Meet Cullen Gilchrist and take a tour of Union Kitchen's culinary accelerator

The cookie that started it all.

All of the makers who are sharing space and gaining knowledge and expertise at Union Kitchen have one amazing cookie to thank. When Cullen Gilchrist and his then-business partner, his sister, needed to find a place to bake big quantities of their very popular chocolate chip cookies, they had to search for a kitchen … they found one, but it was way too big, so they started sharing kitchen space with other makers. It all unfolded from there.

Union Kitchen “started as a pop-up cafe that made awesome cookies,” says Cullen. “We got opportunities to grow because of the cookies — we tried to grow, but couldn’t find a spot. Union Kitchen grew from that.” Cullen and his sister finally found a kitchen, but it was too big, so started sharing space with other cooks and people trying to create produces. They clearly saw that those other makers were having a hard time. “They weren’t making any money,” he recalls. “Without income, they’ll go back to doing something else — they won’t make it and we’ll be stuck eating boring stuff. So then we started helping them with the core business — taxes, social media, branding. We spent the last seven years building solutions to barriers that food businesses face in creating success.”

Asked what makes Union Kitchen different from a standard communal commercial kitchen, Cullen points to the 360-approach that the Union Kitchen model takes. It’s not just about giving makers space to make products. It’s about building culinary businesses with growth and profitability in mind. “It used to be ‘how do I vend at farmers markets’ and now it’s ‘how do we really build a true brand and begin hiring, growing …’,” says Cullen. “How do we build real businesses that are financially sustainable and rewarding. That’s what creates sustainable businesses. People should be rewarded well for creating wonderful things.”