ghostkitchen

The lads discover ghost kitchens while trying to plan brunch. sincere apologies to Zach who missed part of this ep because Tor didn't see his zoom invite.

Mandy Anderson, co-founder of Lake Effect Kitchen in Grand Haven, Mich., talks about the ghost kitchen she and her partner started that was inspired by their children with autism and continues to provide learning and professional opportunities for differently abled individuals. 

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (00:00):

Welcome to More Than A Mile. Today, you're going to hear from Mandy Anderson, she co-founded Lake Effect Kitchen in Michigan. It's a catering company specifically designed to employ young adults with different abilities like her own son. Listen on to hear how it's going.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (00:17):

Welcome to More Than A Mile, a local food podcast from Market Wagon focused on connecting you to local food through farmer stories from across America. I'm Nick Carter, your host, a farmer and CEO and co-founder of Market Wagon. We are your online farmers market with a mission to enable food producers to thrive in their local and regional markets. Food is so much more than just nutrients and calories. It's actually the fabric that holds us together. And I look forward to crafting a generational quilt of farmer stories and experiences, the victories and challenges of individuals, families, and teams doing their part to help democratize food in America. Thanks for joining me for this episode of More Than A Mile, and thank you for buying local food. It's one critical step in making an investment in food for future generations.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:09):

Well, my guest today is Mandy Anderson from Lake Effect Kitchen. And I'm looking forward to hearing your story, Mandy.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (01:17):

Thanks for having me.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:17):

Thanks for joining me. So, Lake Effect Kitchen--you're from the beach side of Michigan. Grand Haven, is that correct?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (01:26):

Yep. Sunny Grand Haven.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:28):

Okay. Are you from there originally?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (01:30):

No, I'm originally from the Metro Detroit area. I moved over to Grand Haven in 2000. My spouse had gotten a job over here in this area and I had actually fallen in love with West Michigan when I was a college student at Hope College a few years prior to that. The beach is beautiful, people are friendly and welcoming, and it's just a nice kind of relaxing sort of vibe.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:54):

Do you think it's yeah, easier or better to start a small business in a smaller town? Or no?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (02:00):

I think there's challenges either way. A bigger city might have more customers for opportunity, but a smaller town--they reach out more, I think, and really try to support small businesses because we know more people, we're more connected since there's--since it's a small town kind of feel.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (02:19):

Easier to be connected in the community and have the community support you?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (02:23):

That's right.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (02:24):

Yeah. I'm a small town kid and now I live in a big city, so I'm always curious. So what sparked you and Aaron to start Lake Effect Kitchen?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (02:33):

So Aaron and I each have a child on the autism spectrum. We served for five or six years together on the Board of Autism Society of West Shore, which is now called Autism Support of West Shore, our local autism advocacy organization. So we worked together to provide support for parents living with--and people living with autism. We were working together on all kinds of like family activities, but also trying to focus on the transition age student. So your older teenage student exiting the school system or just exiting high school and needing some kind of next steps: job skills, training, paid employment. A lot of them aren't working when they're still in high school, which isn't ideal. We need to get them out into the workforce and give them those solid job opportunities. So we started looking around for what, how we could support them and what we could do personally to, you know, bring that to life. And we stumbled on a catering business for sale. We thought we'd take the plunge and just kind of go for it.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (03:43):

So Lake Effect Kitchen began with buying an existing catering business?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (03:49):

Yeah. We bought a facility that had been renovated into a kitchen and so it was in 2017 that we got started. And so the, the business that was here was doing meal prep and catering much like we're doing now. And we just sort of changed the focus a bit to be hiring and training people that have intellectual disabilities, including autism and other types of disabilities.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (04:16):

So that's a clear focus in a direction for your company is being able to teach job skills to people who are differently abled.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (04:24):

Yes. And employment equity too. We don't pay a sub-minimum wage, which is also called deviated wage. We pay a full wage to all of our employees, no matter what their disability or not disability. And we want to get them out into the community, doing our catering events, delivering food to schools or locations so that people can see that people with disabilities are able to work. They want to work. They make great employees.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (04:55):

