Milam Street Kitchen Incubator set to open in the spring

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - Last year Housing and Urban Development awarded one million dollars to a new project for Shreveport — a community kitchen incubator.

The Milam Street Kitchen Incubator and Community Kitchen is a place for culinary entrepreneurs to operate out of, and is also suppose to help revitalize the Allendale neighborhood. Southern University has partnered with the city of Shreveport and the Housing Authority on this project.

Director of Small Business Development for Southern University in Shreveport Darrin Dixon says the building should be finished by the end of this month.

It was supposed to open last fall but weather delays kept the parking lot from getting compete. However, the kitchen is expected to be completed by March 8th.

Once completed chefs can come and use the kitchen, and they plan to provide culinary training as well.

“Our target are citizens of these choice neighborhoods, but we’re going to open it up to everybody because it will be for people in this culinary space,” Dixon

Darrin says they are also working with the MLK Health Center and the LSU medical school to create a culinary medicine program.

“We just recently got rewarded $300,000 from Blue Cross, Blue Shield who’s interested in health and children,” he said. “They looked at our culinary medicine component, (and) they liked what they saw and they invested into this program.”

Dixon says they have plans to add a packing and distributing center for these chefs too.

If you are interested in using the kitchen incubator when it opens you can call Southern University at 318-670-9700 or reach out to MSKICK on Facebook.

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