The Cookery Open House 1101 West Chapel Hill Street Durham Website
Last Thursday, I attended the Cookery’s open house.
Lovely mural on the building
The Cookery, in case you haven’t heard of this new business, is a 24-hour, commercial kitchen space that is available for chefs, bakers, small entrepreneurs, whoever, to rent by the hour. Its owners are also working on a culinary incubator program for the fall, offering classes and mentorship to people looking to get started in the culinary business. I took a walkthrough of their facilities as soon as the doors opened up. It’s all nice and sparkly clean—hopefully, that won’t last for long! Based on the conversation I overheard of “This is exactly what we need, a prep area like that,” I’m optimistic that’s the case.
Sink area
Storage fridge
Baker’s racks and mixer
Storage shelves
The range
Because this is the Triangle, the Cookery invited a number of food trucks and a bakery stand along to get things started off right. I’ve only been to one food truck gathering before, and I have to tell you, I think it’s hilarious how into food trucks Durhamites are. The place was swamped with the hungry, even with lines lasting 30 minutes or more. There was Pie Pushers (post coming up soon),
Blue Sky Dining,
Berenbaum’s bakery stand (post coming up on them here and at Carpe Durham),
and Slippin’ Sliders, though their truck wasn’t open, so they may have had some mechanical problems.
Waiting in line, I overheard a number of people plotting out their strategies to get something from every truck, dividing and conquering through many people in the same group waiting in separate lines. That sort of dedication to the trucks cracks me up. But on the flip side, people passionate enough to wait 30 minutes to try a new food truck offering are also passionate enough to help out a business looking for funding, in this case the Grilled Cheese Bus. It’s a nonprofit food truck that aims to grill up sandwiches with sustainable ingredients and offer jobs to high schoolers that teach them valuable skills. Lots of people were talking about contributing to their Kickstarter drive. You should, too, if you’re chomping at the bit to try the next Durham-based mobile food idea.
Good luck to the Cookery, and I hope those knives start sharpening soon!
