Food, kitchen incubator planned for city of Washington
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
This empty lot at the corner of North Main and East Chestnut streets will be the location of a food and kitchen incubator. Ground is expected to be broken in September.
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
A food and kitchen incubator is planned for the corner of North Main and East Chestnut Streets in the city of Washington.
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
A 2,200-square-foot food and kitchen incubator is planned on this lot at the corner of North Main and East Chestnut streets in Washington.
Good things are cooking in uptown Washington.
Washington’s Citywide Development Corp. is planning a food and kitchen incubator for the empty lot at the corner of East Chestnut and North Main streets. The building will house three public-facing kitchens, giving people the opportunity to purchase food from prospective restaurateurs.
Christy Bean Rowing, CDC executive director, said research was conducted to determine a possible catalyst for downtown Washington.
“A resounding answer was support for food-based businesses, not only restaurants but also catering,” she said. “We really got serious and with a lot of support from some funders and the city, we started looking at where we could put a food and kitchen incubator.”
The lot has been vacant since 2015, when the building that once housed clothing and shoe stores was demolished.
The food incubator will be located across the street from another site for entrepreneurs, Ignite Business Incubator, at 57 E. Chestnut St.
Ignite, which evolved from the Greater Washington Area Business Incubator, connects, supports, educates and empowers entrepreneurs and small businesses by offering services such as consulting, advice or networking.
The food incubator will offer similar services to entrepreneurs and small businesses in the food industry.
Washington Mayor Scott Putnam believes the food incubator is a great fit for the community.
“It’s a great collaboration for downtown,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to teach the skill of owning and operating a restaurant without all the upfront costs that oftentimes bite restaurant owners.”
Rowing anticipates the price tag to be between $3 million and 4 million, with several funding sources picking up the tab, including $500,000 in federal funding included in the 2023 Senate Fiscal Year Appropriations bills.
“We have been very lucky with both federal funding and some foundation funding and most recently a part of the LSA (Local Share Account) ask,” Rowing said. “We have most of the building costs covered. We have to look at how to outfit each kitchen.”
She anticipates breaking ground on the 2,200-square-foot building in September with a completion goal of summer 2024 and the first cohort of restaurants joining soon after.
“It is a first-floor, three-bay kitchen incubator,” Rowing said. “If you’re someone who has always dreamed of opening your own restaurant, but don’t have the capital or the technical knowledge to do it, we have a way of helping you take those very first steps.”
Each of the three kitchens will serve as its own small restaurant.
“It’s really hard to get a restaurant up and running on a scale that works,” Rowing said. “We wanted to be able to incubate and support entrepreneurship here so when they leave here after about a year or two, they are in a better position to be successful.”
Other features will include a seating area for on-site dining, a possible partnership with Washington Outdoors to offer rooftop gardening and a catering- style kitchen in the basement.
Rowing also hopes the incubator can be a place for culinary students to begin to ply their trade.
She said a meeting held last week with Indiana University of Pennsylvania to discuss a possible partnership with IUP’s culinary students went well.
“We had a great discussion about a potential feeder for businesses and technical assistance,” Rowing said. “It was worthwhile, for sure.”
Rowing said there are many positives that can come from the food and kitchen incubator.
“We see this playing into what Washington has become, an intersection of agriculture and energy,” Rowing said. “We think this has some pretty far-reaching benefits for the region. We are genuinely excited about this project. We have a fondness for food-based businesses in Washington. We want to be a catalyst for more of those businesses. We look for this to be a way to support the next generation of small businesses.”