Mike Schramm

Francine Godwin, founder of the Loveball Cookie Company, walks into the kitchen in Ravenswood Manor and is amazed. "Wow! It's so empty!" she exclaims. "It looks great," she tells a beaming Alexis Frankfort. She makes her way around the utensils--there's a huge mixer, a gigantic range, a deep fryer. Everything is silver and white, and ready to be used. The proofer hasn't shown up yet ("It's on the way," promises Frankfort), but Godwin is pleased with how everything looks so far. "Really great," she repeats, and takes another happy glance around, like a kid who's found her candy shop--or a chef who's found her kitchen.

If Godwin's found what she's looking for, then Frankfort and her partner Jeff Leverenz are the ones who put it there. For more than a year now, they've been working to develop Kitchen Chicago, a commercial shared-use kitchen space and storefront that they're hoping will become a pillar of the Chicago food community. "People are obsessed with food now," says Frankfort of the burgeoning Chicago culinary scene. But despite the fact that the area has five major culinary schools, it's not easy for beginning professional chefs to figure out the business side of things. "There's a lot of good stuff out there that, because of the high barriers to this business, you're not getting."

Starting out, Frankfort ran into these issues personally. After leaving a nine-to-five to pursue a passion ("I worked for Merrill Lynch as a project consultant, and I didn't want to wear high heels anymore," she laughs), she went to culinary school. After graduation, however, she found there wasn't really a place for starting chefs to begin their business. "I spent a couple months looking for something like this." She would check message boards and ask around: "'Have you found anything?' 'No.' 'Have you?' 'No.'"

So she and boyfriend Leverenz, who still works a day job as a software engineer, came up with the idea to create a space where almost anyone could get started making and selling their edible wares. "We're filling an important need in Chicago," Leverenz adds. By creating an affordable, rentable kitchen and a space to show off product, would-be food artists can get help in making a start. "Our goal is once they get started and develop a product marketplace, we can send them on their way. Hopefully this will be kind of a way for them to get a jumpstart."

Now that they've almost finished building it, people are starting to come, including Godwin, whose cookie company has been looking for a home. "I intended to sell my cookies in unusual places, small shops and smaller grocery stores," she says. "I never intended to do the Mrs. Fields thing." She started looking for a space to make product after going through a program for small-business owners. "People were recommending places like churches, schools. Firehouses, because they have to have kitchen to code." She had to face problems like rounding up nutritional information and liability on everything she made and sold, including different insurance policies for cookies made with and without nuts. Not because of allergies, as might be expected, but because "people were chipping their teeth!" Kitchen Chicago has not only claimed her as a tenant, but they've found they can help in other ways too--Frankfort referred her to a great insurance agent. "You guys are a great source," she tells them thankfully.

And perhaps the biggest part of the business plan here is aiming to create that sense of community. "It's a very organic kind of thing," explains Leverenz. "As people come in here, we're going to grow." The kitchen space itself is already operational, and the storefront will soon follow. Frankfort shows off the retail space, including a smaller demo kitchen, shelves to display wares, and a little area for a small café. "We plan to fill it up with people that are using the kitchen, their products."

There are plenty of other ideas, too. "We can rent out the space to have a party here," she suggests, and they also are in talks to hold classes, on cooking and financing. They're thinking about trying to offer web space to startup foodies. And while the idea was to help culinary grads, the more people hear about it, the more people are interested. "We got some personal chefs in here," Frankfort says about tenants they didn't expect: they discovered "they can make all of their meals in one day." It's a business, but both partners are very serious about building their own community. "We want everything to have its own character. We're striving to have a very local feel," emphasizes Leverenz. "We want Kitchen Chicago to be a place people associate with up-and-coming chefs."

So far, so good. "There's a pretty good waiting list right now," Leverenz promises, though he'll only name Godwin's Loveball Cookie Company and Windy City Candy. "Every week we get some people calling." They're also planning an open house on February 20 to show off the space to potential tenants, but even sight unseen, people are starting to love the idea of what Frankfort and Leverenz have created with Kitchen Chicago. "People read our website," laughs Frankfort, "and they're like 'Oh my God! This is exactly what I've been looking for!'"

(2005-02-15)

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