Our Skilled Chefs
Simply Good Kitchen's chefs Shanny and Bill share three loves - cooking, teaching and each other. Bill was born in California and raised in Oregon. Shanny is from Royal Oak, Michigan.
They met in 1994 at the Culinary Institute of America (the other CIA) in Hyde Park, New York, and their relationship bloomed while they served together on the board of a campus club called The Gourmet Society. During their vigorous two-year CIA program, they managed time apart to fulfill a required externship - Bill went to Aqua in San Francisco and Shanny to Robert Redford's Sundance Resort in Utah.
Post-Graduation
After graduation, Shanny and Bill enjoyed a year at Mark Miller's Coyote Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shanny worked pastry and Bill worked grill. But the most fun they had was outside of work. They enjoyed mountain biking, camping, snowboarding and hiking. It was on one of their bike rides they decided to start Simply Good in Royal Oak, Michigan, where Shanny owned a home.
Bill and Shanny worked hard to grow SGK — they catered, cooked for families, and baked cookies. After a year and a half without a vacation, they both decided to try the corporate life — Bill as Executive Chef and Shanny as Special Events Coordinator at the Tournament Players Club (TPC) in Dearborn, Michigan. They enjoyed working together at TPC for three years. But, as Shanny says, "We finally figured out it was more fun to belong to a country club than to work at one."