Four Kitchens

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Sr. Director, Website & Design of Columbia University School of Professional Studies

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Columbia prepares the next generation of thinkers, scientists, artists, and leaders through an education grounded in intellectual rigor, open inquiry, and a commitment to the public good. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Four Kitchens to accomplish?

• To provide ongoing web support for the school's three main public websites.
• Complete small to medium scale projects, including upstreaming and new features.

SOLUTION

How did you find Four Kitchens?

Acquired the agency we worked with

Why did you select Four Kitchens over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from Four Kitchens were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The services that Four Kitchens provide include:

• Core CMS security updates
• Module/plugin security updates
• Dedicated Project Manager
• Standard support hours
• Site monitoring alerts
• Site Health Check
• Team meetings Bi-weekly
• Technical Audit
• Documentation repository
• Dedicated Technical Strategist
• Strategic Review
• WCAG 2.2 AA Accessibility 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Successful completion of project milestones, as well as reliable, responsive support in situations requiring flexibility and proactive problem-solving.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project managers at Four Kitchens have always been responsive and highly organized, listening to our needs and pushing back when necessary to ensure that we're on track and headed toward a share goal.

What was your primary form of communication with Four Kitchens?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their level of approachable and engaged service, accompanied by a well-structured and rigorous process, which keeps things clear and consistent without sacrificing the feel of a high-touch support relationship.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Four Kitchens could have done differently?

Their process allows projects to be atomized, tackled, and rigrously tracked across a team. But sometimes the work needs to be considered holistically. Fortunately, they've worked with us to make this possible, when necessary.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Digital Strategy and Experience of NYU Steinhardt

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

NYU Steinhardt fosters knowledge, creativity, and innovation at the crossroads of culture, education, and human development. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Four Kitchens to accomplish?

• Overhaul the NYU Steinhardt Website
• Ongoing Team Augmentation
• Visual and UX Refresh

SOLUTION

How did you find Four Kitchens?

Referral

Why did you select Four Kitchens over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Four Kitchens were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• New CMS – moving from custom built to Drupal
• New frontend site design experience – unifying multiple site designs into a cohesive single School-wide design and user experience
• Front and backend development work – both in the initial overhaul and as part of ongoing team augmentation
• UX audit and usability testing
• Visual refresh updating the site design

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A year after launch:

• 22% increase average session duration
• 10% increase average pages per session
• 7% increase average time on page
• 25% increase prospective student inquiry form submissions
• 15% increase started applications

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They delivered items on time and on budget. Given the nature of our School the agile approach was really important and Four Kitchens was always very communicative and open about requirements, deadlines, and how changes might impact delivery.

They were active partners throughout the process of the overhaul and have continued to be partners through the team augmentation and small additional projects. They were always invested in our collective success and did a phenomenal job helping prepare design assets for internal presentations that I would make.

What was your primary form of communication with Four Kitchens?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They bring a full web experience to the discovery, design, and build process. It wasn't just design or just build. The level of expertise across the boards was impressive. And they listen. My experience is that often outside agencies/consultants are just trying to solve for the current problem and not thinking about how the proposed solution might cause other problems down the road or even just quickly become not that helpful. Four Kitchens never worked like that and it has made all the difference.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Four Kitchens could have done differently?

I don't have much to say here. I was – and continue to be – very happy with their services.

The only thing I might add – and this is as much on us and our budget/timeline, but – making sure that there is a design/ux review as part of the launch process after the build and beginning of content entry. The designs tend to be created in a more idyllic state and then the reality of the content and the institutional limitations for content generation set in and it would be great to bring the designer/ux specialist back to offer recommendations/support.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a technical support training specialist at Hunter Industries, a family-owned manufacturer of best-in-class solutions for the landscape irrigation, outdoor lighting, dispensing technology, and custom manufacturing sectors. We offer thousands of products in over 120 countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Four Kitchens?

We needed help with a Drupal and Opigno upgrade, and navigation, and visual improvements to our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Four Kitchens provided project management, technical strategy, backend, and frontend development. The team has upgraded our website from Drupal 9.5.11 to Drupal 10.2 and Opigno 3.1.0 to 3.2.7. They've also remediated bugs and made functional improvements.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with 2–5 teammates from Four Kitchens.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

Someone on our internal web team referred Four Kitchens. Their proposal and scope of work met our needs. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2025, and the project ended in March 2026.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Four Kitchens has successfully upgraded Drupal and Opigno. The team has also improved navigation so users can see where they left off. Four Kitchens has corrected modules' sequencing and logic to align with completion settings. They've also enabled easier access to PDFs and learning materials and fixed rendering issues with H5P "Fill in the Blanks" and similar activity types. Overall, we've seen a reduction in support requests.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

Four Kitchens' project management is excellent. Meetings are scheduled and held without delays. The team started and ended the project on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Four Kitchens delivers quality work on time with excellent collaboration. The team members are friendly, professional, and showed a genuine desire to help us meet our goals.
Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they need to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Marketing and Communications Coordinator of a non-profit company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our Museum serves hundreds of thousands of visitors annually from around the world through exhibitions, school and public programs, publications, and collections.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Four Kitchens to accomplish?

