Today we’d like to introduce you to Vivian O’Phelan.
Hi Vivian, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
In 1996, while working in a Japanese restaurant, Michi and I met and it was love at first side, both with a true passion for cooking, coming from different cultures Japanese and Peruvian our families didn’t support our relationship at first, and yet we got married. We had a great job in the restaurant with a great salary and bought a house. In 2001m we decided to have a wedding in Peru, the wedding happened on my father’s farm in the Andes.
After our beautiful wedding, we had a honeymoon plan but My husband Michi fell 4 floors down from a skylight and our plans for the future took a different path. Michi survived the accident with a broken neck and 4 broken vertebrates, a concussion, and a fractured back. His survival was a miracle. We spent 2 weeks in the hospital and his recovery was very slow. When he was strong enough we came back to our house and Michi took a year off for his physical therapy recovery.
Thankfully, he recovered in 6 months, and in less than a year he was working again. Throughout the next years, Michi and I worked in many restaurants in South Florida including high-end, kosher, vegan, and many well-known sushi bars. In 2003, we welcomed our lovely daughter Hanna and in 2008 our handsome boy, Kai. I worked from home doing menu planning and catering and Michi was working full-time in a restaurant.
From 2010 to 2015, we opened Sushi by the Sea in Lauderdale by the sea. While we loved our time there we realized how it was taking away quality time with our kids and decided to go back to our prior jobs. Michi started working in a sushi bar and I started viviscatering.com offering menu planning, catering, and cooking classes.
In 2018, Michi woke up one day and couldn’t feel his body from the neck down. He was diagnosed with cervical myeloma and needed emergency surgery to decompress the inflammation in the neck, the percentage for him to move and walk was 55% and the surgery was very risky. Dr. Okun took 10 hours and had to replace part of his neck bone with titanium. In a heartbeat my life was torn apart with 2 young kids I couldn’t even fall apart. I had to stay strong and hoped for a miracle.
After the 11-hour surgery, Dr. Okun gave us the great news that it had been a success. When Michi woke up with a smile he could feel his arms and he kept telling me we were going to be OK. That has kept me strong since the beginning, he always says: we are going to be ok”. It took him a while to walk again with the support and help of our children and me in 2019 Michi was running and walking and bending. It was a true miracle story.
But I had been working alone and our income was not enough to keep up the bills. I had to sell my house at a really low price to help us pay off the bills and survive. Although this was a temporary solution. We had to come up with some type of solution that brought us enough income without Michi having to go back to work in a restaurant. He had read about a global platform that did all the marketing for you as a partnership.
We started using the platform at the end of 2019 and our online business, catering, and cooking classes have boomed into a global audience. We have clients from all over the world and in every continent. We keep a full calendar and most importantly we work together to pass our knowledge to hundreds of people and every day is a different adventure. One day we are catering and the next we are traveling out of town for a private chef experience, the next day we are doing corporate team building.
We teach while bringing joy thru our food, for us, it can’t get any better than this. So our story now serves as an inspiration to other people who are struggling with a condition or a bad moment in life, where you don’t see the light after the tunnel but with love for what you do and a positive attitude anything is possible. If it wasn’t for all the bad Michi and I would have never come up with this idea to rock every part of the planet with our food.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Michi: Is a master sushi chef known for his old-school techniques and amazing skills, he has worked in 25 different restaurants and sushi bars. He is most proud of his perfect knife skills and his dishes with a balance of perfect beauty and deliciousness. He is determined to teach with patience revealing his secrets, he is very generous about giving away his knowledge and making people happy with his dishes.
Vivi: I am an intercontinental chef, I am known for my ability to bring big groups together. I am a professional caterer and private chef. I am most proud of my creativity while being able to cook authentic foods for all kinds of dietary needs, I’m also known for my ideas in innovating recipes. I’m different in the way I treat my students and the people I work with, I believe that in a happy environment, everyone learns faster. My Food is love on a plate.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
The care, reliability and quality of service we give to all of our guests. The passion within us to unite people and cultures thru food.
Our perseverance to keep going, our determination to reinvent ourselves and to go above and beyond our comfort zones by expanding our work globally with our virtual team building classes and in person cooking competitions.
Pricing:
- $75 per person for a 4-course meal cooking class
- $ 65 per person for team building
- $119 per person for a 4 to 5-course catering
- $29 per person for a virtual class
- $129 per person for a private chef experience
Contact Info:
- Website: viviscatering.com
- Instagram: @vivimichicatering
Image Credits
Michi
