Food brings people together. Families meet over dinner to discuss the day’s events. First dates over dessert develop into life-long partnerships. Business lunches morph into projects that fuel the economy.

Not having options of places to eat limits the opportunities for a community. That’s where Chef Space hopes to make a difference, says Chris Lavenson, president of the new food incubator project located in the Russell neighborhood.

“People share ideas around meals,” Lavenson says. “When you only have a few options, how can you foster that creativity?”

According to Lavenson, there are only 30 restaurants in western Louisville—of those, 25 are fast food. That’s a problem Chef Space hopes to help fix by taking food entrepreneurs just starting out and helping them grow their businesses.

A New Kind-Of Commercial Kitchen

Chef Space is housed in the former Jay’s Cafeteria, where for years the community would gather to enjoy soul food specialties served up daily. But the building on Muhammad Ali between 18th and 19th streets had been mostly unused for the past several years.

Looking to change that last year, a Louisville non-profit Community Ventures Corp. came along and invested $4.5 million to overhaul the space. The building now houses a 13,356 square foot commercial kitchen space where up to 50 chefs can rent space to work and develop their products.

Unlike most of the other commercial cooking space in Louisville though, Chef Space is offering clients a lot more than just a kitchen. The mission, Lavenson says, is “to help people create jobs and provide healthy food to the community.”

The 17 chefs who have signed up since the space opened in November also have access to business space, where there is Wi-Fi and equipment to print their packaging labels. They work with staff, including a professional chef who runs the kitchen, to get advice on cooking, marketing and other business best practices.

And within the next 30 days, Lavenson says, Chef Space plans to launch a new program that allows entrepreneurial chefs an opportunity to start a “fast casual” dining concept. They will use front-of-house space to serve their food to the public and after 120 days, they can decide whether the idea is working and move into a more permanent space.

Chef Connections

Chefs involved with the project say one of the biggest benefits is the connections the chefs make with each other. When full, the space will be able to accommodate about 50 chefs who do a variety of things from baking to catering to jam and jelly making.

Emie Dunagan, a 17-year-old senior at Assumption High School, started baking with her grandmother when she was 6-years-old. As she plans for a future making cupcakes, cakes and other desserts, she came across the opportunity to work out of Chef Space.

“I believed in the community Chef Space would create,” says Dunagan, who owns Em’s Delights. “The networking from local vendors and employees of Chef Space provide so much wisdom.”

Dunagan says she’s confident she can succeed at her goals of having her baked goods in all the Heine Bros. locations around the city, where she is already selling in some locations. And eventually, she’d like to have a bakery food truck up and running.

Chef Collaboration

Andrea Wells, the owner of Farm to Baby Louisville, which makes organic baby food, said the collaboration with other chefs has been one of the best parts of working at Chef Space.

It was Dunagan who helped Wells figure out an easier way to get her baby food attractively placed in the jars by using a pastry piping bag. And jelly maker Zac Caldwell, with Caldwell’s Quirky Cookery, helped her find the distributor for more cost-effective jars for her baby food.

“I learn something every day,” Wells says. “If I get stuck, I just ask somebody.”

Chef Space is exactly what Wells says she needed to help push her to the next level in her business. Wells, who is 50, started eating healthier about six years ago. And when her daughter had her first granddaughter, Wells thought she’d try making her baby food for a healthier and cheaper option.

She thought then about opening her own business but says, “I was scared. I really doubted myself.” So she just kept making baby food at home, eventually making it for a couple other children and then her second granddaughter.

While shopping for ingredients at a local farmers’ market a few months ago, Wells says a woman she was buying from asked her why she was always buying so much produce. That led to her starting to think about starting a business again.

After looking at several different kitchen spaces, she finally found Chef Space. And it was the perfect fit because of the additional support that is offered.

Members pay a monthly fee based on how much time they expect to use in the kitchen ($600 a month for part-time, nights and weekends; $800 a month for full-time). For that fee, members get use of a fully-equipped commercial kitchen outfitted with appliances, pots, pans and other tools. They also get space for cold and dry storage, something other kitchens don’t always provide.

“They try to help you get out of that space and into your own space,” Wells says. “I eventually want to have my own boutique space.”

For now, Wells is perfecting recipes and branching out her product line. She just starting to make pumpkin and sunflower seed butters that she sells at the farmers’ market. And soon her products will be in Rainbow Blossom stores.

“I guess I kind of needed a push,” Wells says, which Chef Space is giving her. “You only live once. You can’t keep waiting. I waited six years and talked myself out of it before.”

It’s exactly that result that Lavenson wants for all the Chef Space clients. He is looking forward to seeing what’s possible for all the clients and helping them all be at a place where they are making money from their ideas and running viable business that help fill the food gaps that exist in Louisville.

“We’re going to help them up and out,” he says.