Meet The Team
Gabriella Terry
President / CEO
Gabriella has over 10 years in the hospitality industry! She has a degree in Culinary Arts and Hotel Restaurant Management! Her passion is doing events and feeding people and seeing the look on their faces once they see their vision come to life! Gabriella is very active in her community as she serves on The Clayton Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, several HYPE committees, DDA Activities Committee and is a CCOC Ambassador. She started Chefella's right out of college in 2012 and opened her first store front in 2017! In 2021 Gabriella won a National Award with Alignable as Local Main Street Mentor and Local Business Person of 2021 for Clayton, NC!
Her future goals: " I have been very blessed to touch people lives through the hospitality industry. I always wanted to open up my own catering company and I opened the store in 2017. I always wanted to open a restaurant, and was able to do that in 2019! I have many other endeavors up my sleeve, but I just want to wait on God to lead me in the direction he wants me to go! "
BarbaraWallen
Executive Director of Events
Barbara has over 30+ years experience in Event Planning! Her passion is taking her clients vision and bringing it to life! Her main focus in planning events from start to finish, working within budgets of her clients and serving as a day- of coordinator or wedding planner!
Barbara is also the mother of Gabriella (Owner) and loves working in the family owned business created by her daughter. Barbara has seen the business flourish into what it is today! "It is so funny to see how much the company has grown. My daughter started this business in my home office in 2012 and now has a store front in Downtown Clayton!"
Her future goals: "I want to continue to exceed expectations of our clients. I want to possibly open an Chefella's Event Venue, but am excited and eager to see the direction God leads the business! "
Samantha Boyd
Director of Catering and Events
Samantha's main job focus is planning and executing caterings from start to finish. She does this by providing information on what Chefella's has to offer, paying attention to details, and ensuring customer satisfaction.
Her future goals: "Being employed here at Chefella's, I want to make a positive impact on every customer that I work with. With all of the trials and tribulations we all faced in 2020 I want to provide a small glimpse of joy through something as small as a lunch catering or a dessert platter or as big as a wedding. We all deserve a moment to enjoy life and I think the best way to do that is through delicious food, good company, and an enjoyable atmosphere. All are things which Chefella's base their motto off of so it creates an easy path to accomplish that goal. I know I am fairly new to this field but within the short amount of time I've been here the Chefella's team has welcomed me with open arms and empowered me to work on reaching my full potential. Being a part of this family makes it a lot easier to reach my goals and help more people."
China Porter
Catering Coordinator
China been in customer service for 7 years, so she has a sharp sense of direction in being able to be a helping hand to others. After finding out what she was truly passionate about, she shortly transitioned to Food Service and Hospitality. One of her favorite quotes is “Success isn’t how much money you make but how much of a difference you make in people’s lives”. China says, " My passion of being able to help people through my artistic mind and cooking is why I’m thankful to be a part of Chefellas which gives me the opportunity to gain much knowledge and insight on embracing my passion in helping others. In the future I pray that being under the wing of the Chefellas team I hope to become a successful restaurant owner one day."