Kitchen space at a premium in Clark County

Once a week, aspiring restaurateur Carmen McKibben spends several hours chopping tomatoes, chili peppers and onions for the fresh salsas that adorn the Sonoran hot dogs she slings at the Battle Ground Village Outdoor Market every Saturday.

McKibben, who recently left a career in finance, opened Vida Flare earlier this summer. Each week at the market, as well as other occasional events, McKibben sells bacon-wrapped hot dogs garnished with black beans and her salsa, served on freshly baked Mexican-style buns — a throwback to the southwestern flavors of her hometown of Phoenix.

What little prep work McKibben’s fare requires means she must rent a space in a commercial kitchen in order to operate legally. But finding a kitchen, even with the help of the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, turned out to be a bigger challenge than she’d expected.

“Finding a place here was very difficult,” McKibben said. “It was a good couple months and we were meeting every week at that time.”

She, along with dozens of other catering companies, food carts and other food business owners, rely on renting space in other restaurants or commissary kitchens. As Vancouver’s own food culture grows slowly but surely, so, too, has the need for businesses that support food vendors who don’t have their own full kitchens. For safety reasons, any prep work must be done in an approved commissary kitchen, said Christine Webster, an environmental health specialist at Clark County Public Health. “It can be anything from food storage to just access to potable water,” Webster said.

Unlike in Portland, where a quick online search brings up more than half a dozen kitchens for rent, Vancouver is apparently home to only two: Hour Kitchen at 5601 E. 18th St.,and Nut-Tritious Foods at 813 Grand Blvd.

Doug Bubb, who operates Hour Kitchen, which McKibben uses for her food preparation, said his business grew from his own barbecue catering company as he noticed a high demand for rentable kitchen space. He now owns two 1,250-square-foot warehouses complete with commercial-grade stovetops, ovens and refrigerators that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to renters.

But between the half a dozen caterers, a growing number of food carts, and bakers and cooks making goodies to sell at farmers markets, Bubb’s calendar is often full. He has catering gigs booked out as much as a year in advance, he said.

“We weren’t thinking commissary kitchen,” he said. “It just kind of evolved into what it is.”

Both McKibben and Bubb say there’s need for expansion in Clark County to serve the market.

“It’s evolving, but it’s going to take a little more time and a little more pressure,” Bubb said of the resources available for would-be restaurateurs.

Clark County Public Health officials said while they haven’t heard complaints of too little kitchen space, the market could be ripe for additional commissaries soon.

“As the industry continues to grow, it certainly could be an opportunity for some enterpriser to step in and fill a need,” said Don Strick, spokesman for Clark County Public Health.