Community kitchen cooks up opportunity
Site used by nonprofit meets service demands; startup finds affordable space to use
The opening of the community kitchen at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center comes just in time for Tony McCarty and the Kitchen Angels of Santa Fe.
“We’re really grateful we have a community kitchen now,” he said. “We can’t do 9,000 meals a month just anywhere.”
From its location at 1222 Siler Road, Kitchen Angels provides meals to 170 elderly and homebound clients a day. Dozens of volunteers prepare the meals in the organization’s kitchen.
But the 17-year-old facility as well as the Kitchen Angels building is due for a much-needed renovation, and that will involve vacating the kitchen in mid-July for several months.
Enter the renovated kitchen in downtown Santa Fe, launched as a way for new and emerging culinary businesses to get started without investing a lot of money in space or equipment.
Kitchen Angels is one of two customers that so far has signed up to use the city’s kitchen, according to Melanie Moore, operations manager for the convention center.
The other customer is a culinary startup, two men calling themselves El Burrito Man, Paul Bitts and Ricardo Perez.
Both have day jobs but have scheduled space in the kitchen for several mornings a week to prepare burritos they plan to sell door to door to downtown businesses.
They recently were inside the convention center kitchen peeling potatoes and stirring veggies for burritos as a test run on the appliances.
Their goal is to make 100 burritos each day and start selling them in mid-July.
They have invested in a traveling warming cart and special wrappings that should keep the burritos hot for several hours.
With the kitchen, their upfront costs are limited to eggs, vegetables, cooking materials and a few slicers. They are paying the city $35 an hour for the kitchen space.
“We couldn’t do it if we had to rent a retail kitchen,” Bitts said. “This is cheaper
than having to rent a kitchen at a restaurant.”
The idea for the community kitchen came from ciity Councilor Signe Lindell, who saw the unused 825-square-foot space as a way to invigorate budding food entrepreneurs.
The convention center has two larger kitchens that are used by professional caterers.
Randy Randall, executive director of Tourism Santa Fe, said the smaller kitchen was designed to be more of a family kitchen, available if someone wanted to do their own cooking for a wedding or graduation party.
But it has been underused, he said.
The city used $35,000 from the lodgers’ tax to upgrade the kitchen into a commercially rated facility.
“We feel really good about it,” Lindell said. She said it would be hard if not impossible for El Burrito Man to launch its business without the city’s kitchen. “These are the kinds of economic development strides that can make a difference.”
There were few other options for McCarty, who requires a commercial facility licensed by the state. He needs a space for at least 10 volunteers who can come in and make the meals over several hours.
They are renting the city’s space from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. five days a week through the summer.
That will allow a smooth
upgrade at the kitchen on Siler Road.
“We’re upgrading everything so we can cook everything in larger quantities,” he said. “We’ve never done anything with our kitchen, and it was time.”
Like El Burrito Man, the nonprofit Kitchen Angels plans to rent the convention for a week to practice in the space and get acclimated with the stoves, ovens, burners and mixers.
Kitchen Angels volunteers plan to go live from downtown the week of July 24.
But because the space costs money, McCarty is trying to economize.
Instead of 25 people working through two shifts, Kitchen Angels will try and cook everything in just one shift with about 10 people.
Moore said groups won’t have to haul their food or equipment in and out each day because the kitchen at the convention center has rental lockers inside the freezer and outside for storage.