About SPICE Kitchen

SPICE – Supporting the Pursuit of Innovative Culinary Entrepreneurs

SPICE Kitchen Incubator is a culinary business incubator program founded in 2013 by the International Rescue Committee in Salt Lake City and in partnership with Salt Lake County.

SPICE assists refugees, immigrants, and community members of low-moderate income in establishing their own sustainable food businesses through two phases of technical assistance and graduation.

1. The first phase called Pre-Incubation consists of 4-6 months of one-on-one technical assistance, group workshops, and field trips for building business and marketing plans, product and menu development including focus groups, credit building and loan counseling, and receiving kitchen and food safety certifications.

2. The second phase, Incubation, allows the entrepreneur to rent our on-location affordable commercial kitchen and begin selling their food through various markets such as farmer’s markets, festivals, catering events, boxed lunches, and a weekly hot meal pick up service called Spice To Go (which has been discontinued). Within five years, a business will scale up, be sustainable, and graduate from the program.

SPICE Kitchen Incubator has provided assistance to over 45 new food businesses. As of date, current SPICE entrepreneurs have establish 3 brick and mortar restaurants, 7 food trucks/trailers, and 30 catering businesses.

Ashikat Kitchen is a Middle Eastern catering business that specializes in pastries, sweets, and desserts. Ashikat Kitchen is looking forward to scaling up into a café.

Jamaica’s Kitchen started primarily with catering and has scaled up through outdoor markets and events until the summer of 2017, when their food trailer became operational and currently vends regularly through Salt Lake City.

Laan Na Thai is a brick and mortar located in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. This business has seen many successes as a micro restaurant and receives great attention through local media sources.