.
The new age of nutrition
In the last few years, social media influencers have begun more regularly displaying their lives as private chefs. For some, it can prove to be a fantastic way to bring in passive income. The work can take them to fancy yachts to cook, but others work for middle-class families. Home delivery services like Factor75, HelloFresh, Blue Apron and even Locale, which began in Los Gatos, have become the norm in the last decade for people who have found ways to include more personalized nutrition services into their budget.
A recent Business Insider article featured startup cofounder Nathaneo Johnson, who proclaimed that hiring a private chef was more beneficial to him than having a chief of staff. And with society becoming more conscientious of what people consume, people are also beginning to realize that services once thought of as too luxurious are now within the reach of the regular customer.