• Website Maintenance and Improvement

SOLUTION

How did you find Four Kitchens?

Other

Why did you select Four Kitchens over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Four Kitchens were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We work with Four Kitchens on an ongoing basis through their Continuous Care program. Each month, they work with us on a variety of projects for our website, from technical improvements and Drupal updates to developing new features and refreshing the visual design. In addition to the projects that we identify, their team also provides recommendations for website improvement and strategy.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

In the past year, we have launched several new website features on schedule. In addition to refreshing the appearance of the website and launching new components to align our website with our brand refresh, we upgraded to Drupal 11. Compared to the year before, page views and active users on the website have each increased over 15%.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The team is very responsive, with clear and quick communication. When we have needed to shift our priorities, they have been flexible and supportive in meeting our goals. They are very clear about estimated timelines, and they complete the work on time and with great skill.

What was your primary form of communication with Four Kitchens?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I am most impressed by the quality of the work, the effective and clear communication, and the great teamwork—everyone from their team has been wonderful to work with!

Are there any areas for improvement or something Four Kitchens could have done differently?

One feature that could be helpful would be a quick way to see how much of the subscription remains each month, but the team provides this information during mid-month check ins and by request.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of global marketing and communications for Mem Global. We provide a vibrant Jewish community, learning, and leadership for young adults in their 20s and early 30s by supporting them as they create and actively engage in meaningful Jewish experiences for themselves and their peers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Four Kitchens?

We were relaunching an umbrella brand for our organization and as part of that, needed to build a new website to replace one that was outdated and cumbersome to maintain. We wanted a fresh, adaptive website that would speak to all of our audiences (donors, partners, and young adults) and allow all of our programs to live together under our umbrella. We also wanted something we could easily maintain ourselves.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

 Four Kitchens worked with us to sort out the architecture of our website, the user experience and design. They built the website from scratch, recommending the right platform/ CMS for us to be able to utilize the backend ourselves. They did the site architecture, visual style guide based on our program logos, development, and ongoing maintenance. They also handled the migration of our existing site content.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Kerry (CEO) and her team.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

They were referred to me. Their pricing fit our budget, and they had good value for the cost.

What is the status of this engagement?

We launched our site in January 2025 and have continued to work with them for ongoing site maintenance.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve been done on time, on budget, and with increased engagement metrics. We've enjoyed our partnership with Four Kitchens - we have been happy with our site and the team that we're working with. We've recently started a few new projects with them and intend to continue to do so.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

We've enjoyed our partnership with Four Kitchens - we have been happy with our site and the team that we're working with. We've recently started a few new projects with them and intend to continue to do so.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're great partners and have improved a lot since we started our relationship. They're good communicators and strong ideators.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

They're a great partner to work with!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at Disability Rights Texas, a nonprofit organization. We are the protection and advocacy agency for Texans with disabilities. We utilize a variety of legal strategies to help people with disabilities understand and exercise their rights. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Four Kitchens?

We needed help designing and creating a website for the Community Justice Workers of Texas (CJW) Program. The website needed to include public and private pages. The private pages needed to include a basic activity management system for our CJWs, access to courses via an SSO with Canvas, the ability for people to apply as CJWs, the ability to review and approve/deny CJW applications, and the ability to run reports on each of these areas of information.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Four Kitchens has been responsible for project management, technical strategy, and backend and frontend development. The team has created the Community Justice Workers initiative portal on the TexasLawHelp.org site. Features in scope include: Four Kitchens has been responsible for enhanced reporting and automation. Four Kitchens has been responsible for LMS integration on the TLH site, including SSO, basic API integration, verified user shortcut to the LMS, and consulting hours with an instructional designer to define the user experience to transition from the portal to the LMS.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 2–5 teammates from Four Kitchens.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

Someone referred Four Kitchens to me. They had created a site on the same platform we needed.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Four Kitchens in November 2025, and our maintenance engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Admins and CJWs have been utilizing the private pages and the public has been visiting the public pages. We’re mainly concerned with whether the site functions as expected.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

Four Kitchens communicates well, keeps us informed, and delivers on time. We communicate via virtual meetings, emails, and messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Four Kitchens’ technical strategy has been thorough and helpful for our team. They’ve created a complex internal/external-facing site in a relatively short period of time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While we knew what we ultimately wanted in this portal, we didn’t know the specifics of how to get there. As a result, the project has been more complex than we anticipated, and some things weren't fully tested, such as the report outputs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a communications associate at Jewish Family Service LA, a nonprofit organization. We provide a wide range of social services, including food, shelter, counseling, and support for individuals and families of all backgrounds in the greater Los Angeles area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you have when hiring Four Kitchens?

