The heat is on: chef creates brand of hot sauces designed to complement any food dish

What started as a hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a booming business for chef David Heatley.

“I was working at a golf club by O’Hare and they shut us down,” said Heatley, who has been a chef for more than two decades. “So I started growing peppers just to keep myself busy. It was something to keep myself busy until I could get back to work.”

Heatley started Chef Heatley’s Hot Pepper Farm and has a location at 26 E. Railroad St. in downtown Sandwich. He grows the peppers for his sauces at his home in Montgomery.

Small Business Saturday celebrates independent businesses like Chef Heatley’s Hot Pepper Farm. Started by American Express in 2010, Small Business Saturday encourages consumers to do their shopping at local businesses.

It is held each year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and after Black Friday.

Heatley keeps busy taking his hot sauces to different craft fairs, farmer’s markets and hot sauce expos across the country. He is part of the Sandwich Fair every year.

And yes, Heatley really is his last name. Not surprisingly, he gets asked that question a lot.

“I tell people all the time if I was going to be really clever, I would come up with a better name than Heatley,” he said. “It’s my actual name.”

Chef Heatley’s Hot Pepper Farm sells several varieties of hot sauces that carry different degrees of heat, from the mild heat of the Mango Bar-B-Que hot sauce to the extreme heat of the Roasted Reaper hot sauce. As he noted, everyone has their own heat tolerance.

“Roasted Reaper is the super hot sauce that I have,” Heatley said. “And it’s not for everybody. It’s for those who have a super high tolerance.”

What is most important to Heatley is how his hot sauces will complement a particular food dish.

“We spend a lot of time educating people on what a good flavorful hot sauce does to the dish,” he said. “I use my experience as a chef to dictate that.”

For example, his Jalapeno Lime hot sauce is made especially for Mexican dishes. His Pizza Splash hot sauce – which has a zesty and spicy flavor – is made for such meals as pizzas, spaghetti and calzones.

“A chef’s number one job is to create a flavorful dish,” Heatley said. “A person can use one of my sauces to enhance the dish. We try to educate people on what to do with a good flavorful hot sauce.”

He currently sells eight different sauces plus a limited edition cranberry hot sauce.

“I make this for Thanksgiving dinner,” Heatley said. “You can put this on your Thanksgiving table and pass it around. You can put it on your turkey and stuffing.”

The hot sauces can now be found at Sunset Foods, which has several stores in Lake and Cook counties.

“They’re just doing a trial for our product up there to see how it goes,” Chef Heatley’s Hot Pepper Farm sales manager Melissa Gawecki said.

The sauces are sold at the Sandwich store as well as online at chefheatleys.com. They are sold individually and in three pack and five pack gift boxes.

Gawecki understands why Heatley’s sauces have become so popular.

“I’m not too big on heat, but they’re delicious,” she said.

Her children think so too.

“My daughter lives in California now. I just visited her and she made me bring her favorite, which is the Classic Habanero sauce. So when I flew there, I had to bring three bottles of that,” Gawecki said.

Heatley is elated at how his business has taken off.

“It took on a life of its own,” he said. “When I started this, I just wanted to get back in the kitchen and get back to work. I didn’t think that starting a hot sauce business in the middle of a global pandemic was a very smart move. I didn’t know what to expect. But it has just gone gangbusters. We just keep expanding.”

More information about Chef Heatley’s Hot Pepper Farm is available on its website, chefheatleys.com.