The Kitchen Table commercial kitchen offers essential space for food truck operators, chefs

Jul. 24—Lives changed and dreams were realized the day The Kitchen Table opened at the former Desert Academy building.

It was a long time coming, first announced in January 2021 with an original planned opening for fall 2021.

Business partners Andrea Abedi and Hilary Kilpatric finally opened their commercial kitchen May 8. Michael Dooley was the first chef to sign on a few months earlier. By mid-July, The Kitchen Table already had 17 chefs onboard with more expressing interest.

"I'd like to get to 30 in the next couple months and 50 in the next year or so," Kilpatric said.

The Kitchen Table, 313 Camino Alire, is open 24/7 and is key-card secured.

High-profile chefs and cooks Fernando Ruiz, Dakota Weiss and Ben Crosky can be found in the four-station hot kitchen. Ruiz is preparing food for his catering business at Kitchen Table before eventually opening his restaurant Escondido on Agua Fría Street. Crosky kneads his pizza dough for his Tender Fire Kitchen at The Kitchen Table.

Weiss is using the kitchen for her and partner Rich Becker's Frenchy's Dips & Tots and Dakota's Pop Parlor.

"Andrea mentioned this to me about five years ago," said Weiss, who grew up in Santa Fe with Abedi and Kilpatric. "She really knocked it out of the park. It's a gorgeous kitchen. To have a legitimate place to prepare your food is just awesome."

The hot kitchen has a six-top stove, a four-top stove, two double convection ovens, a grill, a fryer, a tilt kettle and tilt skillet, and a stock pot range, Kilpatrick said.

The Kitchen Table also has two prep kitchens, or cold kitchens, with reach-in refrigerators for each station and for overnight rental. There are two freeze dryers secured through the Healthy Food Financing Fund at the New Mexico Economic Development Department, two 18-by-8-foot walk-in refrigerators, a dry storage room, a locker room, and a washer and dryer room.

The Kitchen Table also has a 49-seat event space, or dining room, for tenant chefs to host pop-up events or The Kitchen Table's intentions to stage dining events.

"We tried to think of everything a member could possible need," Abedi said.

Part of the reason The Kitchen Table was established was Abedi needed a commercial kitchen for her own The Temptress catering and private chef business. She uses the kitchen herself now after doing her cooking in private homes before.

By state regulation, food truck operators, caterers and other mobile operators are supposed to do certain food preparation in commercial kitchens. The only other dedicated commercial kitchen in the city is at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center.

Retired chef Charles Dale applauds The Kitchen Table. He remains part of the management team at Palace Prime and previously was chef/owner at Bouche Bistro and executive chef at Rancho Encantado.

"The point is Andrea and Hilary saw a need that was unfilled in this community," Dale said. "The primary reason is it is purpose-built for the entrepreneurial community. It's really designed to support business development in the culinary arts. Whether you want to try a new culinary concept or manufacture a product, you can test it there. If you are a small product company, you can cottage industry it."

David Ahern-Seronde has a name around town as former lead brewer at Santa Fe Brewing Co. and former head brewer at Nuckolls Brewing Co.

"I left both of those to focus exclusively on hot sauce," Ahern-Seronde said. "I quit three jobs to be here."

Ahern-Seronde started July 1 at The Kitchen Table and managed to bottle 600 5-ounce bottles of his Apicklelypse hot sauce in the first week. He hopes to produce 800 bottles a month. He wants to get a foothold at small local stores like La Montañita Co-op, Beck & Bulow and Savory Spice.

The arrival of The Kitchen Table was instrumental for this next chapter for Ahern-Seronde.

"It started as a hobby," he said. "This made it come true. I would probably still be at Nuckolls [without it]."

Michael Dooley has been commuting between America's two oldest cities since 2019 — his girlfriend was a student at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, and he had his business, Sunday at Grams, in St. Augustine, Fla.

"I was itching; I was eager for them to open up," Dooley said. "This allowed me to make the decision on where to settle easier."

He has been operating his prepared-meal delivery program at The Kitchen Table since the day it opened May 8. Sunday at Grams keeps a presence in St. Augustine, but Dooley's main presence is at The Kitchen Table.

"It would have been a lot harder to scale the business here [without The Kitchen Table]," Dooley said.

Sunday at Grams prepares mainly lunch and dinner for delivery to several schools and businesses in Santa Fe. But Dooley is also exploring individual preparation and delivery.

Anika Amon does not need the hot kitchen. She creates her flavored butter for her AMA Smor business in one of the prep kitchens.

Amon is also a real estate appraiser, and fans of local girls high school basketball might recognize her name as coach of the Santa Fe Preparatory School varsity girls team. But producing flavored butter has been a dream for some time, and The Kitchen Table is making it come true.

"I wasn't going to take the next step until I could be in a place like this," Amon said. "In the next year, I hope to make this my main focus."

The Kitchen Table doesn't just provide space and equipment. Abedi and Kilpatric also help tenants with food permits, business licenses and food management certificates. The Kitchen Table is certified by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

"They put together a list of what you need to get your ducks in a row to be in a kitchen," Amon said.

Kilpatric and Abedi also see The Kitchen Table as an avenue to expand the Santa Fe dining scene beyond green chile and downtown fine dining. They plan to host events in the event space/dining area.

"We can bring in guest chefs to bring new kinds of food that [don't] exist here," Abedi said. "We are working with Syrian refugees through the Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute to do a dinner. We want to get Santa Fe known for foods other than green chile."

Kilpatric added: "One of my main goals is to put the food scene on the map nationally."