We needed support for our website functionalities.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Four Kitchens developed our website pages, including coding and design. The team catered to our needs, delivering unique pages, registration forms, etc. Four Kitchens ensured our website ran smoothly and often did security checkups. The team covered a wide range of supportive tasks for our website development.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 2–5 teammates from Four Kitchens.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

We found them through a referral. We chose them over other options because they were a great culture fit, offered good value for the cost, and had aligned company values.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have continuously worked with them, for a couple of years now. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

One of our newest pages that they helped us create had a great result. We successfully had 20 participants register for our program through the new registration page they built. It was a small pilot program. We also saw an increase in website traffic and engagement. The new page was one of our top 10 pages.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

Four Kitchens delivered on time. We primarily communicated through virtual meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Four Kitchens is very helpful in developing our website and troubleshooting web errors. The team had a great friendly environment with great representatives and helpful overall staff. I'm impressed by their ability to problem-solve.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I can come up for Four Kitchens.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director at a major research university with over $1 billion in research funding a year. We have our own in-house web development team, and we also source talent for large projects that our in-house team doesn’t have the time or ability to complete. For the last 12 years, we’ve been a Drupal community member.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Four Kitchens?

Four Kitchens has been our go-to provider for web development and design for about eight years for our flagship web property.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a Drupal project. We had two legacy websites that were both huge, disorganized, and sprawling. Different groups owned them, and we needed to rearchitect, overhaul the IA (information architecture), and build a new website for research administration that was a very policy-heavy and technical domain.

I prepared documentation in the form of an expository sketch, which was a signature document superior to an RFP. We wrote the expository sketch to get things started. We did, in fact, pursue a discovery project, and there were two other companies involved. There was a discovery project by another third party that led up to the moment of bidding.

Four Kitchens led a multi-agency team on that redesign, including a theme layer build. They then did support with continuous enhancement of that web property for about eight years. There were user personas that were created in advance that were pretty spot on, and they went in on the project with another company who did content strategy with them. Most of the content was handled in-house.

The deliverables were a single, well-designed user experience that combined two vast and disorganized websites. It was a huge IA challenge. It was both visual design, user experience design, IA, and Drupal implementation. There was so much content strategy that went into that, and they were principally responsible for the agile project management practice that the whole team followed.

What is the team composition?

At any point in time, the team was around five people, but we could escalate issues up to the CEO or the head of engineering. Along with different sets of developers, we had a scrum master to provide all of the project management support because we didn’t have anyone trained on our side and the client-side.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

We conducted an extensive search, and I was involved in vendor selection. Four Kitchens is probably one of the most skilled and creative Drupal shops on the planet. They’re in a class of their own. Their portfolio is impressive, and they have great technical chops.

At the time, the head of the theming practice was the global Drupal lead for Drupal 8. It was right when it was being invented. They’re usually on the early side of technology changes, and they’re very good at exploring emerging technology.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2012, and the engagement concluded in February 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

In the research and administration world, this website isn’t something that many people know about outside of that world. Within its specific domain, it was highly regarded as the best in the country. Other universities look to us because of this website build, and we received a lot of external validation. We’re extremely pleased with the ROI.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, they’re amazing. I’ve learned a lot from the team.

The head of their scrum practice was the best by far. Normally, we have to teach the finer points of agile, whether it is how to estimate user stories or story points to hours, but Four Kitchens were far, and beyond any group, we’ve ever worked with in terms of project management.

When they’re allowed to work the way they want to work, they are highly precise in estimation and project management. They’re the best – no question.

For most of this project, I wasn’t the product owner, but their preferred communication method at the time was Basecamp. They also used Jira, email, and phone. We had an old-school product owner on our side, and she liked to call people.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with their creativity and team culture. They’re highly technical with the ability to execute at a high level. Overall, they’re a fun and awesome group that clients want to work with or wish they were on that team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m having a hard time coming up with something specific right now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As a client, you’re probably comparing multiple competitive bids. Four Kitchens might quote high, and you might be on the fence as to whether or not to go with another company that came in less expensive. My advice is to not go with that option because it doesn’t save you money in the end.

It will help you a lot if you have an in-house person that’s trained in scrum. Four Kitchens practices scrum for their agile project management practice, and if you’re already up to speed in those methods and concepts, you’ll be able to go way faster.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO for Inveniem, which is a company that works with celebrities and entertainers on digitizing and monetizing their estates.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Four Kitchens?

We have several internal database systems that are based on Drupal and needed some extra staffing to help get our new database version released. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Four Kitchens’ team augments our staff, supporting us on the front- and backend development for our database systems. Earlier in the project, we were working on a lot of integrations, so they provided backend developers who knew how to handle our data systems. They migrated our data, put everything together on Drupal, and reviewed the code.

