A Guide to Offering Online Cooking Classes in Your Restaurant

If you want to grow a brand beyond your restaurant, cooking classes, cooking products, and food products are the most viable paths. Offering online cooking classes in your restaurant is a fun and effective way to create an additional income stream and gain exposure for your restaurant. However, online cooking classes are the most accessible product line to start and have a relatively low initial investment cost compared to the other options.

Here are five steps to launching online cooking classes from your restaurant:

1. Make sure you have the right equipment for teaching cooking.

Everything used and visible in the cooking videos needs to be carefully looked at and considered. Usually, customers don’t see the restaurant equipment you use in your kitchen. However, if you are teaching online classes from your kitchen, the whole world can see what you have, so it is essential to make sure you have the right equipment that looks good. To find local options, you can search something like “restaurant equipment Bellevue” to see what kitchen supplies you can get locally and save on shipping, or find a company that offers free and fast shipping. You can get new refrigerators, freezers, deep fryers, grills, as well as small wares, glassware, and other kitchen supplies.

2. Learn to navigate an online learning platform.

Companies like Lambda Solutions offer online training platforms designed to give individuals and businesses a platform specifically designed to provide online classes. You can be the course creator and instructor with the right online course platform while offering video lessons, quizzes, fun facts and information, instructions, and even assignments. You can provide stand-alone classes or groups of classes that follow the same topic. You will also be able to run the management system, so you can see and control your membership, templates, marketplace, final certificate, free trial, and integration into other areas. While this may sound complex, you can make it as straightforward or as complex as you are comfortable with as the course creator. However, it is essential to remember that the more options you provide students, the more opportunities you will have.

3. Create an outline for your class.

While teaching a class may seem like it won’t require much planning because you are cooking something you could cook in your sleep, teaching is a very different perspective. If you’re the least bit nervous about this venture, that nervousness can make you forget things or stumble over your words, so creating a clear outline or storyboard for your production will help you and everyone helping you know how the class is going to go. It will allow you to be fully prepared with equipment and supplies on the day of filming, and it will enable you to practice what you are going to say before filming.

4. Practice the class you are going to offer.

Once you think you are entirely ready to get started, record yourself doing a complete run-through of the class, so you can watch it and critique yourself. The video content will be your online product, so you want to make sure it looks and sounds well presented as individual courses, and students leave learning a new skill. Doing a trial run will allow you to make changes before committing to a final product.

5. Market the class.

You may offer the best cooking classes on the internet, but if no one knows about them, your new venture isn’t going to take off. Once the class is created, you need to market your courses so people know where to find them. If you already have a solid online presence, you can market through your channels. Otherwise, you can work with a digital marketing professional to build an online presence.

Offering online cooking classes will allow you to build and strengthen your brand centered around your restaurant. It will also provide you the opportunity to grow your online presence and establish yourself as a chef and business owner.