They make great food.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (04:56):

They make great food. So, yeah, and that's a, you know, a great important point. This is the food is excellent and the people that we are employing are doing a great job learning as they go building those confidence skills and getting their first job. For most of them, this is their first job opportunity, their first job experience.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (05:19):

Some of them are working on getting their driver's licenses or moving out of their parents' home for the first time. And they might be in their mid-to-late twenties and there's, you know, but we're helping them work toward those goals as well. Work provides that--that dignity, that opportunity to earn and support yourself. And it's also a good social opportunity that we spend a lot of hours at work. And we make friends there and then that can turn into, you know, more social opportunities that they don't always find on their own, especially once they exit the school system. There isn't a lot of opportunity for that if they're not working.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (05:54):

Yeah. So you're a for-profit company, is that correct? For-profit business with a mission. That is a challenge. I know because Market Wagon is a for-profit business. We have a mission to enable food producers to thrive, and I know we constantly are coming up against situations where it might seem like it could make us more money to do something that's off mission. Do you ever come across scenarios like that where you have to make the decision to take mission over profit?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (06:26):

Definitely because some of our employees need more support and not just learning the job, but to maintain their level of job performance, just retraining and someone to come alongside them. There's a lot of situations where I could just have one non-disabled person doing the job, but I end up paying for two or three people to do that job so that we can create those opportunities for people with disabilities. So there is an additional cost involved in some of this, but I tell people--you know, I went to journalism school. My goal in life was not to be a caterer but--so, you know, the food isn't the reason for this. The mission of employment equity is the reason for that. So we try to focus on keeping our employees in their jobs and supporting that, even though it ends up more costly and hits the bottom line,

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (07:20):

The impact is the important part. And the food happens to be a means for you to be able to create that impact.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (07:26):

Correct. Yep.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (07:28):

Well, that's, that's wonderful. Thanks for sharing that. And so we've talked about the for-profit side of your business Lake Effect Kitchen, that you and Aaron created. Now, there's also a nonprofit arm, is that right? Eat Well, Do Good. And that's a nonprofit. Tell me about that.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (07:43):

Correct. We were hitting kind of some of those numbers that weren't looking as good as we'd hoped. So we tried to find how we could bring in more revenue to be able to continue to support these employees and, and bring more jobs. So we decided to start a nonprofit. We had been asked a number of times by a number of different people, why we weren't a nonprofit to begin with. And switching over was gonna be too cumbersome. So we just decided to open a new LLC. I had been using Eat Well, Do Good as sort of our hashtag tagline at Lake Effect Kitchen. So we decided to go with that for the name of the nonprofit. We got our IRS certification last summer. And so now we have the website and socials up and running. The idea behind that is to raise money, to support the mission, not just for Lake Effect Kitchen, but to hopefully be able to provide money for other small businesses in the area who might want to take a chance on hiring some of the young adults in the area with intellectual disabilities. And that way they don't have to put their own money in. We can maybe support them with three or six months worth of wages to give them a chance. And then if it's a good match and everything's working well, then they can take them onto their own payroll. And it'll be a good longer term relationship for the employer and the employee.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (09:09):

Very cool. So the two work together: Eat Well, Do Good and Lake Effect Kitchen, kind of compliment one another. And you're also then being able to help other businesses to carry on the same mission that Lake Effect Kitchen has.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (09:22):

Yes. That's the goal.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (09:24):

That's really neat. So, all right. Let's go back to the business side of things, because I love business. So ghost kitchens--would you consider yourself a ghost kitchen? Is that...?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (09:31):

Definitely. We're in a kind of a little funny corner of town. We're not in the downtown high traffic area or anything.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (09:38):

So nobody's coming to you.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (09:39):

So people do not come here. We used to have pickups for meals. When COVID hit we had to figure out what we were gonna do because we couldn't have, you know, 80 people coming in to pick up their meals every Tuesday. So we just decided to go to a fully only delivery model, which actually has worked out really well. I think people like the convenience of it. They don't have to remember that Tuesday's the day they gotta come and get their food. So there really is not much of an opportunity for people to come to the facility. We are an all production facility. We don't have like seating in front of the house type of anything. It's just, when you walk in, you are in the kitchen.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (10:19):

