LOVELAND, Ohio — It’s not always easy to start a business. But one restaurant owner wanted to make it a little easier on local entrepreneurs.
What You Need To Know
- Hometown, a breakfast and lunch cafe in Loveland, rents out its kitchen to new business owners
- Dominick Harney is a regular in the Kitchen Takeover program, using the space twice a week to sell his sloppy joes.
- The program allows for businesses to completely take over the restaurant in the Kitchen Takeover or just rent the space out for as long as you need
- Harney hopes to give to new business owners one day too
A normal day for Dominick Harney includes being in the kitchen cooking up sloppy joes. Harney says the inspiration to make sloppy joes came from his mom.
“She would always make these sloppy joes and I was just always kind of intrigued, like man this is just so creative,” Harney said.
So when he decided to create The Sloppy Stand, he went all in.
“That’s the one thing that I just never see in the stores,” he said. “I thought like well what if I could come up with this concept… So I said we’re going to do all sloppy joes. We’re going to do the stuff that I grew up with.”
But Harney isn’t cooking these joes in his own kitchen — it’s actually part of a program called Kitchen Takeover
Jimmy Hooper is the owner of Hometown, a breakfast and lunch cafe in Loveland. He says he knows how tough it is to find a kitchen space when you’re just starting out.
“I think the inspiration came from when we had so much trouble finding business space for my catering business,” Hooper said.
Hooper has created two programs — Kitchen Rental, which can be rented out hourly, and the Kitchen Takeover, where business owners like Harney take over the entire restaurant
“They come in, they make their own menus, they make their own food,” Hooper said.
For Harney, having this space to start his business has been a big help.
“It’s been a true blessing,” Harney said. “When I started my catering, I did everything out of my house.”
While he knows if he didn’t have this kitchen, he would still try to make it work.
“Believe me, I don’t let nothing stop me,” Harney said.
He hopes to give back someday too.
“I really hope that one day I can open up a big spot and be like Jim,” he said. “If you need a second spot, I just want to pay back the favor.”
