Entrepreneurship and the Foodservice Industry

I wonder why the foodservice or restaurant industry ties so much with entrepreneurship. There is certainly a demand in the market for good food --- we live, we breathe, and we eat. Another contributing factor is that restaurant or foodservice industry, as compared to other service or IT firms, usually has smaller business threshold.

This Fox News video, once again, reports another entrepreneurship idea for the foodies --- renting a community-supported commercial kitchen for start-up business with very flexible hours. The business model seems working very well.

I wonder if this business model will work for the rapidly-growing hospitality programs around the country. Already, academic programs are encouraged to reach out to the communities. As a professor in hospitality management, I know that many hospitality programs have commercial kitchens for teaching purposes. If we can make our commercial kitchens available at nights or during weekends, local entrepreneurs may be able to benefits from our state of art facilities --- they can use it as production or test kitchen. By doing so, hospitality programs may also gain extra revenues for scholarships and teaching, maintain a close relationship with the industry and community, and promote entrepreneurship and innovative spirit among students.

Of course, there will be many logistic and legitimate concerns involved in the progress of making a teaching-only commercial kitchen available to the communities. If you are running a hospitality program, do you think my suggestion above is feasible? What are the possible obstacles that a program must go through before leasing a kitchen to the public? If you are an entrepreneur in the foodservice or restaurant industry, how do you like the idea of working in the commercial kitchen in a hospitality program?

Selected recent relevant topics:
Blending In and Cashing out
What Are the Top Businesses for Starters?
A Gourmet Chef "Turning Lack into Luck"

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