One morning last month, Veronica Salazar stuffed refried beans into sandal-shaped masa cakes, concentrating to block the commotion in a cavernous kitchen here in the Mission District. The chopping of vegetables added to the din as the clang of metal pans against stainless steel equipment competed with background music from a local Spanish-language radio station.
But this kitchen, known by the Spanish name La Cocina, is no ordinary restaurant or commercial operation. Instead, the chefs here -- all women, most of them immigrants -- worked side by side to achieve a common goal: starting their own food businesses and, in some cases, elevating themselves out of poverty.
Known as a "kitchen incubator," La Cocina is a shared-use space created two years ago to provide a platform for women entrepreneurs without assets. Offering a low hourly rate for access to 205m2 of restaurant-quality kitchen space, the nonprofit La Cocina also provides training from high-profile mentors and technical assistance on creating business plans and building marketing programs.
"There's an entrepreneurial gene," said Valeria Perez Ferreiro, executive director of La Cocina. "And we are finding amazing entrepreneurs who are already cooking or have a product that is so promising that it deserves to be seen in the market and that we think has a chance for success."
Salazar, 32, was one of the first participants in La Cocina and is one of its bigger successes. Her company, El Huarache Loco, makes traditional foods from Mexico City.
Working hard, she needed to produce 700 of her trademark huaraches, bean-filled cakes, for her weekly booth at a farmer's market and hundreds more for Carnaval San Francisco festivities over Memorial Day weekend. She also prepared fish and shrimp ceviche as an employee stirred 115 liters of carnitas in a brazing skillet for a catering job for 100 people.
"I come here to learn all the business, and I need to learn more every day," Salazar said, while dicing pounds of tomatoes for a salsa roja. "Tomorrow, I have three parties. So if I do this tomorrow, I know I can do something by myself."
The specialty foods prepared here are a reflection of the ethnic makeup of La Cocina's participants. More than half the women are Latina, with another 8 percent African-American. The rest are Asian or Caucasian. Their products, both fresh and packaged, range from Mexican street fare to Irish chocolates, vegetarian sushi, South African meat pies and Brazilian cakes.
La Cocina has opened its own booth at the high-end Ferry Building Marketplace, where it sells its participants' packaged products along with house-made charcuterie, pricey olive oils, and US$8-a-dozen organic eggs.
Every day, La Cocina's calendar is replete with participants preparing packaged products and hot food for catering jobs, a coffee shop and a busy farmer's market near the airport. Anna Shi's Gourmet has a standing weekly order for 900 of her vegetarian tofu egg roles for the Berkeley school district. Maria del Carmen Flores sells 1,500 of her yuca and plantain chips in 50 stores. Independent grocers around the Bay Area and Whole Food Markets throughout the state have picked up many of La Cocina's specialty products.
"The really cool thing about a business incubator is that when you get entrepreneurial people in one place, there's a synergistic effect," said Tracy Kitts, vice president and chief operating officer of the National Business Incubation Association, a nonprofit membership organization.
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