LOUISVILLE,Ky — The city's only food industry business incubator will be expanding its kitchen space later this year thanks to a hefty federal grant. Chef Space, which provides commercial kitchen space for entrepreneurs and business assistance, was awarded $330,000 The money is part of $5 million in federal funding split between 10 projects in the city.
Chef Space plans to use the money to provide equipment, storage and space to allow for a growing consumer packaged goods operation. Renovations will open up more space, allowing more business owners to move into the space.
“So right now, we’ve got about 31 part-time and full-time operators. We envision being able to add about 10 or 12 more full-time members and about eight more hourly operators, so we’re really hoping to get about 50 operators or so once this expansion is complete,” Tom Murro, president of Chef Space said.
While some tenants have been in the kitchen space for years, others have transitioned into running their own brick-and-mortar location. This includes Sissy Cakes, who Spectrum News spoke with in March when it was announced that Chef Space had been selected to receive the grant.
Blakey Martin and her sister, Debbie Stein, spent less than a year at Chef Space before moving into their current location in St. Matthews. The sister cake-bakers credit their success to what they learned from Murro and the others in the kitchen.
“Chef space really helped us to be able to bake on a bigger scale. When we started at Chef Space, we were still using our little hand mixer and then we learned how to use the big 20-quart mixer so that we could do large batches,” Martin said.
Working alongside her sister, niece and nephew, the cake business has become a family affair. Martin said she hopes this money will help others reach their dreams, too.
“There is no dumb question; he answers everything other members answer questions that have been there longer that have maybe a little more experience than we did at the time,” Martin said.
With more than 20 places like Sissy Cakes who’ve graduated into their own space, there’s a good chance this grant will be a reason that number continues to grow.
“It's been great to see businesses like that come through and we always have one or two businesses in house that I just can’t wait because I know they are going to reach that point in the next six months or a year or so,” Murro said.
Currently, Chef Space is still in the process of bidding out the construction. Murro said by fall 2023, work should be complete.