The first year she ran her charcuterie business, Liz Stannard ran out of counter space in her home. She then moved to a shared commercial kitchen.
It was what helped Waxed Crescent Grazing Co. take off.
“People wanted me to work for them, but the venues required me to be a licensed caterer working for the licensed kitchen,” Stannard said of the investment that was needed to make her business grow.
“So, that’s what I did.”
A shared commercial kitchen can help fill the gap when food entrepreneurs like Stannard, 41, outgrow their own space, can’t afford a commercial kitchen on their own or don’t have enough business to warrant a lease.
There’s currently just one in Akron — Akron Food Works, a project of The Well Community Development Corp. in Middlebury — but people in the business say there is demand for more shared kitchens. And more may be on the table in the future.
Charly Murphy, the co-owner of Stray Dog Cafe, Bob’s Hamburg and Akron Pickle, ran his own for a while — called Stray Kitchen — but said he had to shut it down when the architecture firm GPD Group grew and asked if Murphy would end his lease.
Murphy estimated eight or nine food entrepreneurs who didn’t have their own space worked out of Stray Kitchen. It helped him afford the rent on a large space, and it helped the entrepreneurs have a safe place to store and make their food. Plus, it made him feel like he was taking his business full circle, giving back to the community in a similar way to other kitchens that had lent him space to help his business grow.
Stray Dog started out as a hot dog cart without a home before Murphy started manufacturing his mustard at the now-shuttered Aqueduct Brewing. Without that access to a commercial kitchen, Murphy said, his business wouldn’t be where it is today.
“We get those calls a lot from people who are looking for space,” he said. “If there was a community kitchen opportunity, I think it would be well received.”
Renting an Akron kitchen by the hour
At Akron Food Works, coordinator Erica Banks said the demand from 55 food entrepreneurs is leading to the program’s expansion into a third kitchen, which will cost between $95,000 and $100,000 and is expected to be completed early in 2026. An existing office will be turned into a prep kitchen to add more space.
Between them, the two kitchens that are now operational have a six-eye range, a flat top, two convection ovens and a tilt skillet. A new hood will add fryers to the mix, too.
The shared-use kitchen began because the 110-year-old church occupied by The Well had one that dated to the 1950s or ‘60s, said Kyle Koerner, The Well’s social enterprise manager. Caterers, restaurateurs, private chefs, food trucks, juicers — a wide range of businesses have used the space since it opened in 2019 at a cost of about $350,000.
Koerner said The Well sees food as a way to impact neighborhood revitalization and wants to help those who are passionate about food find a home to allow them to operate in their communities.
Akron Food Works provides large equipment like the cooking spaces, mixers and food processors, as well as cleaning products, but food entrepreneurs are responsible for bringing some of their own supplies like pots, pans and knives and their own products to cook with.
That could be difficult when the kitchen first opened, said Cat Alaimo, with A 2 Z Living Well Solutions. Alaimo, who started in the space in its early days but became a more frequent user in 2021, said she learned how to be prepared when she came without a whisk and there was not one there for her to use — unless another chef accidentally left one.
“Overall, if you forgot something, you forgot something,” Alaimo said. “You need to be prepared and have a good checklist. Time is certainly money there.”
The program charges a flat fee of $115.50 a month for up to six hours of kitchen time — members pay an additional $19.25 an hour when they book more. The kitchen is open 24 hours — Banks said there are some chefs who work overnight to prepare their food.
Akron Food Works has a refrigerator that members can leave things in for 48 hours, or they can pay $30 a month for their own shelf in cold storage. A dry storage shelf costs $15 a month.
Before she moved to Akron Food Works, Alaimo was leasing a kitchen space that she shared with a baker. But there was no camaraderie, she said, and she wanted to be around more people. The shared kitchen met that need for her, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges.
Sometimes, the space is booked when she has a catering client and Alaimo has to see if whoever booked it will let her squeeze in.
“For me, it’s working, but there are times when I think I wish I had my own kitchen,” Alaimo said. “I think it’s in our future to have our own space.”
Growing a charcuterie business in Northwest Akron
Stannard’s charcuterie grazing business started years ago following positive tasting sessions with family and friends.
For the last few months, she has been assembling shelves and sliding appliances into place in her new kitchen in Northwest Akron. She’s one of the food entrepreneurs who left Akron Food Works to open her own prep kitchen.
Her move to find her own space was unplanned but was “what she needed to do” to grow again. Stannard said her business had grown to the point that it was time for her to move into a bigger kitchen. She was about to sign an agreement to use a commercial kitchen in a church for $750 a month when a space for not much more opened up. After contemplating and consulting with her family and friends for opinions, Stannard jumped on the opportunity to take on a kitchen of her own.
“Even though I’m not operating yet, things are moving and it’s very cool to be a part of,” Stannard said. “I never really thought I’d be here.”
