Co-Founder Mathew Mandeltort

Mathew Mandeltort believes in the power of peer reviews to help to culinary and foodservice professionals make better decisions when it comes to buying commercial equipment. “Peer Reviews help create a transparency and genuineness that is often missing when it comes to the researching the equipment a chef wants to buy. Seemed like review sites were everywhere but in the foodservice equipment industry. Restaurants had Yelp. Travel had TripAdvisor. Home Projects had Angi. Software had TrustRadius. We wanted to bring that element of Social Proofing to where we felt it was most needed”, said Mat. So in 2000, Mat and his partners founded ChefWorthy.Pro, the rate and review web platform designed specifically for chefs and the like to share their equipment experiences, good or bad, with their fellow chefs.

Brooklyn & Beyond

Born in Brooklyn, NY but raised in the suburbs of Chicago, IL , Mat displayed a passion for food from an early age. “One of my earliest childhood memories was cooking dinner for myself and my sister while my parents were away (you could do that back in the day), recalled Mat. “My parents called to check on us. My sister grabbed the phone and proceeded to complain that “Mat put too much sherry in the Bookbinders soup!” “My parents were simultaneously impressed and ticked off”, he said with a smile.

Despite an affinity and passion for cooking, Mat took the road more traveled going to college, then law school and becoming a lawyer. “Back then, working in a kitchen was not something most folks in the neighborhood I grew up aspired to. Lawyer? Doctor? CPA? Fine. Chef? Not so much. Chefs were not considered celebrities like they are today. I cooked for friends all through college but never really considered it as an occupation”, Mat recalled. But once you’ve been bitten by the cooking bug, it’s not something that is easy to shake

Pursuing A Passion

After practicing Law for 3 years, Mat had an epiphany. “Shakespeare wrote ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’ and I had to admit, at that point in my career, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. So I walked away (much to my parents’ chagrin), from the practice of law and committed to becoming a chef. With a bucket full of student loans, I couldn’t afford Culinary School at that point (News Flash — not all lawyers make more money than God), so I talked myself into a prep chef job at Ed Debevic’s restaurant (a reimagining of a 50’s style diner) that was part of the iconic Lettuce Entertain You organization run by Rich Melman. I eventually worked my way up to Head Chef and thus embarked on my restaurant industry odyssey”, Mat shared.

A Long & Winding Road

After the stint at Ed Debevic’s, Mat worked as a Chef at a succession of organizations including Marriott, Erickson Communities, One Options Exchange Building, and several independent restaurants. Ultimately, Mat opened his own restaurant in the northern suburbs outside Chicago called HearthFare.

Somewhat ahead of its time, HearthFare focused on what we now call “meal replacement”. HearthFare also offered social, corporate and aviation catering services. When HearthFare finally closed, it offered Mat an opportunity to step away from the day-to-day operations of the kitchen and look to share his experience with others.

He joined Technomic, a leading foodservice industry consulting and research firm in Chicago. After working there for eight (8) years, Mat was presented with the opportunity to build a foodservice program for the 3rd largest Convenience Store Wholesaler in the country. Six years later, the Pandemic struck. Foodservice sales took a tumble and Mat was shown the door.