He rents a house from another recovered alcoholic, Chef, and calls his wife, Edna, who he has not been with in over two years, to come and live with him.
She does and they have a happy summer together until Chef tells him they have to leave by the end of the month so that he can give the house to his daughter, Linda.
Wes has never been able to create an individual identity apart from things in his life (possibly because he was married and had two children by the age of 19).
By the end of the story, however, Wes has lost all faith in the possibility of anyone genuinely starting afresh since, as he puts it, "If I was somebody else, I wouldn't be me.
"Chef's House" is unique, however, in that, unlike most of Carver's stories, the dialogue between characters is not within quotation marks.
These changes give a special twist to "Chef's House" and reinforce the questions about identity from throughout the story.