Community Shared Use Kitchen to Benefit Upstate, South Carolina Food Entrepreneurs

 If you are an eager, overachieving entrepreneur with a great idea for the next food fashion, you no longer have to put your business plan aside until you can finance your own certified professional kitchen.   Very soon there will be a way for you to start production and earn revenue without funding a DHEC approved facility. 

When I  moved to the upstate South Carolina to open the first eat smart kitchen, Beyond the Bull, located at the entrance to downtown Central, it wasn’t just another restaurant in an already over saturated market that I was planning.  As a Servsafe certified instructor and proctor for Tri-county Technical College (TCTC), I soon became a sounding board for frustrated budding entrepreneurs who had great ideas, strong business plans and experience, but lacked the funding and training needed to operate a professional kitchen.  The students were not young and inexperienced.  They were mature adults with years of experience in business management or marketing, mostly women, mostly unemployed and unemployable because of their age or outdated skill sets.  The only other thing they had in common was a desire to start over and be successful once again.    

For those students and others like them, I am hoping to bridge the gap from idea to reality by opening the first community shared use kitchen to serve Anderson, Greenville, Oconee and Pickens counties, a DHEC “A” rated facility equipped with everything one needs to prepare food products for market.  Although the Bull has outgrown the location at 233 W. Main Street, Central, the building is the perfect venue in location and size for a kitchen incubator.  The opening date for the kitchen incubator is July 1, when the public will be offered the use of the facility, training and food service business management consulting.  

It is my hope that the community shared use kitchen will become a focal point for food service professionals and nonprofessionals as well, from home cooks who need a place for canning to farmer’s market vendors, food trucks, caterers, future retailers of gluten free brownies and pizza dough to food photographers and especially for new product development.   The main focus will always remain on the small business development of food related products and small business start ups.

Opening date for the shared use kitchen known simply as Chop Chop is July 1, 2014.  Reservations are being accepted now.   Early registration will be rewarded with a discounted rate.  For more information contact Chef Bell at 2birches@att.net , call her at 207 251 3947 or message her through www.facebook.com/chefangelab or www.facebook.com/beyondthebull.

EAT SMART, America!

Buon Appetito e Buona Salute, Chef AngelaB

 P.S.  The Bull is relocating to a larger venue, not going away!