Shared kitchens as a launchpad, landing point
While some, like Stannard, use the shared kitchen as a launchpad, others who work out of Akron Food Works never plan to graduate to their own space, Banks said.
The kitchens, which are rented by the hour, give them everything they need. For some, working out of the commissary space can give them a chance to test their ideas and see what kind of business is right for them.
One member tried a restaurant pop up at The Well’s 647 Coffee, then decided to stick with catering. Another, who started as a home cook and sold at markets, recently opened his first restaurant in Middlebury. Still another who was producing out of someone else’s kitchen moved to Akron Food Works following a situation in their previous location; that person is selling across multiple states and expects to continue baking in the Middlebury kitchen.
Karen and Shawn Cordes, both 34, co-owners of Garbage Kids Vegan Distro, hand roll, market and distribute their signature vegan pizza rolls out of the Akron Food Works space. The duo cooks up nostalgic vegan junk food and plan to sell in chain grocery stores and local mom-and-pop shops.
A couple years after beginning to rent space in the shared kitchen, the Cordeses launched a food truck that now pops up at community-focused events like rock concerts, music festivals and vegan markets to dish out comfort foods to snack on.
“Honestly, Garbage Kids would not exist without that kitchen,” Shawn Cordes said of Akron Food Works. “We’ve been able to become certified, we can sell commercial frozen foods, and we can sell our food to the public and things like that.
“Because we were able to establish ourselves in that commercial kitchen space and actually make it a legitimate food business.”
The finish line is different for everyone, Banks said, but having space in a licensed commercial kitchen is the first thing needed for a lot of food entrepreneurs to succeed.
“You can build here and figure out where you want to go,” Banks said. “Everybody is exactly where they need to be.”
Splitting restaurant space
Nicole Dumont thought she might want to start her own shared kitchen in a building she purchased earlier this year at 1079 W. Exchange St. in Highland Square.
Dumont, an architect who runs NR Design, LLC, said the building she dubbed The Hive came with a kitchen. She envisions her firm on the ground floor, other service providers in offices that are being built out upstairs and someone using the kitchen.
Her plans included meal prep space, a ghost kitchen or a restaurant looking for a delivery-only location, Dumont said. She said a restaurant seems to be the most likely option, but she expects if the restaurant she’s talking to works out, they’ll let some employees who run their own food trucks cook in the space outside of normal hours.
“What I’m hearing is there’s a ton of interest,” Dumont said. “I want to provide you with what is there today and wish you good luck.”
What is there today includes two walk-in coolers and a 12-foot hood with a fire suppression system. She expects the buildout of that space to be done by spring.
Dumont said she initially considered splitting the kitchen into 2.5-hour shifts, but decided it would be a lot to manage.
Murphy, with Stray Dog Cafe, said there’s a lot to consider before opening such a space. A lot of food entrepreneurs don’t need a lot of time or space, he said, so the costs can be overwhelming. But a lot of restaurants do what Dumont is proposing — let someone else use their kitchen on off days or off hours to try their hand at their own food.
La Reina Boricua pops up at The Original Bob’s Hamburg on Sundays and Mondays in Sherbondy Hill, Murphy said, when the restaurant would otherwise be closed.
There are always challenges to sharing, he said — misplaced kitchenware, a used onion, confused customers — but it’s worth it to help others grow.
“If there was a community kitchen opportunity, I think it would be well received,” Murphy said. “Those people who are on their way to something [are the ones who need] that community kitchen.”
Starting from home
Many food entrepreneurs start in their home kitchens. That’s what Kathy Wilkins did, selling dinner plates from her house.
In the early 2000s, Wilkins, now 67, set up a sign in her front yard hoping to feed residents, earn money for bills and restart her life, following her and her husband’s eviction from the home they had lived in for 15 years.
After two years selling home-cooked dinner plates, Wilkins began to cook and serve free meals at churches. She uses the commercial kitchen, Kathy’s Kitchen, at Akron Bible Church to prepare and serve buffet-style lunches for “the people that need it.”
“This is where I feel I need to be,” she said. “My therapy is to cook.”
There are limits to what people can do out of their own homes, as Wilkins discovered. Cottage food laws dictate what people can produce out of their houses, Murphy said, while Alaimo said it’s difficult to build a sustainable business from a home kitchen.
“I just don’t think that’s for the long game,” she said.
But in order for a community kitchen to succeed, it has to recruit people who are home cooks into trying to build a business. Murphy said there are always people willing to try their hand at making their food ideas into a legitimate business.
Murphy’s business partner, Alicia Kennedy, said the pair has twice tried to open a shared space — the Stray Kitchen they moved to after leaving their first was supposed to be a community kitchen as well, but their own businesses soon filled them up.
But there’s always an opportunity for another building, Kennedy said. They still have a vision.
“There is just a need that’s not being met,” Murphy said. “It’s a project I haven’t closed yet.”