Fishtown: Greensgrow Provides Kitchen Space for Community

On Saturday afternoon Greensgrow hosted a Fermentation Workshop in their newly certified commercial kitchen. The kitchen is located inside St. Michael’s Church on East Cumberland Street and will be used for other Greensgrow workshops, culinary classes for teenagers and to support local business owners looking for kitchen space.

Greensgrow farm is located on East Cumberland Street in what is historically the Kensington area and works with a network of rural farmers and small Philadelphia businesses in City Supported Agriculture. The CSA season is 25 weeks long beginning in mid-May and ending in early November. Being a member of the Greensgrow CSA allows you to pick up a share of the farm’s bounty. According to the Greensgrow web site “City Supported Agriculture’s goal is to bridge the urban/rural divide by providing Philadelphians with the finest and freshest the region has to offer while supporting our local family farms and neighboring small businesses.”

The “seed” for the kitchen was to have a space to bake pies, make jams and dips that Greensgrow can then sell at the farmer’s market they host weekly.

“The main purpose of us getting this kitchen certified was to be an incubator for entrepreneurs,” said Greensgrow workshop coordinator Noelle Dames. “So we have three food-based business that work out of here and we’re pretty booked with just them being in here.”

The benefit of using the kitchen at St. Michael’s Church is giving a new revenue stream to the church.

The space is quickly becoming a popular community kitchen. According to Dames, one woman quit her day job to use the kitchen and start a vegan business full time. Last week, Greensgrow only had two people registered for the Fermentation Workshop but with some last minute promotion they had to put people on a waiting list.

Participants in the workshop used Chinese-hybrid cabbage to make sauerkraut and fermented their own quart-jars of pickles.

“Now that we have the kitchen licensed and certified we want to start doing more programming,” added Dames. “So we’re just trying to fit it around our schedules, the church’s schedule to see what’s cost effective and what makes sense.”

One idea they have is a baking event around the holidays.

“We’re open to ideas,” said Dames. “It’s just a matter of finding the time.”

By Lauren Macaluso and Tyler Laurie
Group 13, Fishtown