The food entrepreneurship landscape in Ypsilanti is shifting as an Ypsilanti Township food business incubator closes and an Ypsilanti commercial kitchen adds new resources for business owners.

Colleen Brewer, co-owner of the Rosie's Community Kitchen incubator in Ypsi Township, says "space has been tight" after Ypsilanti Community Schools moved its middle school back into the incubator's building at 235 Spencer Lane in August 2024. But timing was perfect for Brewer to refocus on another business endeavor, having bought a campground in northern Michigan. She says she and her business partner have decided to allow their license to lapse and close Rosie's Community Kitchen. However, some food businesses are moving on from Rosie's to bigger and better things. Brewer says both she and her tenants are being "forced to take the next step."
Doug CoombeRosie's Community Kitchen co-owner Collen Brewer.
Brewer told her tenants several months ago that she'd be closing, and they've slowly been moving on. She says one entrepreneur is planning to sell his business for a tidy profit and retire. Another former tenant, who operated a food truck called Good Gravy that catered mostly to automotive worksites, has opened a brick-and-mortar pizza restaurant called Stromboli House at 215 S. Ford Blvd. in Ypsi Township.

"Ski's Sausage has been with me since the beginning and is the last one to leave. He makes what seems like ungodly amounts of sausage every week and sells them to farmers markets," Brewer says. 

Ski's Sausages owner Dan Evanski has been working a day job, making sausage from a family recipe at night, and selling his products at farmers markets all over Washtenaw and Lenawee counties for about five years now. With Rosie's closing, he says he found a packing operation in Hillsdale County that will make his sausage in the future. He provides the recipe, the meat, and the dry seasonings for 20 varieties of sausage, and the Hillsdale facility packs the meat into the casings.
Doug CoombeSki's Sausage owner Dan Evanski.
Evanski says he hopes that will leave him more time to talk to potential investors and small markets that might want to buy his sausages wholesale. He's targeting smaller, boutique, or local stores.

He says his ultimate vision is to find investors who would help him buy his own storefront where he could make and sell the sausage. 

Brewer says some of her other former tenants have moved to a commercial kitchen in Belleville, but the nonprofit Growing Hope's commercial kitchen is now the only one available to rent in the city or township of Ypsi.

Growing Hope food accelerator launches

Growing Hope continues to expand its support for food entrepreneurs through an ongoing event series for food entrepreneurs and a longer-term plan to create a "food accelerator." 

The nonprofit's Stepping Stones to Food Entrepreneurship series launched in February and continues monthly through July, highlighting topics like cottage food law, marketing and branding, and more. The series is taught by local industry experts including Erika Tebbens of Taste the Local Difference, MariAnn Apley of Washtenaw Community College Entrepreneurship Center, and leaders of farmers markets in other areas of Michigan.

Growing Hope is also adding a business accelerator to its existing incubator services. Growing Hope's incubator kitchen launched inside Growing Hope's Marketplace Hall at 16 S. Washington St. in Ypsi in 2018 and expanded in 2021, nearly tripling the kitchen's original capacity and storage. Since then, 15 businesses have "graduated" from the kitchen, with 22 currently using the space. The kitchen hosts about 70-80 businesses annually. 

Tenants can schedule time in the kitchen through an app called The Food Corridor. Growing Hope offers discounted rates for non-peak hours, which are 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The kitchen supports various food businesses, including bakers, juice companies, and caterers. 
Doug CoombeGrowing Hope Kitchen Manager Deante Bland.
Growing Hope Kitchen Manager Deante Bland is a small business owner himself. He owned a coffee shop in Indiana before moving to Ypsilanti. He says his background has made him aware of all the red tape and confusion around starting a business.

He says his goal with the kitchen is to "be an avenue for education and for simplicity."

"We want businesses to figure out how to start simply, without all the barriers, and how to get through the barriers when they do exist," Bland says.

Growing Hope Executive Director Julius Buzzard says being in an incubator space not only lets businesses prepare financially for launching independently but also gives them time to think about their values and mission. 
Doug CoombeGrowing Hope Executive Director Julius Buzzard.
"When they're not starting with a lot of overhead and having to pay for absolutely everything, it allows them to really think a little bit more about how their values show up in their business," Buzzard says. 

He names Bird Dog Baking as a Growing Hope kitchen "graduate" that is putting an emphasis on making "hyper-local" baked goods in an ethical way and trying to offer them at affordable prices.

Growing Hope's food accelerator will be housed in an outbuilding at Marketplace Hall that used to be a bank, housed a few different food businesses over the years, and now serves as the organization's Welcome Center. 

Buzzard says he recently met with Ypsilanti's city planning commission to okay the plan to create the food accelerator there. He envisions the accelerator as a midway point between making food in the incubator kitchen and launching an independent food truck or brick-and-mortar restaurant. Food businesses will run out of the accelerator for one to three years as they develop a plan to launch completely independently. 

Buzzard says Growing Hope is also working with Ypsilanti's Downtown Development Authority to identify suitable spaces for accelerator businesses to move into once their time in the accelerator is up. Buzzard says Growing Hope's goal is to set those businesses up for success.
Doug CoombeDeante Bland and Julius Buzzard at Growing Hope's incubator kitchen.
"Now you know what the space is. You know what the rent is going to be. You've built up your business so that you have a plan and proof of concept, so you can get an adequate loan if you need a loan for some reason," Buzzard says. "You'll have the capacity and the cash flow to support exactly where you're going."

Growing Hope's long-term goals for supporting food entrepreneurs also include networking with local schools, churches, and other community organizations that might have commercially viable kitchens. Bland is working on creating a network of satellite kitchens and providing guidance for host organizations to rent out their kitchens to local food entrepreneurs, helping them establish potential pricing and scheduling structures.

"We're helping them figure out where their storage would be, and if they have the right type of equipment … so tenants can decrease production time," Bland says. "We want to have spaces that are rental, but we also want spaces that businesses are going to be able to be successful in."

A number of resources are available for Ypsi-based food entrepreneurs. You can learn more about Growing Hope's Stepping Stones Series here. Taste the Local Difference also just released the Local Food Marketing Academy, a new set of virtual marketing classes specifically designed for farm and food business owners. And Washtenaw Community College is offering a series of workshops on the gig economy that could be useful to local food entrepreneurs.
 
Sarah Rigg is a freelance writer and editor in Ypsilanti Township and the project manager of On the Ground Ypsilanti. She joined Concentrate as a news writer in early 2017 and is an occasional contributor to other Issue Media Group publications. You may reach her at sarahrigg1@gmail.com.

Photos by Doug Coombe.