7 Cooking Classes Success Stories [2023]

Pat Walls

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Updated: July 24th, 2023

Start A Cooking Class

Online cooking classes can be a great side hustle for seasoned chefs or cooking enthusiasts looking for a way to earn some extra cash. You can create content and teach your audience how to prepare meals.

Consider creating members-only content to earn more from your cooking class side hustle. Alternatively, you can sell recipes for a small fee as well. To grow your reach, consider offering some free content on your social media pages as a way to build curiosity among potential audiences. You can charge your audiences a subscription fee so they can have exclusive access to your content.

To start cooking classes , choose a niche and follow your passion. Create a website and maintain an active social media presence. Apart from online cooking classes or live sessions you can also offer exclusive offline weekend classes to give your audience a hands-on personal experience.

Here are some real life success stories of starting a cooking class:

1. Hipcooks ($1.2M/year)

Monika Reti (from many, USA) started Hipcooks over 9 years ago.

Revenue

$100K / month

View case study

Team

1 founders / 8 employees

Location

many, USA

Case Study

Hi, I’m Monika Reti, owner, and founder of Hipcooks! Hipcooks Cooking Schools are known for measurement-free cooking, delighting in the process, and inventing along the way. Every class ends a dinner party with new friends.

Hipcooks is proud to be counted among the top 25 Cooking schools in America, and the only other beside Sur La Table with more than one location.

how-i-started-a-cooking-classes-business-with-7-locations

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How I Started A Cooking Classes Business With 7 Locations ➜

2. Kaori's Kitchen ($90K/year)

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Kaori Becker (from Columbus, OH, USA) started Kaori's Kitchen over 7 years ago.

Revenue

$7.5K / month

View case study

Team

1 founders / 2 employees

Case Study

Kaori Becker, a Japanese-American woman from Bay Area, California, is the owner and founder of Kaori’s Kitchen.

Kaori runs this business with her mother, Yuki, and both are passionate about bringing forth Japanese culture & culinary experience to the forefront.

The founder studied to be an English teacher, but while in college, she started teaching her ramen skills which she acquired from her mother and grandmother, the owner of a ramen shop in Japan. Her love for Asian cuisine & her passion for teaching later inspired her to start her own business.

Kaori’s Kitchen started with Kaori and her mother giving mochi-making classes to the local people in the Bay Area. She later pivoted this business to sell mochi donuts in Columbus, Ohio, where she currently resides.

Before the pandemic, the founder used to offer physical classes for her mochi-making sessions. During the pandemic, she shifted the courses online, which resulted in a growth in the number of students.

She used the Verlocal platform to get the word out about her cooking classes, and in less than two months, her weekend classes were full.

Primarily, Kaori used to charge $35 per person for her mochi tutorial classes but later, word-of-mouth marketing, more than 200 positive reviews on Verlocal and her growing reputation allowed her to increase her rate to $75 per person.

Their classes are booked through Airbnb Experiences, Kari’s website, and Verlocal. Plus, they sell mochi donuts from their Ohio store and visit the local farmers market two to three times a month, where they sell around 350 donuts a day.

Currently, the company generates about $90,000 in revenue annually, of which $24,000 comes from Airbnb Experiences, making it a significant partner.