Truist Culinary & Hospitality Innovation Center (CHI)

Truist Culinary & Hospitality Innovation Center (CHI) is a culinary school in Greenville, SC. It serves home cooks, corporate groups and job-training students through recreational cooking classes, team-building sessions and workforce development. The center opened on September 29, 2020, as the anchor tenant of Poe West, the former home of Poe Hardware and Supply Co. CHI runs recreational cooking courses for home cooks of all skill levels, with no application process like a degree program. Hands-on classes take place in a commercial kitchen, where a chef-instructor leads step-by-step instruction and students use knives and aprons and take home an informational packet with recipes, tips and techniques. Demonstration and tasting classes are held in a culinary studio with stadium-style seating and two high-definition screens showing live video, and participants taste tapas-sized portions of several dishes. Course topics range from Texas BBQ beef brisket and scratch-made Thai curries to SC shrimp and grits, fresh Italian pasta and falafel, along with stocks and sauces, sous vide cooking, and desserts such as croissants, pies, yeast rolls, cakes, cookies and chocolates. Custom courses are available for groups of 10 to 16 participants, and the center also arranges job training and corporate events. Faculty and staff bring decades of experience in food and culinary education. CHI sits on Perry Avenue, about a block from Pendleton Street and less than two miles from downtown Greenville. The Greenville County Sheriff's Office Central Annex is roughly a tenth of a mile away, as is the Spindle public artwork, and The Lofts at Woodside Mill is about three tenths of a mile from the center. The school holds a rating of 4.50 from 10 reviews, reflecting a solid reputation among the customers it has served.