Business Opportunities Weblog

September 25, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

AP Business:

What pushed Priscilla Maddox was the relentless smell of vanilla.

Maddox was toying with launching a cookie line after retiring from her 36-year hospital care job, but was overwhelmed by the vanilla smell in her apartment. When she couldn’t find a kitchen to rent, she started a rent-a-kitchen that has become a small-business incubator for everyone from a fudge maker to a twosome baking gourmet dog food.

“Now we call ourselves missionaries because we’re helping people following their dreams,” Maddox said.

Kitchen For Hire, the Brooklyn-based business she opened in 2000 with partner Joan Reid put Maddox’s cookie line dream on hold. The women set up in a cramped storefront that was previously home to a number of restaurants that never seemed able to stay in business. And for the past eight years, the 10-burner stove, refrigerators, freezers and mixers they inherited from the previous tenant are being put to good use.

Across the country, from Austin to Los Angeles to Chicago, renting commercial kitchens by the hour has become a cottage industry. And as the nation’s economy has begun to weaken, many newly-unemployed home cooks are looking to those kitchens for a new line of work.

The kitchen rental companies are a for-profit spin on an already well tested idea. Food-business incubators, many affiliated with universities and non-profits, help farmers and entrepreneurs with business development plans, market research and in some cases manufacturing.

For those that come to Kitchen For Hire, be prepared to get a big serving of advice before you’re allowed to turn on the oven. Maddox is not shy about telling potential customers that their business strategy isn’t right, labels aren’t catchy enough, or the food just isn’t marketable.

Photo by Harry Cabluck.

In Bootstrap, Food, Startup | 2 Comments