About a decade ago, Lee Hill had a vision to understand the needs of food makers and entrepreneurs on Cape Cod, MA. He wanted to provide a space for this vibrant community of producers to prepare their products and learn the ins and outs of running a food business. In 2013, he founded a non-profit incubator program called the Commercial Kitchen Cooperative of Cape Cod.
Throughout the years, the organization has offered shared-use commercial kitchen facilities for Cape Cod Food Industry entrepreneurs. It has provided educational classes to those in the food service business, and has organized various community events. Yet, the dream of owning a commercial kitchen of their own has always remained. In 2019, the organization changed its name to Cape Cod Culinary Incubator and began searching for kitchen space.
The process of finding affordable real estate on Cape Cod, however, was challenging. The team toured many locations and explored former operations that could be taken over. In the end, they formed a partnership with KAM Appliances, who built them a custom shared-use commercial kitchen. The kitchen opened its doors on May 12, 2022. Nearly a decade later, Lee Hill’s vision has come to life in the form of a 1,500-square-foot kitchen.
Looking ahead…
The team at Cape Cod Culinary Incubator is most proud of the perseverance of their Board of Directors throughout their journey, who kept pushing the concept towards its completion.
The recent opening of Cape Cod Culinary Incubator’s shared-use commercial kitchen has invited the rewarding educational elements of operating a live, running kitchen to become a reality. The team is excited to see this grow and dreams of someday expanding their operations to develop multiple locations on the Cape.
Words of advice from Cape Cod Culinary Incubator…
“Start relationships with town officials as soon as you can. It’s never too soon to start preparing! I wish we had purchased the operations manual sooner. We learned a ton by having that and realized we hadn’t thought about some important things.”
