The Hive, an incubator kitchen in Nantucket, Mass., offers something for every culinary entrepreneur.
Content and photos courtesy of Foodservice Equipment Reports (FER).
Usually when planning a kitchen, designers make equipment decisions based on the type of cuisine or its end user. But for the building at 5 Amelia Drive, Nantucket, Mass., later named The Hive, a shared-use commercial kitchen facility and food business incubator, none of the usual advance intel was available.
The structure, a former restaurant called The Keeper with a production kitchen on the main floor and a support kitchen in the basement, was acquired in 2022 by Nantucket-based Remain Ventures, led by philanthropist Wendy Schmidt. Remain’s vision centered on creating a shared-use food production facility that would support the area’s food system while incubating and growing new businesses. For example, a chef who was busy during the summer on the island could use the facility to produce and package their most popular sauce during the winter and sell it to local retailers.
“Since we didn’t know what ratio of meal preparation to product manufacturing The Hive would need, we aimed for maximum flexibility (in its design),” says Karen Macumber, founder of Nantucket Food Group, the company in charge of working with vendors and overseeing daily operations at The Hive. Macumber provided the kitchen design team details of potential uses, drawing from her years of experience working with area food entrepreneurs.
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