Cooking Up Confidence: An Interview with Youth Franchise Brands CEO Leigh Feldman on Young Chefs Academy Cooking Classes for Kids

This article distills highlights from an exclusive interview hosted by Precision Franchise with Youth Franchise Brands CEO Leigh Feldman about the mission, model, and momentum behind Young Chefs Academy.

Back-to-school season resets routines. Sports gear returns to the trunk, music lessons dot the calendar, and parents quietly wonder, Are we building the right skills for real life? Young Chefs Academy answers that question with a delicious yes—transforming kitchen time into measurable growth in independence, resilience, and self-esteem.

This isn’t a “one-and-done” workshop. Young Chefs Academy operates on a weekly membership model built around a structured, skills-forward curriculum. Kids don’t just follow recipes; they internalize foundational techniques—how to safely hold a knife, measure with precision, and master methods like reductions, dry vs. wet mixes, and the muffin method. Each class layers new competencies, so students move from doing a recipe to understanding food science, sequencing, and timing.

The result? Young cooks who can confidently navigate a home kitchen today—and step into a prep kitchen, commercial environment, or culinary studies tomorrow.

Serious fun—with an intentional arc

In the interview, CEO Leigh Feldman describes the experience as “serious fun.” The fun is obvious: hands-on cooking, teamwork, and the thrill of bringing something fragrant and golden out of the oven. The “serious” lives in the arc of progression:

• Weekly cooking classes that scaffold skills across the month
  
• Badges and jackets—from white to black—that signal mastery
  
• Leadership pathways for advanced students (chef-in-training and beyond)
  
• Camps, workshops, and birthday parties that reinforce competence through play
  

Parents routinely report a quiet shift at home: children planning meals, prepping produce, and plating with pride. The classroom vocabulary—julienne, chiffonade, batonnet—becomes everyday language. And life skills deepen alongside culinary chops: mise en place becomes time management; scaling recipes becomes proportional reasoning; kitchen cleanup becomes ownership.

Where STEM and self-esteem meet at the cutting board

Cooking is the original interdisciplinary lab. Inside each class, students exercise:

• Math: fractions, ratios, scaling, and unit conversions
  
• Science: heat transfer, emulsions, leavening, and starch gelatinization
  
• Fine-motor skills: safe knife work and tool handling
  
• Executive function: sequencing, attention, and task hand-offs
  
• Social-emotional skills: teamwork, turn-taking, and positive peer feedback
  

As Feldman notes in his Precision Franchise interview, Young Chefs Academy structures lessons so learning never feels didactic. Kids explore the why behind every how, then carry those insights into the next week’s build. That’s how confidence compounds.

Community by design (the secret sauce)

A standout of Young Chefs Academy is its intentional community architecture. Many locations thoughtfully group students to spark long-term friendships—classmates who later show up to each other’s kids cooking parties or celebrate progression to the next jacket together. The kitchen becomes a third place—neither home nor school—where identity and belonging simmer in tandem.

Families see outcome stories that stick: teens who can shop a budget, plan a week of meals, and cook for roommates; kids who discover a passion that equals a sibling’s sport; and, yes, alumni who go on to culinary competitions. (Fun fact: multiple Young Chefs Academy students have gone on to win televised junior cooking titles.) The goal, however, isn’t celebrity—it’s capability.

What families can expect month to month

A repeatable rhythm:

• Week 1: Core technique + safety focus (knife skills, heat control)
  
• Week 2: Method mastery (sauces, reductions, muffin vs. creaming methods)
  
• Week 3: Flavor building (herbs, aromatics, regional cuisines)
  
• Week 4: Synthesis & showcase (students explain steps, plate with intention)
  

Plus, rotating culinary workshops for kids, group cooking classes, and adult cooking classes with kids that extend learning to the whole family. Summer and school-break culinary camps keep momentum strong, and school cooking field trips bring standards-aligned lessons to classrooms.

Why the franchise model works (for the right owner)

For prospective owners, Feldman highlights that Young Chefs Academy offers a rare intersection of purpose and performance. Ideal candidates are often operator duos: one partner quarterbacking the local relationships—schools, PTAs, community orgs, influencers; the other managing admin or growth. Culinary pedigree isn’t required; the system teaches the food side and the classroom side.

What matters most is orchestration—knowing when to bring the energy up, when to calm the room, and how to keep curriculum fidelity while making space for creativity. Feldman calls the franchisor’s mindset simple: “Be your aspirin.” That means:

• On-site and centralized training (operations, classroom management, food safety)
  
• Weekly coaching on membership sales, objection handling, and retention
  
• Marketing support to send qualified traffic to your door
  
• Market fit guidance (rural vs. urban, family vs. corporate mix)
  
• Pipeline planning for locations at pre-open, early growth, and maturity
  

If you love kids, kitchens, and community—and want a playbook that scales impact—the Young Chefs® Academy franchise may fit your appetite.

Back-to-school: the best time to start

Autumn is prime time to build confidence through cooking. Kids return to routine, families hunt for meaningful enrichment, and kitchens become the classroom that never closes. Whether you’re looking for cooking classes near me for kids or evaluating a cooking franchise opportunity, Young Chefs Academy is a proven leader in teaching culinary arts for kids—blending joyful cooking with measurable growth.

Next steps for families:
Find a Young Chefs Academy location near me, explore membership tiers, and book a trial class. Watch your young chef measure, mix, and beam.

Next steps for potential owners:
Introduce yourself to the franchise team via Precision Franchise, review territory availability, and sample a class. Feel the difference a well-run culinary classroom makes—and how it changes a community.