Now I think most people have come to know, especially in business, what a ghost kitchen is since COVID, it kind of popularized it, right? Because delivery became pretty key. And, but you started this, you, you were doing ghost kitchens before ghost kitchens were cool back in 2017. Di you call it that back then?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (10:37):

We didn't. I mean, we'd heard a few, a few people start to use that term. People have used the term commissary kitchen, incubator kitchen. There's some other terminology that people use. We weren't using it at first, but it really does do a good job describing, you know, that we are, the facility is kind of invisible. What really matters is the food is going out either to the catering events or wherever.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (11:01):

So it's all being consumed off from premise.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (11:02):

Right.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (11:03):

Okay. Well, one of the ways that it's going out is through Market Wagon, so let's talk about that real quickly. And about your menu. So if a shopper is on Market Wagon, they're gonna take some of your meals home with their local food delivery. What are they gonna find? What kind of stuff do you have out there?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (11:19):

Well, our menu changes each week. We do kind of a two month cycle. So we look at what's seasonal [for] ingredients. What kind of vegetables are available in the winter versus, you know, spring and summer? We have a couple of chefs that work on the menu together. So we'll have a couple of different soups. We'll have usually a vegetarian option or two--or a vegan option or two each week. You can order a' la carte or you can subscribe and just kind of get like a meal pack and it'll be a variety of whatever we happen to be making that week. So there's usually something for everybody. There's a whole muscle meat dish, like a, a Salisbury steak or a chicken breast meal or a pork chop kind of a meal, just a real meat and potatoes type of a thing. And then we also have handhelds--our sweet potato burrito is pretty popular.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (12:11):

Sweet potato burrito?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (12:12):

Yeah. And I'm not a vegetarian, but it is, it's an excellent meal. It's tasty. It's kind of got some new flavors that you might not get at when you think of a burrito, but yeah, the chefs are creative and they come up with some really good, some really good meal options. So there's eight to 10 things available each week. And we try to run the favorites, you know, bring the favorites around every so often. Chicken jalapeno soup is always a popular one.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (12:41):

Chicken jalapeno? What's your favorite?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (12:43):

I think chicken jalapeno is probably my favorite. It's a cream-based soup. And it's got, it's got a little bit of heat to it, but it's not too overpowering. So, you know, you don't have to go running for the pitcher of water.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (12:54):

Right. Jalapeno done right, it's got good flavor. It's not just about the heat, but--I like the flavor of jalapeno too. Yeah. People usually miss that. Okay. We talked to the beginning about your relationship in your community. Have you been able to build relationships on Market Wagon with customers that are shopping with you online too?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (13:12):

We have, we have a few customers that email us regularly and just to give us encouragement--and one person even orders our meals regularly to give out to single moms that they happen to encounter and just support other people in their community, which is a great use of our meals. We encourage that for like meal trains. I'm thinking of--I'm involved in the foster care world and we try to provide meals for foster families to kind of ease some of that burden. So we love to see when people are using our service to provide meals, not just for their own family, but for other families who might need them or just need a break.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (13:51):

And are you able to get everybody to understand what's behind the food? Like what the mission is that you are carrying out with this menu that, that it's, it's delicious food. It's good food. They should buy because it's good. But are--do you feel like people that are eating your food also understand that they're a part of carrying out this greater good for differently abled individuals that you're employing?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (14:12):

I hope so. I mean, we try to highlight some of our employees on our social media and on the Market Wagon newsfeed. We try to talk about what we're doing with the nonprofit and with some of the new things that we have going on, including the food truck that I think we'll talk about pretty soon. And just let people know that this is--it goes beyond food, great food, we all need it. It's fun and tasty and all, but the real reason behind it is to keep people working and engaged in the community.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (14:41):

Yeah. Food with the purpose. So, okay. I was getting there, tell me about your food truck.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (14:46):

So yeah, so the city of Grand Haven bought a couple of new trollies for the trolley tours that go on around here in the summertime with the tourists and everyone. And so they put the two trolleys that were now out of service up for a bid. And so a bunch of us local businesses put in bids and we were chosen to acquire one of the trolleys. We got blue trolley number four, and we are working on fundraising right now to refurbish that into a food truck. So we're gonna strip out all the seats, put in a hood system, all that good cooking equipment and everything, and hopefully be ready to roll, once the summer season starts--and start serving some food and vending out in the community,

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (15:27):

Is it seasonal? I mean, do you have a lot, like a tourist season there on the...

