Carver's Kitchen does the cooking for you

LAYTON — A South Weber couple is cooking up ways to save local residents time and effort on daily entrees.

For more than a year Monte and Sandy Carver have been catering to local families' appetites through their business, Carver's Kitchen, located at 2672 N. Hillfield Road, where they sell a variety of prebaked dishes customers can take home and reheat.

"Everything is fully cooked — all you have to do is warm it up," Sandy said.

The homemade to-go entrees come in three different sizes — a small that costs $7.99 and serves one to two people, a medium that costs $13.99 and serves three to five people, and a large that costs $18.99 and serves six to eight people.

The dishes are packed into aluminum baking dishes with instructions on their lids. They can be taken home and cooked as soon as the oven is preheated or frozen and defrosted to cook later.

"My theory was I don't have time to make the mess, let alone clean it up," Sandy said. "So this way we've done it all for you."

Carver's Kitchen opened in September 2004, but Sandy had the idea for the business in the back of her mind for a long time. It started in the mid 1990s when she and some friends used to get together and "dinner swap."

"I would make one meal and times it by, like, four, and they would do the same," Sandy said. "We'd all get together and we'd exchange meals so we'd have about 28 meals in our freezer at once."

Sandy liked the fact that her freezer was stocked with 28 meals and started wondering if people would pay for that type of service. The idea evolved from frozen meals to fresh meals made daily that people can cook at home.

"We just thought, 'You know what? People are so busy,' " Sandy said. "They don't have time to cook, they don't have time to eat, so they run to the fast food or they run to the restaurant and spend a lot of money."

Sandy said Carver's Kitchen offers customers the opportunity to have something in between — a homemade meal fast. She said people like the concept of the kitchen.

"We have tons and tons of repeat customers who just come here and tell us that they love it and that they hope we stay here forever," she said.

Monte said not only do customers purchase the meals for themselves, but many purchase meals or gift certificates for elderly parents or friends and family who have just returned home from the hospital.