URBANA — A new shared kitchen space, known as ChefLab, aims to promote community among culinary artists in the Champaign-Urbana area.
Culinary professionals can pay to book time at the kitchen to prepare food for food trucks, catering and other food services. The space is operated by Carter Chang, who also owns BakeLab and BrewLab — local shops known for their high-end pastries and coffee.
Chang said while expanding Bake Lab, they needed a larger kitchen. But the space they found was too large for the Labs Group – the parent company of BakeLab and BrewLab.
So they decided to open it up to others — and ChefLab was born.
“With our experience in running retail business, food service business, and many other types of business, that we could actually build this into a program where food entrepreneurs of various backgrounds can come together and really work on taking their business from where it is to where they want it to be,” Chang said.
The rentable kitchen includes commercial stovetops, a deep fryer, a tilt skillet and more.
“It’s a facility that is equipped with all the commercial equipment that you need to run any food restaurant business, whether that’s a private chef catering meals to-go or manufactured goods,” Chang said.
All food trucks are required to have a commissary kitchen. But with only two other shared kitchen spaces in the Champaign-Urbana area, Chang said there is a high demand for more facilities.
“We’ve already got 13 clients,” Chang said. “Got six more in the pipeline, so there’s definitely a demand.”
American Breakfast and Grill’s food truck is among the businesses that use ChefLab to prepare food. But Chef Lab isn’t limited to food trucks.
DeAngelo Newson is a private chef for his company, Dining with Dee, which provides catering services to airports in Springfield and Champaign, schools, weddings and course tasting menus.
“We use ChefLab to do the preparation, and it’s been very helpful,” Newson said.
Chang said one of the factors that motivated the Labs Group to launch this program was their desire to cultivate the food scene in Champaign-Urbana.
“Most of the time, what you’ll find walking down Green Street is either Chinese food or Mexican food, right? And so we want to enrich the variety,” Chang said.
Newson agrees that Chef Lab is a crucial venue to the Champaign-Urbana community.
“There’s a lot of talent here in Champaign, and there’s a lot of really cool ideas that the talent wants to bring to the table,” Newson said. “And I think ChefLab gives them that platform.”
Through Chef Lab, Chang also hopes to implement culinary workshops and more collaborations.
“I would love to work with the University of Illinois. I know they have a great food program, and a lot of their students have reached out at least through the BakeLab hiring pipeline,” Chang said. “But instead of hiring these people, I would invite them to start their own businesses and come by Chef Lab and see how we can help them.”
ChefLab is open to individuals with prior experience in the food industry — mainly food entrepreneurs, chefs and businesses. All users of the space are required to hold a Food Protection Manager certificate.