City’s first food incubator hub opens in East Austin
After a career in startups and a not-so-little startup called Dell, Joi Chevalier decided it was time to go to culinary school. She was well-established in the industry but not ready to retire. She grew up in a family where food was a central force and thought that might be a good pivot, but she didn’t want to be a chef.
She did, however, want to learn everything she could about starting a business in the food industry, and culinary school seemed like the only place to do it.
For eight months, Chevalier would get off work from Dell at 4 p.m., drive to the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, change into her chef whites in the car and then take classes until 11 p.m.
It was a grueling schedule, but the longer Chevalier was in school, where all the business classes were focused on running a restaurant, the more clearly she could see what she wanted to do next: build a food incubator to provide entrepreneurial support to people working in all kinds of food businesses, not just restaurants.
“I was the oldest person in the room. I said, ‘I don’t want a restaurant. I don’t want to be on anybody’s line.’ I wanted to create a product that doesn’t exist. What is the need that hasn’t been met?” she says.
“I decided my product would be an incubator space. People don’t know how to get a product to market efficiently or get in the headspace of being an entrepreneur. Someone might be really good at marketing, but they don’t know how to iterate or come up with a minimum viable product with managed costs.”
In December 2014, with the business plan that she developed in culinary school in hand, Chevalier bought a three-bedroom house behind Callahan’s General Store and got to work bringing the Cook’s Nook to light.
It took more than two years to clear all the construction, permits and inspections, but the result is a new East Austin hub that includes a 2,000-foot production kitchen, cold and dry storage and 1,500 feet of a lightfilled demonstration area and co-