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Upstate NY’s first kitchen incubator will open in 2018.

Rochester, New York is home to several business incubators for technology start-ups including Hi Tech Rochester and RIT’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship, but the newest incubator in town will help grow businesses born in local kitchens.

Located in The Metropolitan at the intersection of Main and Clinton, The Commissary will support urban food businesses and culinary entrepreneurs.

The Commissary’s mission is two-pronged, explained Laura Fox-O’Sullivan, Vice President of Rochester Downtown Development Corporation during a recent tour arranged by the Rochester chapter of Conscious Capitalism.

First, The Commissary will provide a legal space to have a food business. It isn’t legal to run a food-based business out of a home or shared kitchen in Monroe County, Fox-O’Sullivan said. A kitchen incubator can help aspiring entrepreneurs gain access to professional quality equipment in a licensed commercial kitchen.

Second, The Commissary will provide business support specific to the food industry. From navigating conversations with the Department of Agriculture and Markets or the Monroe County Health Department, to helping with form completion, The Commissary will give entrepreneurs a hand understanding the legal requirements of running a food business.

Take a Peek at the Plan

Laura Fox-O’Sullivan and Heidi Zimmer-Meyer describe the future prep kitchen. Photo by Andrew Brady.

Conscious Capitalism of Rochester gets a tour of the performance kitchen site. Photo by Andrew Brady.

Still in the development process, The Commissary plans to turn an old bank vault and a former gift shop in the lower level of The Metropolitan into a production kitchen and a performance kitchen.

The production kitchen will house 11 fully outfitted and licensed commercial kitchen stations. Members have access to a shared line of equipment when they rent a prep table by the shift. Those shifts are flexible, to meet each member’s needs. One business may want to rent a table daily, full-time, while another might need only a couple of four hour shifts each month. The Commissary’s design accommodates both. And the services The Commissary offers give entrepreneurs the ability to experiment and risk failure without going into debt.

The performance kitchen space will host events including chef demonstrations, pop-up dinners, and Rochester Brainery-curated cooking classes.

Get Ready

Members should be ready to sell a product when they join, Fox-O’Sullivan said. They should know who their customer is, what they are selling, how they are reaching the customer, and have a perfected recipe. The Commissary will provide workshops to help folks know when they are ready to join.

Speaking of workshops, while the facility isn’t up and running yet, The Commissary is already helping aspiring businesspeople with an education series. Topics include engaging your audience through social media, food photography, accounting and QuickBooks for food and beverage, raising capital, alternative food business models, and more. Visit www.rochestercommissary.org to learn more.

The first food business incubator in the state, outside of New York City, The Commissary will aim for diversity in types of businesses, and will reserve one third of the available slots for food entrepreneurs from low income zip codes.

While The Metropolitan is undergoing a transformation into a combination of luxury condos and businesses like Datto, the building sits in a poor area. The Commissary recognizes the need to open doors beyond the tech incubators nearby, creating opportunity for folks who don’t currently have it, said Heidi Zimmer-Meyer, president of the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation, during the tour. The $1.2 million project will open by the end of 2018.

The Commissary’s location in Rochester’s Downtown Innovation Zone could yield members unique opportunities to promote their products. The vision includes space for hosting events, a kiosk in the lobby of The Metropolitan and an outdoor food cart available to members on a rotating schedule, and maybe even a stall at the Public Market.

“Food unites us. If [our members] are good with food, we can give them the tools for their businesses to succeed,” Fox-O’Sullivan said.