Former Restaurant Chef Now Makes Meals for Sorority Girls (Exclusive)

As a restaurant chef, Kevin Ashton was used to cooking for crowds, but nowadays, his clientele looks a little different.

Ashton is a chef for the Pi Beta Phi chapter at the University of Nevada, Reno, cooking for nearly 30 sorority girls every week. Ashton tells PEOPLE he prepares nine meals each week, four dinners and five lunches, one of which is usually a big brunch spread for the girls on Fridays.

“I have a budget, and I break it down for those nine meals and go shopping. I shop every day, because it’s easier for me, because every meal is so different,” Ashton tells PEOPLE.

“Every morning on my way to work, I stop, pick up the ingredients I need, and I go in and I cook food and I do my videos, and the next day, we just start from fresh again, stop at the store, pick up everything I need.”

While Ashton prefers to do his shopping the day of, he has to plan his daily menu in advance, giving the girls a chance to give him feedback. They also have the option of choosing an alternative meal, like a burger or a salad, if they don’t like what’s on the menu that day.

“There’s always something to eat,” he says, noting that he has come to learn which meals are hits in the house and which ones people tend to skip.

“After a couple of weeks, I started to learn that someone skips spicy food or loves salads and never eats meat. It helps me write the menu more geared towards everybody,” he says. “I pay attention to them.” 

Ashton even has a suggestion box for the girls in the house, ensuring that he is catering to their taste buds. However, most of his meals are crowd favorites and people tend to request dishes that he’s already made for them in the past. 

Before working in the sorority, Ashton was a restaurant chef for over three decades, working at an Italian restaurant for 20 years. Before that, he worked at a brewery, a butcher shop, and a steakhouse.

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and restaurants closed, Ashton was forced to take a step back. With restaurant kitchens shut down, he began making videos cooking at home, setting his schedule and making whatever sounded good that day.

When things reopened and he was asked to come back to the restaurant, he decided to retire, but kept creating cooking content while thinking about the next chapter of his life. 

It was then that an alumnus of the University of Nevada, Reno saw one of his videos and reached out, asking Ashton if he would be interested in working as a sorority house chef.

While it was a big departure from his previous jobs, he liked having creative control over the menu and that he would get holiday and summer breaks when the students weren’t in session. 

So, he agreed to try it out for a semester. That was four years ago.

The job also opened him up to a new world of content creation, as he shares videos showing his weekly meals. Ashton, who now has nearly 5 million followers, seemingly always has something new up his sleeve — from fresh fish to fried chicken and pasta bakes.

Not only does Ashton love his job, but he also loves the fun, ever-changing environment.

“These girls are so amazing, and they’re inspirational, and they do a lot of philanthropy. They’re always giving back, and they always do fundraising events,” he says. “They’ve done a lot of fundraising events where I get to cook something or help out in one way or another. I’m really impressed with how they give back to the whole community.” 

Ashton felt the girls’ warmth and support firsthand when he was diagnosed with cancer. He says the girls and the university stepped up when he needed them most, allowing him to take extra days off to get the care he needed. Now, he hopes to take care of them the way they took care of him. 

Ashton never imagined the trajectory of his career, but always knew it would center on making food for others. When he was a little kid, Ashton jokes that he “was inside playing with Tupperware” when other kids were outside with Tonka Trucks. 

“I would make my imaginary kitchen and I would play with it. I’d serve my imaginary customers in my imaginary restaurant,” he says. “I had no idea that this would become my life’s passion. That’s where it all started.” 

Through his videos on his TikTok and Instagram channels, Ashton hopes to inspire others. 

“I always tell people, there’s no rules in cooking, so there’s not really any mistakes. You can’t say, ‘Oh, I screwed up.’ According to what book did you screw up?” he adds. “There are no rules. That’s what makes food so fun. We can do whatever we want with it.”