Cleveland’s Central Kitchen: A feast for midtown

The Central Kitchen Food Hub (Central Kitchen) located in Cleveland’s Midtown Corridor, is opening doors for craft food start-ups, food business support, and retail distribution for growing and mature food businesses.

Gordon Priemer, a veteran, well-respected real estate developer in NE Ohio, co-founded the Central Kitchen with Eric Diamond, a former bank executive and executive director of the Economic Community Development Institute, an intermediary micro-lender.Central Kitchen opened its doors in 2013 at 2800 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. Central Kitchen encourages start-ups, especially those owned by minority entrepreneurs. Further, it urges its clients to participate in training sessions and business development classes. A prospective user can block out and rent kitchen space -- day or night -- by reserving space and equipment online. Central Kitchen expanded in 2018 when it bought the Central Kitchen facility at 7501 Carnegie Avenue which currently houses a plethora of start up and thriving food businesses.

For example, at the Central Kitchen, you will observe the following:

• The entire facility is 137,000 square feet which consists of co-manufacturing space, six kitchen pods, freezer, cooler & dry warehousing storage, production space for craft food companies, and shared office space. Additionally, Central Kitchen offers the services of an executive chef for product and recipe development.
• While businesses like Pope’s Spices, Cleveland Kraut, and Garden of Flavor (which creates cold pressed, organic juices) are established and thriving, Central Kitchen encourages startups – especially those owned by minority entrepreneurs.  The Central Kitchen urges its students to participate in training sessions and business development classes.   
• Two retail take out restaurants, Cleveland Bagel Co. and Souper Market, operate out of the Central Kitchen. Vegan Vybez, Mulberry Kitchen and Cleveland Sandwich Co. are slated to open this spring.
• Central Kitchen has participated in the Midtown renewal efforts. 700 people have taken their classes. Currently, there are 83 member companies with 90 workers in the incubator kitchen, and over 1000 jobs have been created since 2013.

Cleveland is known for its excellence in manufacturing medical and educations sectors; Priemer and Diamond are among those staking out food as business of excellence in Cleveland’s future.