Two avenues to creating your own food business: Hope & Main and Providence Startup Weekend
Hope & Main, the Warren-based non-profit that bills itself as “Rhode Island’s first full-service culinary business incubator,” is now accepting applications for it’s first program. For a March 1 early decision, applications are due by December 17. After December 17, membership applications will be accepted on a rolling basis as vacancies become available. Please see Hope & Main’s site for more information on the business incubator, the application process, requirements and the application form.
Perhaps you’re looking to bang your culinary business idea around a bit before applying to Hope & Main or striking out on your own? The next Providence Startup Weekend, October 18 – 20, is looking for food entrepreneur registrants. Eat Drink RI is a media sponsor of the event. For more information about the “54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation,” and to register, please see providence.startupweekend.org.
Gracie’s Makes Open Table Top 100 List
Based upon Open Table‘s more than 5 million reviews—covering more than 15,000 restaurants—by their users around the United States, Gracie’s in Providence has been named in the Top 100 “Fit for Foodies” Restaurants. “These restaurants put the wow factor in everything they serve,” says Caroline Potter, OpenTable Chief Dining Officer. “Through pure imagination and ingenuity, they’re taking culinary creativity to another level with delicious dishes that are as fun to eat as they are to share on social media.”
Gracie’s is the only Rhode Island restaurant to make the list and they are in very august company. Take a look at the full list of Open Table’s users’ top 100 U.S. restaurants here.
Kickstarter for Community Supported Bakery & Pizza Shop
Johnson & Wales University alumnus Bob Krajewski, with his wife Lynette, are looking to open a new restaurant in Rockland, Maine with an interesting focus on community supported dinners. They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the needed funds to create Community Oven, serving “locally-sourced food which builds community, and helps the people of Maine to live well and eat well.” Please take a look at the campaign here. Good luck to the Krajewskis.
