Rent-a-Kitchen?

September 6, 2011 8:39 PM

Looking to rent a commercial kitchen in NYC.

My friends and I have decided to have a mac and cheese contest. For some reason, it has been determined that the best way to do this is for everyone to make their food at the same location at the same time. This necessitates a commercial kitchen, the more ovens the better.

I've done some searching online, but I feel like I've just been hitting random sites. Most seem focused on working as an incubator for businesses and the few that want to host cooking parties have only 2 ovens when I know we will need at least 3 and preferably 5.

So, is there a one-stop place I can go to find out about all the kitchens I can rent in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn? I'm happy to start calling places to inquire, but I'd like to have a long list instead of scrabbling from one website to the next and feeling like I'm missing something.

Also, what rates should we expect?

Finally, do the kitchens come with an eating area, or is that something we should look for also? We were going to have a bunch of friends join us as judges to help defer the costs, but thinking about it now, I'm not exactly sure where we'd serve them.

(If anyone has rented a kitchen in NYC in the past, stories about both the good and the bad are more than welcome.)

posted by Hactar to food & drink (5 answers total)

We used to rent a kitchen from the Brooklyn Lyceum for our occasional restaurant. They had I think three ovens, although you would probably have to arrange specially to use all of them. The space was a bit crazy, but it worked for us for a while. It wasn't really a ton of space for many people to be cooking in -- commercial kitchens generally aren't.
posted by novalis_dt at 9:45 PM on September 6, 2011

I should have specified, it's only(?) 5 people cooking. It's just that we're all precise about the temperature that the oven has to be set at.
posted by Hactar at 10:06 PM on September 6, 2011

This site should help.
posted by mhz at 6:21 AM on September 7, 2011

If you can keep it kosher, I've had good experiences with renting the commercial kitchen here. They have eating space, too.
posted by Eshkol at 6:35 AM on September 7, 2011

What if you asked around at large churches or community centers? I don't know about 5 ovens, but many of them have large kitchens that are set up for community dinners, chili feeds, etc.
posted by rossination at 10:01 AM on September 7, 2011 [1 favorite]