Tucked in the middle of the Sherman Hill neighborhood in Des Moines is a community kitchen that is nurturing a cadre of food entrepreneurs.
The 1,000-square-foot kitchen is located in the Robert Mickle Center, a former nursing home turned community center that has office space for nonprofits and small businesses. The Mickle Center is owned by the nonprofit Neighborhood Investment Corp. The storage space surrounding the kitchen is another 3,000 square feet, said Mary Kapler, manager of the Mickle Center.
The shared commercial kitchen, which rents out to state-licensed businesses, opened after renovations in 2017, Kapler said.
“It was a relatively new concept for the state of Iowa,” Kapler said. “It’s a very common thing elsewhere, but it was newer to the state.”
Since it opened in 2017, Kapler said over 70 state-licensed food businesses have worked out of the kitchen, of which 21 are currently licensed there today.
“That means not everyone’s working every week,” she said. “I have some that are weekly businesses. I have some that come in a couple of times a month. I have some businesses who are just the summer temp event, farmers market circuit. So we have a wide variety of businesses in this facility, and that wide variety makes it able to be open to others.”
It costs $22.50 an hour to rent kitchen space.
“Our fees are affordable, so that you as a business can find your success, whatever that success may be,” Kapler said. “The businesses can work on growing without having to invest a lot.”
The kitchen has had 12 businesses incubate out into their own space, Kapler said.
“Our mission is to provide affordable space so they can either grow or find their success,” Kapler said. “For several individuals, success was, ‘Hey, I tried it, I liked it, and now I’m done. And I didn’t invest tens of thousands of dollars into a business or a lease contract for a storefront that made me sign off my house.’”
Kapler mentors the food entrepreneurs; she’s worked in the food industry since she was 19.
“I’ve probably done every job, both in food service, in terms of dishwasher, bartender or cook, wait staff, managed, shift manager at a group home, at nursing homes,” she said. “And also, prior to that, I worked 20 years in product development for a food manufacturing company. … I’ve got background knowledge of the food safety side, food development side. I have knowledge of the retail business.”
She brings her knowledge of food safety regulations to her work now at the Mickle Center.
“We need to produce safe food,” she said. “Because what I tell every business here, ‘What you do can affect others.’ So [when] the businesses operate, there’s a set of policies and protocols they all have to follow. Food sanitation is No. 1.”
Pam Baker is among the small business owners using the kitchen for her catering business, Judge’s Signature Catering. She previously owned a restaurant on Court Avenue called Judge Roy Bean’s in the building that now houses the bar Tonic on Court Avenue.
She closed the restaurant to seek opportunities with better hours, she said.
She has been using the Mickle Center kitchen for six years and said “it has increased our business tenfold by working out of their kitchen.”
She caters, with partner Lisa Chapman, mostly to weddings, creating custom menus for their clients.
“We’re not paying for a brick and mortar building,” she said. “And with catering, there are months where there are no weddings, so there’s a downside between January and February, where you might not cater a wedding at all. And so to not have to pay rent, thousands of dollars, and not have an income coming in is a huge plus.”
She said initially, it was a “new thing” to be working around other chefs, cooks and creators.
“It’s just kind of a dance, one person may be using the oven while we’re dicing and chopping on a table next to them,” she said.
Madeline Krantz also works out of the Mickle Center kitchen. She is the chef and owner of New World Kitchen, a vegan meal prep service.
She said the peanut crunch noodle bowl is among her popular items.
“It has salad greens in it, but it also has chilled rice noodles, shredded cabbage and carrots, sweet chili, roasted edamame, and then it has a mix of fresh herbs, a peanut dressing and roasted peanuts, coconut and almonds,” she said. “So it’s got that crunch, a lot of protein in the edamame and a really flavorful peanut dressing.”
Krantz said she started small, with just one day a week. Over the last 5½ years, she’s expanded to be in the kitchen Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then she does order fulfillment on Monday.
She said working in a shared kitchen gives her flexibility to pivot if she needs to.
“Working in a shared space is really great in that way,” she said. “You’re able to start a food business with less upfront commitment and just kind of give it a try and see where it takes you.”