Toward the end of the project, we transitioned Four Kitchens to support our frontend development. We were actually working with another firm to design the frontend but weren’t happy with their quality of work. Four Kitchens was doing so well on the backend side that we decided to have them take over the frontend, too.

We still collaborate with them on a daily basis. Their work gets incorporated into releases, which usually go out once or twice a month. 

What is the team composition? 

Four Kitchens provides a project manager who helps set the pace with clear blocks of work. However, for the most part, we directly interact with their two developers as if they were part of our own team.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

I was aware of them as far back as 2010 — I’d met them at DrupalCon, so I was familiar with their work. When this project came along, I’d actually reached out to a different company, but they didn’t have any resources available. They offered to make a warm referral to Four Kitchens, so I decided to go with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in August 2020 and expect to wrap up around the end of March 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve worked with a number of Drupal development firms in the past where we just wanted to get a specific deliverable done because we were eager to end the engagement. There would be issues with the code quality, and those teams often wouldn’t think about how the product would work a year from now. That’s been frustrating to deal with.

In contrast, Four Kitchens has been the first partner that we haven’t had an issue with in terms of code quality. It’s a different kind of relationship — we would love to continue the partnership beyond the contract if our budget allowed it. We’ve been very happy with the results they’ve produced. It’s not perfect, but it’s above and beyond any other vendor we’ve seen, especially given the time constraints we’ve placed on the project.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is a little tricky to judge because they’re augmenting our team. That means they aren’t in control of all of the resources in the project and often defer to me a lot. That can be great if I’m on top of things, or it can be terrible if I’m not. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re willing to look at the problems that we bring to the table and then anticipate what our next steps should be even before we figure them out. 

For example, their frontend developer has been adding a lot of accessibility components to the UI, specifically for users who might need a screen reader or other assistive technologies. That way, the frontend will already have all of the necessary context to help them navigate the site. This wasn’t a stated requirement on our end, but it should’ve been. If we hadn’t realized that we needed site accessibility and a client couldn’t use our site, it would’ve hurt our reputation. Four Kitchen’s foresight helps us stay prepared for those sorts of conversations.  

Similarly, when they joined the project, they raised some concerns about some of the design decisions I’d made rather than ignoring them. They informed us of some of the issues that we might run into a year from now, making knowledgeable recommendations to ensure that we'd switch to the right path. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Going off of my earlier comments, I’d prefer them to be a bit more aggressive with project management, even though they’re working with us in a staff augmentation capacity. There are times when I don’t know where we are and look to them, only to see that they’re looking back at me for direction. Having said that, I get the impression that they’re much more on top of things when they’re in full control.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared to set aside a budget to ensure that your project succeeds. They’ll demonstrate the value for your money, but these kinds of projects can still be very costly. Just because they’re Drupal experts, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to get everything done very quickly. Quality takes time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of Genome Web, an online publisher. We cover news in the genomics, genetics, and molecular diagnostics field. It’s a real-time, online-only service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Four Kitchens?

We previously worked with another Drupal developer to build and create the site. We were happy with them, but they were acquired by another company. Thus, we needed another developer to handle the maintenance and to further develop the site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Four Kitchens developed a key project for us: the sponsored channel. They created a unique page layout and the developed a feature to enable a single advertiser to purchase all the ad space on the page. Then, their team linked the ads to download advertisers' white papers, resources, other materials to educate our readers about their products. We also worked with them to move our site to another platform to improve performance.

Their team is currently providing front- and backend maintenance for the site and developing other special projects.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with two project managers and a lead developer. The team composition changes depending on who we need.

How did you come to work with Four Kitchens?

They were recommended to us by our previous developer. At the time, we were considering other vendors and diligently interviewing them. In the end, Four Kitchens was our best option.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the engagement in July 2015 and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Their maintenance and platform migration significantly improved our site’s performance and speed. We used to have a lot of problems with our old platform and it's been a lot better since then.

How did Four Kitchens perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team is great at staying organized and staying on top of what they need from us. Four Kitchens is always adjusting their resources and are flexible to any issues that might arise. They are very understanding to our alternating extremes—in terms of the amount of work we ask of them.

We communicate in real time as needed via Slack, Jira, and update each other through weekly calls. Our account manager also conducts a monthly call to receive a larger perspective on where things stand.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their project managers are excellent and always on-point. Our lead developer is very patient and technically skilled. We don't have anybody on in our company who has any familiarity with Drupal or programming. Thus, they are a great resource for translating what we require into technical features.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Figure out your requirements thoroughly and if it would be cheaper to have an internal developer before hiring them. This is nothing against Four Kitchens and only general advice to someone looking for a web developer.