The Anaheim building that launched one family’s successful grocery business could become a place for others to start their own food industry careers.
City officials will negotiate with Tustin-based CulinaryLab to open a cooking school and business incubator in the original Northgate González Market on North Anaheim Boulevard.
In 1980, the González family bought the shuttered Northgate Market, tacking on the family’s name and opening its own grocery store. By 2017, the family had built it into a chain of more than three dozen Northgate González Markets, including others in Anaheim, so when the original location closed the city bought the building, in part because of its place in community history.
City officials had planned to use the site as a youth center to teach business and entrepreneurial skills, but never settled on who would run it. Earlier this month, the Anaheim City Council voted to negotiate with CulinaryLab about offering culinary and pastry training and programs to help small food businesses.
“What we’re about is really kind of a contemporary approach to culinary education,” CulinaryLab founder Ryan Wagner said. It uses a hands-on approach and collaborates with local working chefs, he said, as opposed to lectures and textbooks focused on traditional dishes.
Through its nonprofit arm, CulinaryLab already offers training to students in Anaheim high schools, and the business started out at the Anaheim Packing House, Wagner said, so the Northgate project seemed like a natural fit.
For Anaheim, it was important to honor the González family’s entrepreneurial spirit, city spokeswoman Lauren Gold said. They wanted to see their original shop remain an important fixture in the community.
Serving the community is an important part of Wagner’s plans. Besides courses for people seeking culinary careers and home cooks who want to step up their skills, CulinaryLab would provide community education on edible gardening and healthy cooking, and it would assist people starting food businesses with marketing, accounting and potentially even fundraising, he said.
“We really want to nurture them all the way through, because otherwise it’s a long, hard road,” Wagner said.
But the struggle restaurants have endured during the pandemic hasn’t discouraged students from enrolling in classes, whether it’s folks who’ve decided to finally follow their passion for food or those who rediscovered cooking while quarantined at home, he said. “We’re seeing more students coming than ever.”
“Part of us taking on this project was us proving that there will be demand in the industry post-COVID,” Wagner said. “We feel very confident that the industry will make a comeback.”
CulinaryLab’s venture in the Northgate González Market site could be open by late 2021.
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November 28, 2020 at 05:59AM
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Culinary school proposed for original Northgate Market site in Anaheim - OCRegister
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