E-Space Celebrates 1st Birthday
By JASON PAFUNDI
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| Patrons explore the offerings of over 30 vendors during the E-Space’s first birthday celebration. Tribune Photo by Jason Pafundi.
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Mitchell Greenberg loves marshmallows. And if not for the Entrepreneur Space and their commercial kitchen, Greenberg would just be known as a guy who loves marshmallows, not as the founder and owner of a marshmallow-making company.
The Queens Economic Development Corp. and executive director Seth Bornstein celebrated the Entrepreneur Space’s first birthday with a food-tasting event at the facility in Long Island City on Jan. 25. The event was attended by elected officials from across the borough, including Borough President Helen Marshall, who saluted the E-Space for the work it does.
The E-Space, located at 36-46 37th St. in LIC, is an innovative incubator that provides a home to emerging businesses and organizations seeking a commercial kitchen, small office or classroom. Clients also receive business counseling, technical assistance and networking opportunities, all at a reasonable cost.
In yeoman’s terms, the E-Space provides an opportunity for upstart businesses, mostly food-related, to rent time in a commercial kitchen to make their products. In order to sell food in New York City, it must be made in a commercial kitchen and that is an expensive undertaking, so the E-Space provides the entrepreneurs the chance to produce their product at a low cost.
Without the E-Space, the majority of the businesses that make up their clientele — nearly 200 — would not be able to survive.
Count Greenberg and his Mitchmallows company as one of the businesses that depends on the E-Space and its kitchen. Greenberg sells interesting flavors of marshmallow, including beer and pretzel and watermelon margarita, and without the kitchen space to test his ideas, he’d have no business.
“Because of the kitchen, Mitchmallows has a home,” Greenberg said. “I’m celebrating my first birthday right along side the kitchen.”
Greenberg currently sells his product online at mitchmallows.com, but with the help of the E-Space’s kitchen along with their business training services, he hopes to one day have his own storefront.
The E-Space birthday party featured tasting stations by more than 30 of the group’s clients. Joining Mitchmallows was Christine Sweets (christinessweets.com), NYC Hot Sauce (nychotsauce.com) and the Sans Bakery (sansbakery-nyc.com), which makes a wide assortment of glutton-free desserts.
“Baking here instantly doubled our production,” said Christine Goldfuss of Christine Sweets. “The staff is great, the equipment is well maintained and there is plenty of room for our business to grow.”
Marshall and the other elected officials in attendance — Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing), State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Forest Hills), Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst), all touted the facility’s impact on the local economy.
“It’s 170 new entrepreneurs starting new businesses and they are all creating jobs,” Van Bramer said. “There is no city without small businesses and the creation of food is the beginning of so many small businesses that make up this important sector of the economy. We need to invest more in places like this.”
In her recent State of the Borough address, Marshall spoke of the need for continued economic development, and the E-Space, she said, certainly helps with that plan.
“When we wrote the proposal for it, this is exactly what they were supposed to do,” Marshall said. “We understood what the message was, and today it’s a little easier because there is more respect for people opening up small businesses. And they are all young and what they are doing is unique.”
The birthday party ended with an over-the-top presentation of a frozen slice of cake from Elizabeth Taylor’s 60th birthday party held at Disneyland in 1992.
The cake, which lasted twice as long as the longest of Taylor’s eight marriages, was donated to the E-Space by author Jane Scovell, who helped Taylor write the book “Elizabeth Takes Off.”
“It was just so cute and thought that I don’t need to eat it,” Scovell said. “I wrapped it up, took it home and stuck it in the freezer.”
For more information on the E-Space and its available services, call (718) 392-0025.
Reach Reporter Jason Pafundi at jpafundi@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 128.