Uptown Kitchen invests Grand Rapids 5x5 winnings in licensed public commercial kitchen in Eastown

Kelly LeCoy is busy these days. She’s working a fulltime job at Steelcase and developing Uptown Kitchen, a licensed commercial kitchen and event space in Grand Rapids’ Eastown business district. This shared-use kitchen will be available for lease to fledgling and established food producers who need a licensed facility.

LeCoy, who’ll be 23 next week, says she’s investing the monies she won at three local business plan competitions -- $5,000 at 5x5 Night in Grand Rapids, $1,000 in the Calvin College BizPlan Competition and $3,000 in the West Michigan Regional Business Plan Competition.

Uptown Kitchen begins construction this week at 1514 Wealthy St. SE, in the former City Knitting location.

LeCoy envisions the endeavor as a way for caterers, food producers and other related businesses to cut overhead costs by having use of a fully licensed kitchen that’s available 24/7, without the cost of creating a kitchen or owning the property. It also allows small food-focused businesses to earn more money than the state cottage law permits, thus allowing businesses to grow.

The kitchen space has three distinct areas: a prep kitchen, a pastry kitchen and a catering kitchen.

“This actually started as a final project in the honors program at Calvin College, where I graduated this spring,” LeCoy says. “I began interviewing local small businesses and realized the need for commercial kitchen space because people wanted to sell their food products and couldn’t because of the cottage food law. Under the cottage law, you can sell food made in home kitchens at farmers markets [and] roadside markets, but there’s a huge leap to selling a food product in a store because it needs to be made in a licensed commercial kitchen.”

Uptown Kitchen will include an event and meeting area with a demonstration kitchen for people wishing to hold cooking classes or other events for up to 50 people.

If all goes as planned, the kitchen will be available for rent in November. For more information, you can contact Kelly LeCoy at 616-776-2655 or [email protected].

Source: Kelly LeCoy, Uptown Kitchen
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor
Photography credit: Kelly Powers, courtesy of Calvin College