Set The Table Grows During Pandemic

Los Angeles, CA — Food has always been a focus for Tracy Evans, the Chef-Owner and Food Consultant of Set The Table in Los Angeles.

“My family has owned a grocery store in Palo Alto for 65 years, and so food was definitely in my family,” Evans said. “My family’s originally from Spain and Italy and so they’re crazy about food, so food was always my hobby.”

After moving to L.A. in 1993 and transitioning from work at a record company to marketing for Whole Foods in the early-2000s, Evans opened an office-building cafe about 10 years ago and quickly transitioned into the personal chef field.

“I kind of found my way into personal cheffing,” Evans said. “I started the company about eight years ago. We really specialize in all kinds of food, but particularly for special diets. So we do basically any kind of food any way that a person needs.”

If a client really enjoys Indian food but cannot eat dairy or onions, Set The Table can make it happen.

“If you’re not in desperation mode and you are open to the way that your life is meant to pivot, then it will kind of go in the direction that it’s meant to go in,” Evans said. “This is our eighth year and we’re expanding and things are good.”

Owing to fortunate preparatory circumstances, Set The Table was able to transition relatively easily into the quarantined, socially distant environment that has become the hallmark of the pandemic.

“When I first began the business I was physically in people’s homes every single day,” she said. “The business pivoted about three years ago — we were doing a lot of meal delivery. So, when the pandemic happened, we were sort of in a delivery mode.”

The most significant shift that Evans has seen is a safer evolution for catering events — they got smaller and less frequent. Beyond that shift in what event catering looked like, the business largely looks the same as it did pre-pandemic.

“Basically, our business didn’t really change,” Evans said. “None of our clients went away — we still had all of our delivery clients. Being in Manhattan Beach, I started working on marketing and we got even more clients within the area. And pretty much all of the clients were all on the same page with how we are in terms of understanding the pandemic and doing what’s needed and necessary to thrive.”

The results are that Set The Table has seen general growth in a variety of different avenues.

“Our business grew in different ways and we also put emphasis on different things,” Evans said. “I’m also a food stylist for Access Hollywood, so now I’m doing regular deliveries for them because they are not full-staffed right now. We just basically went with the flow of things. We worked on a new website and a new logo — before the pandemic we were in expansion mode and that really hasn’t changed. I’ve been doing the delivery thing for so long that the world was very quiet but my world was very much the same.”

Beyond the general growth that Set The Table has experienced over the past year, Evans is looking to expand and evolve the business in different ways.

“Before the pandemic even happened, we are getting an event space that Set The Table is going to live in,” Evans said. “It’s going to be a membership-type program where it’s all about the food. If someone wants to rent the space for a party, we do the food, but we’ll have Supper Club and Music Nights and so we’re building a new business.”

Though the pandemic has forced Evans to hold off on acquiring that space, plans to make that evolution to the business are very much underway.

“I think it’ll be something very much needed, but it was needed before the pandemic but the pandemic put an exclamation point on that,” Evans said. “People are going to be cautious of who they gather with, but yet people still need everything that’s not electronic, everything that’s not Netflix, and so that’s going to be coming which is really cool. Something that I’m really passionate about is people doing things that are very old school but yet it kind of works your brain a little different.”

Now, with cases dropping and vaccinations increasing, events and dinners are beginning to come back, albeit outdoors.

“I think the clients are changing a little bit more than we are,” Evans said. “We’re accommodating them. There were more outside things last year and it seems like that’s continuing. But the dinners and smaller parties are slowly starting to come back. I think people are still cautious — I think it’s our job to give them what they need, be safe at the same time, and just kind of go with the flow.”

For Evans, the pandemic shined a light on the importance of being healthy in general, and how a healthier diet plays into that.

“There’s a lot of people that I believe need healthier food more than ever,” Evans said. “I believe health is every single person’s individual responsibility. Everyone is different, everyone’s food needs are different. I think that there are so many cool possibilities to healthy food and healthy eating — I think more now than ever people will be tuned-in to what they need food-wise and what they need for their own individual health.”

Looking back on a year of adaptation and growth for Set The Table, with an eye on greater expansion in the future, it all comes down to luck and fortunate timing.

“I can honestly say that [the pandemic] wasn’t anything that anyone was anticipating but we were ready for it which is very strange,” Evans said. “I think it was very serendipitous that things worked out the way that they worked out because it’s unfortunate how many businesses have been completely shut down and they were solid.”