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Date: 3/22/2021
HOLYOKE – The ribbon was cut on a new coworker kitchen space that will allow chefs and cooks in the Pioneer Valley to pursue their cooking dreams.
Owner and founder of Serve Kitchen, Matthew Lillibridge, said he tried to start a food business a few years ago the way many people do. “I did what I think a lot of people did, is go to my church and work and my house,” he said. However, that quickly turned into a non-profit organization.
“We were getting perishable foods, cooking it, extending the life of the food,” he said.
It was then he began looking for a space to continue the work. However, he said “space was really hard to find, there wasn’t any really available.” Lillibridge said he was approached by a friend who asked if he could rent kitchen space from him, which started the ball rolling. While shared kitchens aren’t a new concept, he said there were none in the Pioneer Valley area, which made it even more appealing.
Lillibridge said he was originally going to open the location in Springfield, however, he was convinced to see the High Street location by his realtor. “I hit it off with the landlords and they’re really friendly. Their view is long term, they want to see foot traffic, they want to revitalize the area,” he said.
From there he said he had a meeting that had representatives from various departments such as the Fire department, Planning Department, Zoning Department and the Health Department. “Everyone who might be eventually part of the conversation was there. We looked at plans, I showed them my business plans [and] gave them my pitch,” he said.
Lillibridge said the kitchen took 10 months to complete due to COVID-19 restrictions. Now that the kitchen is open he said they are limiting their capacity to 10 percent of their square footage space. “We could have 17 in the building at a time, but we’re not going to. Once restrictions are over, 17 to 20 people [could be in the building,]” he said. Lillibridge said that members of the kitchen would work in scheduled six hour blocks.
He explained the types of businesses that a shared kitchen would be ideal for including caterers, bakers, wedding cake makers and those doing product development. He explained this could include those producing a large quantity of one product such as a pasta sauce or jerky who just need a space to create their product.
Additionally, he said cloud kitchen operations would also thrive in a shared kitchen atmosphere. Cloud kitchens, he explained, were “a huge movement overseas” and worked similarly to a food truck with delivered food. “But a restaurant that doesn’t have a retail space,” he said. Rather than a customer going into a dining space to order food, they order through the company’s website and have the food delivered to them. This, he said, allowed for a higher success rate for restaurant owners.
“In theory you don’t care what the front end looks like. There’s a lot less room for failure. We’re a turnkey operation, to build a restaurant with no profit you’re going to spend $2,000, and banks don’t like to finance restaurants,” he said. “A lot of people don’t go to school, don’t have formal training. Restaurants fail, 80 percent of them.”
However, by paying a membership to a shared kitchen such as Serve Food, Lillibridge explained that there were few obstacles standing in the way of people being able to start cooking. He said they require members to have Safe Serve Certificates and insurance, but “you could get in in a couple of days, pay your membership and start cooking.” He said, “if you were building a restaurant, in a year you’ll have a kitchen to go into and you won’t make a profit.”
Additionally, he said if a particular style of cooking wasn’t working for someone they could easily switch with very little cost. “It’s almost impossible to fail. If it doesn’t sell you could get a menu change. There’s a little planning, we could make a change order, switch your spices and launch on the weekend, and it wouldn’t cost you $50,000,” he said.
Lillibridge said he felt as though “if you’re able to cook and can afford the fees, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be doing it.” When he was seeking kitchen space he estimated the cost to be well over $3,000 after the cost of utilities, sometimes he said, was difficult to afford and make a profit. “I looked at a kitchen to rent that was 90 percent built, it was $2,500 a month plus utilities, that’d be $3,600, $4,000 a month. You don’t need that, you can come in a pay $1,000 a month,” he said. Lillibridge said in addition to the ability to use the kitchen, most memberships also included the use of storage.
“Most memberships include storage, cold storage, secured lot storage, so you can bring your stuff and leave it there,” he said.
He explained that at the time of talking to Reminder Publishing the day after their March 16 grand opening, they had one person signed up and were hoping to continue to grow their food community. Within this community he said he hoped that business owners would be able to support and benefit from relationships with fellow cooks.
“My goal is to create a self sufficient community where I get paid to do what I love, which is building businesses with people,” he said.
Additionally, he said he wanted to show people that you didn’t need to work 100 hours a week to be successful in the food industry. “We’re redoing food service, rewriting what it means. I really want people to figure out how to work 30 hours a week, not 120 hours a week,” he said. “I have two kids, it’s very important to spend time with my family, I want other people to do the same thing.”
More information can be found online at servema.com or by calling 612-6200.