Plainfield ‘celebrity chef’ Arron Sain whipped up a business with culinary, bodybuilding skills

When Plainfield resident Arron Sain was a culinary student at Joliet Junior College in the early 2000s, he wasn’t thinking he would one day cook on WGN TV as he did on March 28.

He wasn’t thinking he’d work with high-profile clients like entertainer, Nick Cannon and NFL player Aaron Donald, and appear in national publications.

And he certainly wasn’t thinking about not completing his degree, and then running his own meal prep company, Insainly Fit Meals.

No, Sain, 43, was thinking about not messing up his muffins at JJC’s Friday Night Dinners.

“I had one job to do,” Sain said. “And I didn’t want to mess it up.”

Friday Night Dinners was an upscale dining experience led by JJC culinary students for the community. It’s now called Thursday Night Dinners and held in JJC’s Thrive restaurant in the college’s city center campus.

Sain said he arrived at JJC at 6:30 a.m. on that particular Friday. He received some strange looks from Renaissance Center staff since class didn’t start until 9:30 a.m. But he didn’t care.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Sain said. “Chef Vonhoff walked in as I was pulling out my muffins and he looked at me like, ‘Look at you, coming in at 6 in the morning.’ But I took it very seriously.”

Keith Vonhoff of Florida, a retired JJC chef professor, is proud of Sain’s “professional and culinary journey.” He said Sain was a good student with a mind “like a sponge” and that he was “always attentive and eager to learn.”

“He has made a huge impact on many professional athletes and regular folks alike,” Vonhoff said. “His journey is not finished and I am eager to see his goals and future accomplishments.”

‘Just a guy from the East side of Joliet’

Sain said he grew up in a home on a “rough” part of Joliet’s East side, where his parents Wardie and Diane Sain still live.

Wardie Sain worked as a physical education teacher at Washington Junior High School and Laraway Middle School, served as a program director for the George Werden Buck Boys and Girls Club, as was honored as an Everyday Hero by The Herald-News in 2020.

“He was also a referee for the police league for basketball, so everybody in the neighborhood and in the community knew my father,” Sain said. “I was out running around at the time. But I knew my limitations.”

Sain’s earliest cooking memory was pushing his chair against the stove to watch his mother make French toast.

“I nearly lost my mind when she made it because it was so simple, but so flavorful and so good to me,” Sain said. “I was like, ‘Wait a second. You just did this with egg, cinnamon, bread and milk?’”

By age 15, Sain was cooking for family and friends.

After graduating from Joliet Central High School in 1998, Sain studied culinary “mainly because cooking came easy to me,” he said.

Sain said some of his other professors were Michael McGreal (culinary arts department chair), Tim Bucci, Mark Muszynski and Fred Ferrara (retired). He soon found studying culinary was not the same as cooking at home.

“Sometimes it was like being in the Army,” Sain said. “They didn’t pull no punches … if your dish was not up to par. They got you ready for the real world.”

But Sain also discovered the commercial kitchen was the right environment for him.

“You got all different types of people coming together to speak one language, which is food, regardless of where you’re from,” he said. “This is the great equalizer – food.”

Bodybuilding and reading meters

Sain quit JJC when he had a child and needed a better job to pay child support. While at JJC, he supported himself by working in food service, cooking and washing dishes.

He started working for ComEd, first as a meter reader, but later as a substation operator making $50 an hour, he said.

In 2013, a bodybuilding friend brought Sain into the sport. Sain loved bodybuilding but hated the strict diet. He fixed the blandness of the diet with his culinary skills and posted his results on social media.

“And people were like, ‘Man, these meals look amazing! You can’t look like that how you’re eating,’” Sain said. “Everyone was so used to the normal diet of a bodybuilder.”

Requests for meals rolled in, which led Sain to start Insainly Fit Meals in 2015 – which led to an insanely busy schedule.

“Now I got my meals in different pickup locations,” Sain said. “Now I’m cooking and delivering meals all before I got to work at ComEd. At some point I realized that hopes and dreams have to turn into decision and actions.”

“At some point I realized that hopes and dreams have to turn into decision and actions.”

—  Arron Sain, chef, trainer and owner of Insainly Fit Meals

A journey into the unknown

One day, a bodybuilder called Sain with a request cook for him and help him train. Sain said he made good money at ComEd and the bills were paid. What was he to do?

“I chose to take the journey into the unknown,” Sain said.

Sain currently rents commercial kitchen space for his Insainly Fit Meals, but he’s searching for a kitchen of his own. Although Fantasia’s behind-the-scenes video to her “Bad Girl” music video credits Sain as a fitness coach, Sain feels his business is less about glamor and more about service.

He gave the example of a busy lawyer who doesn’t have time to cook healthy meals for herself. Purchasing one of Sain’s meal prep kits lets her care for herself and finish her work.

“It’s all just different degrees of service,” Sain said.

Sain is especially thankful for those who supported them on his journey.

“I would like to thank the community that I was raised in, for all those people who watched this little boy grow up, and whoever had a word of encouragement for me or who said, ‘Don’t give up,’” Sain said. “Because I’m just a guy from the east side of Joliet that was crazy enough to believe, while sitting on my mama’s porch, that I could be amongst celebrities, that I had a talent that brought value to the marketplace.”

For information, visit arronsain.com.