How Forks in the Road Led Chef and Restauranteur John Wolferth to a More Fulfilling Life

Local Star feature article by Liz Burnett

Change is inevitable. Sometimes it’s caused by something we have no control over, like the calendar changing to a new year or the passing of a loved one. Sometimes such externally caused changes motivate us to make New Year’s Resolutions or tell people we love them more frequently. This is the story of John Wolferth, a long-time Broomall resident whose life has changed in many ways, but most dramatically over the past seven years.

John grew up in Bala Cynwyd. His mother and one of his grandmothers, both great cooks, got him interested in food and cooking. One summer during high school, John worked as a dishwasher in a French restaurant. The chef took a liking to John, and soon started training him to do food prep and appetizers. John had a strong creative bent, which found a great outlet in creating food. Over the next 20 years, as he perfected his craft by working front and back of the house in many Philly area restaurants and hotels, John became a fine dining Executive Chef and also a partner or owner of several restaurants.

Broomall resident John Wollferth

Photo courtesy of John Wolferth

In 1989, John’s brother who had moved to California asked if John would drive out there in the car he had left back in the Philly area. John agreed, and after arriving, stayed on for two weeks, exploring and getting excited about all the great San Francisco restaurants. When he returned home, John convinced his wife Kim to move there. It was a fairly easy decision because they were young and had no kids yet.

After six years working as an Executive Chef in several top San Francisco restaurants and hotels, John and Kim decided to move to New York, so he could take the 2-year program to get his Culinary Arts degree at The Culinary Institute of America. When John graduated in 1995, he and Kim moved to Broomall because they both still had family in the Philly area. Their two sons attended the great Marple Newtown schools and are both now in college. Kim has worked as a Nurse at Lankenau Hospital for 25 years. John says they’ve been blessed to have “great neighbors who look out for each other.”

After settling in Broomall and until seven years ago, John worked as an Executive Chef and Restauranteur on the Main Line. He had expected that would be his life’s trajectory until he retires. He never expected that his future included being a licensed sailing captain who has sailed over 8,000 miles to work with NGOs providing donated disaster relief supplies to Caribbean islands, and seeing and doing things he would never have imagined.

John’s life trajectory changed in 2012, when he started working as a Food Stylist with QVC in West Chester and was assigned to work with Emeril Lagassé. From that experience and as a consummate Chef, John developed food preparation and presentation skills that led him to develop a unique restaurant consulting business: He and his team of professional photographers image food and sometimes also provide copy for his clients’ social media marketing. John’s consulting services also include rewriting recipes, menu redesign, costing and profit analysis, and staff training.

That consulting business freed John up considerably from his “24/7” life as a chef and restauranteur, giving him time for other interests. He started volunteering and enlisting other supporters for a nonprofit disaster relief organization. When Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated so much of the Caribbean in summer 2017, John volunteered to personally go and serve there.

John Wolferth loading donated supplies onto a relief vessel in St. Thomas USVI

Photo courtesy of John Wolferth

One of John’s first sailing trips was as a crew member in January, 2018, delivering construction supplies to the British Virgin Islands. Seeing firsthand such shocking and heartbreaking devastation combined with experiencing the warmth, humility and gratitude of the islanders made a profound and lasting impression on John. He then volunteered for several more such sail-and-serve trips, some of which took up to a month.

John just returned from delivering relief supplies to the Bahamas, which were devastated by Hurricane Dorian in September. Humanitarian aid and recovery efforts are ongoing through NGOs such as Sail Aid International (www.SailAidInternational.org), a nonprofit run by Sequoia Sun, with whom John has sailed. John says Captain Sequoia “does exceptional, very selfless work” and donations to that cause are much needed and greatly appreciated.

John’s sailing trips have connected him with many sailing Captains and boat owners. Some of them have referred John to yacht owners who’ve engaged him as a Chef so they can serve restaurant-quality food when they have their friends on board or for other special occasions. Opportunities like that are doubly satisfying: Yacht galley kitchens as well-equipped as his kitchen at home combined with the delight of preparing meals for many interesting people from all over the world. Interacting directly with guests again has John considering his next fork in the road: Building and managing a unique restaurant and beach bar on an island in the Bahamas.

With change comes growth, a lesson we learned as kids comparing how much taller we got each year. For adults, growth tends to come as we make choices when life presents “forks in the road.” John Wolferth realizes that not everyone can get away to volunteer in another part of the world for several weeks at a time like he can. But he hopes his story will prompt readers to create their own fork in the road by volunteering for at least one local opportunity to help people or a good cause. John says his experience is proof that many positive things and a more interesting and personally fulfilling life are possible when we push ourselves out of our comfort zone, overcome fear of the unknown, and learn to embrace change.

Do you have a story to share about a positive life-changing event you experienced? Send it to us and we'll consider it for one of our upcoming issues. Contact us at LBurnett@BestVersionMedia.com.