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (15:33):

We do. We have a very big tourist season here in Grand Haven, and we have the Coast Guard Festival. We are Coast Guard City USA. So I believe we bring in about a million people for that 10 day festival every summer, and Grand Haven is not a big place, so a million people, it is jam packed, but we have a carnival and all kinds of fun things going on.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (15:55):

So it's not a food truck, it's a food trolley.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (15:58):

Right, right.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (16:02):

Michigan's first-ever food trolley.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (16:03):

Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really good looking. It's blue and the woodwork inside is, is really cool looking and everything. So I think it's yeah, it's gonna be a big attention grabber, which is helpful being a ghost kitchen. We don't get a lot of attention on our actual building, which is just a converted house. So it doesn't the looks of that doesn't stand out. So hopefully the trolley is gonna be kind of a showpiece and a fun, you know, historical marker for the city and also serving some tasty food to everyone down on the beachfront in the summer.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (16:37):

So I just have these pictures of like a San Francisco trolley. I mean, do you have a bell or do you have a whistle or anything? That'll make it really fun?

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (16:44):

There is a bell. There's a string and yeah, we took it--I actually took it with some of my kids and some of our employees on a little tour around town on Sunday, just because I needed practice driving it. It's kind of big . And so we were driving around and I was having my son ring the bell while I was driving through town.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (17:01):

Did you hit anything?

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (17:02):

I didn't, I didn't even hit any curbs, which is a kind of a running joke with my family because I drive a big vehicle anyway and I do hit a lot of curbs, but I didn't this time. So I did well.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (17:14):

My trick--I drive for farming, you know--it's truck and trailer a lot and you never wanna pull--you always wanna know how you're getting out of a street when you pull into a street, when you have to put it in reverse to get back out.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (17:27):

Yeah.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (17:28):

You turn cautiously.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (17:29):

I tried to not reverse at all. Cause there's no, there's no backup camera. Right? Like my vehicle has a backup, a camera. There's no camera on this thing. , it's just this great big trolley. And it's got like even the front, it's got a cow catcher on the front. So you know, that adds a little extra length that you gotta take into account when you're making those turns.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (17:47):

That's great. Will it require any additional training or care with the staff that you work with being in a different scenario? Out into the public and under a lot of pressure, like a quick serve kitchen, it's a different kind of pressure than a ghost kitchen, right? Fast service.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (18:04):

Oh definitely. I think that it's gonna be learning curve for all of us. I've never run a food truck before. I've worked in fine dining restaurants, but I've never worked in a quick-serve type of a restaurant. So yeah, we're planning hopefully a month of training and small soft opening kind of events to get everybody up to speed. We'd also like to include an extra position for kind of a greeter person, a host for the food truck, which will be a great position for someone like my son who has autism or someone else that might not really be able to run the cash register or something like that, but can welcome people to the food truck. Talk about you know, why we're doing what we're doing, hand out a little literature or something and just sort of explain, you know, what we're serving that day, what the process is and all of that.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (18:53):

That sounds like a great way to get your message and your mission out into the community even more, so congratulations on that next venture.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (18:58):

Thanks. Yeah, it's exciting.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (18:59):

I'll follow that with interest. Okay. Well aside from looking for the bells and whistles around Grand Haven, listening for the bells, how else can our listeners find you on social media? Where are you at?

