{"id":11528,"date":"2016-04-28T19:07:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T23:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=11528"},"modified":"2016-04-28T19:18:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T23:18:16","slug":"kitchen-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/kitchen-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"Kitchen Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 2016 | view this as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Maine’s first food lab\/commercial kitchen\/tasting room comes to town. <\/span><\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kitchen-Collaboration-MAY16\"You have to have a little moxie to pay half a million dollars for 5,000-plus square feet of empty building in West Bayside that just last year was one of The Bollard<\/em>\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s My Dump\u201d targets. <\/span><\/p>\n

Neil Spillane, who, with business partner Eric Holstein, has purchased a hulking, empty brick warehouse at 72 Parris Street, leads the way into the brick-walled gloom. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis place started as Hirning\u2019s Bakery. There was the wholesale Alma\u00a0 <\/span>Florist business for a while. Then it went through a phase as a boxing gym.\u201d In its unrenovated state, illuminated by a few bare bulbs, the brick-walled warehouse does have a certain Fight Club<\/em> aura.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Vision Thing<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be the face of Fork Food Lab,\u201d Spillane says. Fork Food Lab is a self-described \u201ccollaborative commercial food kitchen serving new and existing businesses.\u201d Spillane and Holstein are now standing in the square, cinder-block former garage attached to the left side of the 1910 brick building. A few days before renovations begin, the future face of Fork Food Lab doesn\u2019t look like much. But this garage will become a tasting room and shop welcoming retail customers. <\/span><\/p>\n

An embedded video on the forkfoodlab.com website shows the bleak garage transformed into an airy space with table seating indoors and out, the cinder blocks vanished behind attractive siding. The work is being done by Landmarc Construction of Portland, who also built the clean, handsome interiors of Roustabout, Sur Lie, Central Provisions, and Portland Hunt + Alpine Club.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will be able to come right into the tasting room and eat, shop, and see what we\u2019re up to,\u201d says Spillane.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what they\u2019ll be up to is collaborating with food producers of all sorts who need licensed commercial kitchen space to prepare food for sale and use elsewhere. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe supply everything\u2013prep space; stoves; ovens; storage; cold storage; and clean, inspected, licensed commercial work space,\u201d says Spillane. \u201cWe do all the health and safety.\u201d Members\u2013who pay two months\u2019 rent (starting at $500 per month) up front to get started\u2013arrive with their own legitimate, insured business and their ingredients and get cooking. <\/span><\/p>\n

How it Happened<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe did it with a combination of investors, loans from Bangor Savings and from Coastal Enterprises, and some grant money,\u201d Spillane says. As winners of a Maine food innovation challenge, part of their prize was six hours of legal services. \u201cWe used some of it for the real-estate transaction, but we still have some hours left.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You also need some smarts and experience. Neil Spillane, 29, a Brunswick native, attended \u201cUMaine at Orono. Then I did an MBA at Quinnipiac University.\u201d Eric Holstein, also 29, is from Westchester, New York, and he attended Colby\u2013\u201cwhich is when he fell in love with Maine,\u201d says Spillane\u2013and majored in hotel finance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spillane comes to Fork from the trenches of other small Maine businesses that persevered and got bigger. \u201cI was CFO at Urban Farm Fermentory [which shared its kitchen space on a smaller scale], then moved my way up to CEO,\u201d says Spillane. \u201cI had a part-time job with Portland Fruit & Nut Company. I worked summers during college at Pine State Trading, Maine\u2019s largest food and beverage distributor.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Holstein was a food and beverage manager for \u201cthe Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York and Boston, and I worked for LRA Worldwide, a subsidiary of Deloitte. I focused specifically on food and beverage consulting. I worked on projects around the world through them\u2013New York, California, Dubai, Singapore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s location, location, location. Fork Food Lab is on Portland\u2019s epicurean peninsula, literally down the street from Back Bay Grill, Bayside American Cafe, and Isa bistro on Portland Street. It\u2019s a short walk from Deering Oaks or Monument Square, as well as right off 295 at the Forest Avenue exit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Grand Tour<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On Fork\u2019s first floor, adjacent to the tasting room, will be \u201cGelato Fiasco\u2019s flavor innovation lab,\u201d says Spillane. Gelato Fiasco began as two guys with a shop in Brunswick and has become a Maine business success story itself, with distribution to stores in most of the 50 states. \u201cThis won\u2019t be their main production facility. They\u2019ll be testing flavors and teaching gelato-making classes here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOther things on the first floor will include tables, members\u2019 lockers, a meeting room, offices, ovens, a dishwashing station, dry storage, and walk-in cooler\/freezer. The tasting room itself will offer Fork Food Lab members\u2019 products and be staffed by Fork employees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The shared commercial kitchen\/lab is going on the second floor. The renderings indicate a long room with ovens, stoves, and cold-storage units lining the walls. <\/span><\/p>\n

Strategic Planning<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Spillane and Holstein did a lot of homework before deciding to start Maine\u2019s first innovative, collaborative food incubator\/commercial kitchen. The tasting room, however, was their own idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur model was Union Kitchen in Washington, D.C., and places like Commonwealth Kitchen and Stock Pot Malden in Boston,\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>says Holstein. These are all bigger operations with multiple locations. \u201cNew York has them, too, and the city encourages them with grant money.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Fork has enlisted a few high-profile \u201cthink-tank\u201d consultants who will be available to members for advice on branding, labeling, distribution, and legal matters. Among them are Ben De La Cretaz, finance director of Stock Pot Malden; Sen. Justin Alfond (D-Portland), a fellow Bayside entrepreneur and co-owner of Bayside Bowl; Caroline Paras of the Greater Portland Council of Governments; Taja Dochendorf, founder of Pulp + Wire (branding and marketing); attorney Ezekiel Callanan; and Mac McCabe, the veteran sustainable-business guru and former CEO of the O\u2019Naturals restaurants. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that Holstein and Spillane have so far put Fork together without any crowd-funding campaigns. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have one Kickstarter effort, though, for the retail tasting room. We\u2019ll be announcing it soon,\u201d says Holstein.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s Cooking?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So who are these members, other than Gelato Fiasco, and what will they be creating? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not quite ready to name names, but some of the foods include specialty popcorn, smoked nuts, craft soda, maple syrup, and kale chips,\u201d says Holstein.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kale chips are still a thing? Spillane laughs. \u201cWe try to steer away from calling trends. We\u2019ve also got bakers, caterers, and diet-specific food-ready-to-go.\u201d This last is prepared meals or prepared ingredients for specific diets such as gluten-free or Paleo. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBakers are great for the shared-kitchen concept. They put bread in the oven at 3 a.m., so they\u2019re gone when others come in. We\u2019ve got 32 letters of intent from various businesses already. We\u2019ll cap membership at 50 to start.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point it looks like about half our members will be specialty-food producers,\u201d says Spillane. \u201cAbout a one quarter will be food trucks. And the other quarter will be caterers and restaurants\u2013existing businesses that just need another space.\u201d There will be food truck charging stations outside and some overnight parking for food trucks. Sam Gorelick and Arvid Brown of Fishin\u2019 Ships food truck fame are signed up.<\/p>\n

This means Fork Food Lab is likely to operate around the clock. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have Fork employees running the tasting room and constantly monitoring food safety standards.\u201d says Holstein. \u201cFood safety is absolutely paramount. By law, every new business needs an inspection to start operating. We expect to be inspected all the time.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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