Pensacola Cooks Opens New Commissary Kitchen and Pop-Up Dining Space
Pensacola Cooks recently opened its second commissary kitchen in Pensacola—Gather: A Culinary Collective. Gather is not just a commissary kitchen, though; the Gather team has instilled a concept that is new to the Pensacola area—a pop-up restaurant space.
The new space will not only provide additional commissary kitchen space and food truck plug-in stations for local chefs and restauranteurs, but also a shared dining room for chefs to host rotating pop-up meal services throughout the week.
Located just under half a mile away from Pensacola Cooks, Gather is situated at 41 S. Navy Blvd., in the former Ceviche 805 location. Since hosting its first pop-up food vendor on November 4, there has been a steady rotation of several businesses in and out of the door looking to utilize the commissary kitchen and pop-up restaurant space.
Gather was born out of the increased demand for Pensacola Cooks’ commissary kitchen space. “At one point, we had a waitlist of close to 20 potential partners. They couldn’t move forward with their dreams and goals without our services. I felt pressure to help,” Gather’s Director of Operations Denise Shelton said.
Pensacola Cooks is a cooking education business that offers a variety of culinary experiences for adults, children and families, as well as a commissary kitchen for food entrepreneurs. The growing waitlist of local food vendors and chefs interested in Pensacola Cooks inspired the team to launch Gather.
“I don’t exactly know where the concept came from for the pop-up space, other than the fact that a handful of our current partner’s goal was to open their own brick-andmortar someday. I felt like this would be the perfect opportunity for them to practice just that, and incubate their business. We have a strong sense of a micro-community within Pensacola Cooks, and this second location has encouraged that to blossom even more,” Shelton explained.
In addition to providing a great sense of community, commissary kitchens can also be beneficial in terms of legalities. According to Shelton, many different types of food businesses need to work out of commissary kitchens. In Florida, caterers, product manufacturers and mobile food dispensing vehicles all utilize commissary kitchens.
Part of Gather’s purpose is to serve as an incubator for chefs hoping to open their own place one day while eliminating the overhead costs that can be stressful for new businesses.
Gather’s unique business model not only provides food incubator partners with a kitchen space to cook and prepare their food, but also a sit-down restaurant area where individuals can come to enjoy their food. The pop-up dining space serves as the first sit-down location for many of Gather’s current food vendors.
Gather already has 11 total incubator partners. Eight of those partners are in the pop-up rotation and the other three are utilizing Gather as a market for their products to be purchased.
Current pop-up incubator partners offer a diverse range of cuisines, including BAM Coffee, who offers assorted coffee beverages and light breakfast options, as well as vendors serving up lunch and dinner like Luther’s Touch of Heaven, Pensacola Catering, Ethiopian Cuisine by Friends and Steel Pony Diner. Gather also has food truck partners that include Pipa Snacks, Arlene’s BBQ and Sweet Love. Ehrichson’s Bakery, T’s Bees Honey and The Sealey Sauce Company sell their products inside Gather.
“We’ve been focusing on getting the pop-up concept off the ground and, as history has proven to us over the past 20 years in business, as you walk, the path unfolds. We are excited to see how Gather takes on a life of its own, driven by the passionate incubator partners,” Shelton said.
All Gather incubator partners are properly vetted to ensure they meet all legal and state requirements, including an inspection by the necessary state regulatory authority. Local vendors interested in becoming incubator partners should email [email protected].
While the kitchen space can only be rented to those with approved food-related businesses, Gather does offer a private event space that is available for public rentals. The event space seats around 80 people, and is a great space for a baby or wedding shower, rehearsal dinner or other celebration. Those who rent out the event space have a selection of in-house caterers, each specializing in their own style of cuisine. The ability to give event hosts so many different types of restaurants at your fingertips is something unique to Gather.
Since Gather operates on a pop-up basis and is available for private events, their hours change regularly. Hours are often based on the times selected by the vendor that is occupying the space. Daily schedules are confirmed by the vendor and Gather’s team each week, and once finalized, the schedules are posted online on their website and Facebook page.
Gather: A Culinary Collective is located at 41 S. Navy Blvd. in Pensacola. For more information on Gather, visit pensacolacooks.com/gather or check out “Gather: A Culinary Collective” on Facebook.