About & Mission
At Real Good Kitchen, our mission is to make change through food.
We envision greater equity, opportunity and financial security for more people through food business ownership. Together, we build community, grow businesses, create jobs, and strengthen our local food system.
We share a kitchen that welcomes everyone and values diverse capabilities, talents and traditions. We nurture a community through the common language of food.
And we all eat well in the process.
We envision greater equity and opportunity for more people through food business ownership.
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Increasing Access
Real Good Kitchen makes food business ownership more accessible by lowering risks and barriers.
We invest in the equipment and infrastructure that food businesses need to operate legally and optimize production.
Building a commercial kitchen is too expensive for most people. Our shared kitchen model helps us keep our rates as reasonable as possible and get as many folks into the kitchen as we can.
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Business Mentoring & Resources
We offer mentorship, support and a network of resources focused on the unique challenges of food business ownership. From class learning to one-on-one mentorship, we are available to support food businesses as they grow.
Most of our members do not have formal business education, and we are committed to supporting them on their journey. We utilize our network to give our members opportunities for sales and get them in front of new audiences.
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Community Partnerships
We believe in being good neighbors. We’re partnering with great organizations in Knoxville like the YWCA, Beardsley Farm, Nourish Knoxville, the Shora Foundation, and more to increase access to food in our community.
The Real Good Kitchen Foundation is a companion nonprofit we are launching this summer, focusing on food entrepreneurship education and food security in our East Knoxville neighborhood.
How it started & how it’s going.
Real Good Kitchen opened in January 2021
Founder Bailey Foster started on the journey to build Real Good Kitchen in 2017. She had seen the very real economic and cultural impact of incubator kitchens like La Cocina in San Francisco, and was excited about the opportunity to build something similar for the growing Knoxville food and beverage industry.
After four years of dreaming, researching, planning, fundraising, building, inspections and more, we officially opened our doors on January 8, 2021.
Two years later…
In our two years of operation, Real Good Kitchen served 79 small businesses – 70% of which were less than three months old. Of all the incredible businesses that have called our kitchen home, 67% were owned by women and 37% were owned by people of color. Since 2021, we’ve provided local entrepreneurs with nearly 10,000 hours of time in our full-service commercial kitchen, nine businesses growing enough to open their own bricks-and-mortar spaces.
In 2022, we expanded our membership offering and officially launched Real Good Catering, which provides members with more promotion and sales opportunities.
While our kitchen continues to grow, we remain focused on our purpose: creating a more equitable, diverse and inclusive food industry in Knoxville, and bringing more great food for all of us to share.
Meet Our Members
We believe that everyone has a food story and that we need to hear (and eat) them all. To quote Jonathan Safran Foer, “Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving and identity.”
