Your Pro Kitchen – A Hub for Culinary Entrepreneurs
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE FENDER
Michelle Gautreaux races around the kitchen so fast you’d think she was on roller skates. One minute she is cutting up tomatoes, the next adding pineapple to Hawaiian chicken. She’ll sprint to an oven to check the temperature on pork tenderloins, then glide across the room to set out a couple dozen plastic containers. After that she’ll wash a few utensils, then fill the containers with brown rice before she pulls quinoa casseroles out of a different oven to cool. Watching her and her daughter work a kitchen is like watching an elegant ballroom dance that goes on for several hours.
It’s just a typical Sunday night for the mother of two. When she is done, she will have about 75 healthy meals ready for delivery.
Michelle never saw herself on the business side of the food industry. The 45-year-old Panama City resident always felt content in her career as a registered and licensed dietitian and nutritionist with a certificate in adult weight management. For more than 20 years she has been advising people on what they should eat, helping them get healthy. Her consulting business as a dietician kept her very busy.
Then, in one single month, three different people said to her, “I just wish I had someone that could make healthy meals where I could come home and the food would be there waiting for me.” The idea sparked and Michelle thought, “I could do that.”
But starting a food business is expensive, “crazy expensive,” she says. But the idea stuck with her until she heard about a shared kitchen opportunity in Panama City Beach, where you could rent a commercial kitchen space by the hour. So, three and a half years ago, Michelle became a member of Your Pro Kitchen and her business, Real Meals Delivered, was born.
“I can cook 75 meals or I can cook 200 here and I don’t have a desire to have a storefront or the responsibility of a storefront,” she says. She has thought about having her own place but the upkeep is intimidating. “I can come in here and do my thing and leave. And if something is broken, I can just tell Jeff about it.”
That “Jeff” is Jeff Lawrence, owner of the local Your Pro Kitchen franchise. Jeff had owned the space for 30 years and bought into the Your Pro Kitchen business six years ago after semi-retiring from his cabinet business that he had owned since 1984. When he heard about Your Pro Kitchen, he drove to their headquarters in St. Petersburg and returned as a kitchen owner.
“It’s an interesting business,” he says. “I really get a kick out of helping people and seeing them grow their business.” In his sixth year, Your Pro Kitchen in Panama City Beach houses 15 clients but Jeff estimates he has seen close to 100 pass through since he opened. “We’ve had some interesting people in here, people making cookies, some baking, all kinds of ethnic food, and some really good cheesecakes.” He has a client who works as a personal chef, coming to your home to cook. And several food trucks use the kitchen as their commissary, which Jeff says helps them get their license.
Those interested in using the equipment and space of Your Pro Kitchen, can rent the commercial space by the hour with a minimum number of hours each month. Members are expected to clean up after themselves, with Jeff providing all the cleaning supplies. Everyone has a code to get into the kitchen and security cameras
and an online scheduling system helps with safety aspects and time slot reservations.
“We can have up to twelve people working at a time in the kitchen,” Jeff says. Usually he tries to keep it to no more than three groups working at a time; each group usually counts around three people. Dry storage and refrigeration is onsite to use while cooking, but clients bring in their own refrigerators to keep things overnight.
“We probably get inspected more than any other kitchen around because everyone new who comes in gets inspected and then re-inspected every year,” Jeff explains. The kitchen itself also gets inspected and has a license. The inspectors love the concept and know the kitchen is kept clean and everything complies with best standards, he adds.
Your Pro Kitchen has served as a starting point for several business owners who have moved on to start and grow successful restaurants or food businesses. One of the first clients was Jeff Temperley, who now operates Temperley’s British Eatery in Panama City Beach and also operates a popular food truck tied to his business. Other success stories include the Fat and Weird Cookie Company, a business that sells—and always sells out—their aptly named cookies online, and Boo-Shaw Bakery, a company that creates and delivers gift baskets of their freshly baked goods. Jeff says it makes him feel good to see clients move on as their businesses grow and become successful. “With a lot of them you become close friends,” he says with a smile.
While many clients have dreams of moving on from the kitchen to have their own space, others, like Michelle, see the kitchen as a great way to operate a side business for her family. “My daughter has been my partner from the beginning,” she says. “We manage pretty well; we have been doing it so long together that we have our routine down.” Her daughter, Lauren, helps with the cooking and does all the deliveries. Michelle has set up her daughter as her business partner but also thinks long-term. “So if she ever moves away and wants to start her own Real Meals Delivered, she can,” Michelle says. The 19-year-old Gulf Coast State College student is not sure about that. She is studying to become a veterinarian.
Michelle says her goal is to build the business back up to the volume it had before Hurricane Michael hit the area in 2018. “We had our biggest month ever in September, one month before the storm, preparing up to 200 meals,” she says. In November of 2019, the mother-daugther team is serving between 70 and 80 meals a week in Lynn Haven, Panama City, and Panama City Beach. The response from those receiving meals has been very positive, says Lauren. “They are always excited when you hand them a giant bag of food.”
Michelle moved to Panama City from Jacksonville in 2008 and now works full-time as a dietitian at Tyndall Air Force Base in addition to running her food delivery business. She says her clients at Real Meals Delivered work and are too busy to cook but they want to eat healthy instead of eating out. She and her daughter typically cook an entire week of meals on Sunday nights at the kitchen. They are delivered on Monday in cooler bags with ice packs. The meals come in microwaveable containers that can go into the freezer and the dishwasher. As new meals are delivered, the containers are picked up, sanitized, and used again.
Customers can choose how many meals they want to order. Michelle says some people order for each meal of their day, so they order 14 meals and seven breakfasts. Some people just want a week of lunches or dinners. The menu is set a week ahead of time and people can see it on the business Facebook page, Real Meals Delivered. Each Sunday, Michelle and Lauren prepare three different main dishes and one breakfast dish. But everything can be customized, so if somebody has a food allergy, or specific food they don’t like, or a special meal plan they are following, Michelle will try to accommodate them.
“As a dietician I plan the meals based on my experience working with people trying to lose weight and people with diabetes so that they are healthy for everybody,” Michelle says. The menu can include dishes like Hawaiian chicken with seasoned green beans and coconut brown rice. Another popular dish is salsa pork tenderloin with black beans and mixed green salad. And Lauren’s favorite, caprese quinoa casserole with turkey and spinach.
Some of her dishes were inspired by her kids’ favorites, like oats stars for breakfast or protein muffins. She always makes homemade granola bars because the store-bought kind tends to have high sugar content and added fats. “The other recipes I have researched and collected from many different places and I have adapted them to make sure they are healthier. What I love doing is making healthy things that still taste good,” she says.
The Your Pro Kitchen facility has also been used by Michelle to host recipe demonstrations and cooking classes. In December, she put on a healthy holiday class with other female business owners. Yoga sessions, a massage chair, and essential oils were in focus. Her goal was to host services like her own that promote overall health, all in one spot, in the kitchen.
“I really want to get more people to know about us,” she says. “I always have people say they wish they knew about this sooner, or ‘This is so helpful,’ or ‘I have lost such and such weight.’ I just feel like we need more healthy options out there for people.”
For Michelle, working out of the Your Pro Kitchen facility has been the best option to make her business successful. “I also enjoy being a dietician and am a busy mom, so having a restaurant or a full-time place would take up a lot of time. I can come in here any time of day and do all the meal prep and then go home and be a mom tonight and a dietician tomorrow.”
For more information about Your Pro Kitchen, contact Jeff Lawrence at (850) 527-1085
For more information about Real Meals Delivered, contact Michelle Gautreaux at (850) 381-3989