Media: This Culinary Incubator is Fueling Restaurant Entrepreneurship on Route 66
Kitchen 66 is an incubator inside Tulsa’s Mother Road Market, providing kitchen space for culinary entrepreneurs along Route 66 in Oklahoma.
Since its founding a century ago, Route 66 has always represented new opportunities. For the earliest travelers, those opportunities might have meant new livelihoods out west, while others sought adventure on the open road. For some, it meant easier connectivity between towns and cities, and the chance for farmers to sell their products to wider audiences.
Then and now, Route 66 has always represented opportunities for entrepreneurs, creators, and innovators, and it’s that spirit driving Kitchen 66, a culinary incubator inside the only non-profit food hall in Oklahoma.
Mother Road Market: A Destination Along Oklahoma's Route 66
Located on Oklahoma’s stretch of Route 66 in Tulsa, a stone’s throw from other road trip attractions like the Land of the Giants and the Golden Driller, Kitchen 66 is the “kickstart kitchen” that fuels Mother Road Market.Founded in 2016 by Elizabeth Frame Ellison, daughter of former mayor Kathy Taylor, