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Katy Chang of EatsPlace: A Food-Incubator and Pop-Uppery Takes Over the Capitol

“EatsPlace’s mission is to cultivate a food craft based manufacturing businesses and to share culinary stories by hosting pop-up restaurants.”

46The Story Exchange
By The Story Exchange

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Name: Katy Chang

Business: EatsPlace , a food incubator and pop-up restaurant event space

Industry: Food & Beverage

Location: Washington D.C., U.S.

Reason for starting: I make award winning hot sauces and kimchi, but I couldn’t find a legal kitchen to make it. So many of my food maker friends had the same problem: no access to critical infrastructure or capital equipment. So I built EatsPlace!

EatsPlace’s mission is to cultivate a food craft based manufacturing businesses and to share culinary stories by hosting pop-up restaurants. EatsPlace provides chefs-in-residence with capital equipment and kitchen and dining space, technical assistance, and access to the market through our food incubator and pop-uppery program. EatsPlace is about food production with a retail component.

Related: Read about another foodie entrepreneur here. 

How do you define success? Sucess is not having fear. We have a mantra here at EatsPlace: “Even failure is sucess.” I built a safe place for people to try out their concept and incubate their businesses without risk.

Biggest success: We’re at a 100% success rate for our first round of businesses. They have opened or have leases to open their own restaurants and businesses. And the newer graduates are their way too. To even be a small part of a chef’s dream is everything to us.

Related: 4 Tips for Growing Your Business 

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it? After opening 5 restaurants in the 5 months that we’ve been open, things are constantly changing.

Who is your most important role model? Julia Child and Buwei Yang Chao (often called the Julia Child of Chinese cooking) because both women were able to use the media to educate, entertain and expand their presence. 

[box_light]Website   www.eatsplace.com 
Twitter   @eatsplacedc 
Facebook   www.facebook.com/EatsPlace 
Pinterest   www.pinterest.com/eatsplace[/box_light]

Tell us your story!
Read about another Food & Beverage entrepreneur here.

Edited by The Story Exchange