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (19:13):

We're on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram and then we also each have a website for Lake Effect Kitchen and for the nonprofit. So LakeEffectKitchen.com and EatWell-DoGood.org.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (19:30):

EatWell-DoGood.org and Lake Effect Kitchen on Facebook and Instagram.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (19:35):

Yes. And at LakeEffectKitchen.com. Yep.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (19:39):

Okay. Well Mandy, thanks so much for joining me today.

Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (19:42):

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was fun.

Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (19:50):

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than A Mile. Be sure to sign up for Market Wagon at MarketWagon.com or after downloading the Market Wagon app for iOS or Android. Follow us @MarketWagon on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook for stories, recipes, special announcements, news, and just digital handshakes from our friendly farming community. If you enjoyed More Than A Mile, please rate the podcast and write a review on iTunes, CastBox, PodChaser or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Thank you for continuing to support local food.

Geisterküchen oder auch als Anglizismus Ghostkitchens genannt scheinen der neue Hype zu sein. Investoren fahren voll drauf ab und internationale big Player kaufen Marken auf, die sich im Ghostkitchen-Prinzip etabliert haben.

Was sich hinter den Geisterküchen versteckt und ob der Hype berechtigt ist, darüber spreche ich in dieser Folge. Außerdem stelle ich euch das Konzept sowie einige Marken vor.

Beispielmarken:

http://www.delischfood.com/

https://shop.eatvertical.de/de/record

Ghost Kitchens - it sounds like a great name for a horror movie, but they could just be the future of BBQ. Shawn P. Walchef, founder of iconic California BBQ joint Cali Comfort BBQ is our guest on this incredible episode of the Smoking Hot Confessions BBQ Podcast. 

A serial entrepreneur, Shawn also happens to be one of the best BBQ Pitmasters not just in San Diego, but on the West Coast, and his barbecue smoked meat, including brisket burnt ends are the stuff of barbeque legend. But that’s not it. He also loves digital media and fully believes that investing in digital technologies is essential to the longevity of barbeque businesses. His first foray into digital media was the award winning Behind the Smoke Podcast with friend and colleague Derek Marso. That show won Best Audio Series at the NBBQA Conference in 2019. At that point, Shawn founded Cali BBQ Media and the Behind the Smoke BBQ Podcast became the Digital Hospitality podcast. Then the world changed, and Shawn doubled down on the power of digital technology and has literally transformed Cali Comfort BBQ into something new and ready for the new world. 

In this Episode of the Smoking Hot Confessions BBQ Podcast, Shawn and I get into:

• His newest smoker, a Traeger (4:55)
• The $5,000,001 business pitch to Amazon (7:51)
• How Cali Comfort BBQ was founded (18:40)
• The story of the Behind the Smoke Podcast and how it evolved into the Digital Hospitality Podcast (27:08)
• How to set up a Ghost Kitchen (41:27)
• Tips for Business Pitching (49:54)

Barbe Con is coming soon - stay tuned for the confirmation of the date in July. 

New to BBQ? Grab your free copy of our eBook 'The Beginners Guide to Real BBQ' at our website now:

https://smokinghotconfessions.com 

Today we talk with Ralph and Caroline Walde, co-founders and the husband and wife chef duo behind Aymara Peruvian kitchen. The restaurant industry is constantly evolving, and trends can seemingly pop-up and disappear overnight. But one industry trend that is looking like it has some staying power is the ghost kitchen. Brick and mortar restaurants begat more cost-efficient food trucks, which have in turn led to even more cost-efficient ghost kitchens.

Listen in as we cover how the coronavirus pandemic steered Ralph and Caroline into opening Aymara, the economics of taking orders through delivery apps, and how to progress from a cook to a chef.

Restaurants love rice: versatile, inexpensive, and with a long shelf life, it is a wonderful canvas for chefs. Foodservice guru Kevin Gross and Chef Carl Schwartz join Michael and Lesley to talk about working with chefs to promote commodities like rice through recipe development, the new Rice to the Rescue program, and more. And Cameron Jacobs is back to talk rice and restaurants, and they all share stories of their time in foodservice – from pizza and hauling boxes to bussing tables for the mob and more.

Hosted by:

Michael Klein and Lesley Dixon