Celebrating Garden State Kitchen
Garden State Kitchen (GSK) opened five years ago because Kris Ohleth and her family saw a gap in access to commercial kitchen space for entrepreneurs wishing to advance their businesses. Building out a commercial kitchen costs hundreds of 1,000s of dollars—a complete barrier to entry for small food-based businesses.
It took several years and scouting a dozen different communities before coming to Orange, and Kris says, without HANDS, GSK would not be what it is today.
To date, GSK has launched hundreds of small businesses—some of which now occupy their own brick and mortar spaces.
Puras Paletas (pure pops) is one such business. After scaling and growing exponentially, they came back to GSK in search of their own space. GSK connected them to HANDS and Pure Paletas now inhabits another HANDS property, providing all natural ice pops to Orange.
Kris says, “HANDS has created a network that provides wraparound services that helps GSK thrive and by extension, so many other businesses.”
“More than a landlord, we have a partner in HANDS. We have a partner in our business, one that we know can be trusted. There are a lot of questionable landlord situations out there and when you're building out a facility like ours that requires a tremendous financial investment, knowing you have a partner you can trust in that development is beyond supportive.”
Earlier this month, GSK met with a new company from Egypt. Kris shares, “They have so much personal stake in what's going on in the war right now. Having them here and being able to elevate their story and giving them the platform to grow their business and to share food from the Middle East, and stories about their Muslim faith... Food gives us the connection to communicate these powerful stories and concepts and emotions that sometimes are otherwise just too fraught. Food is the thing in every culture that transcends language, politics, religion, and economics. It’s the thing we all do, and the thing we all enjoy, Food connects us and builds community.”
Thank you, Kris and Garden State Kitchen for all you do for our community!
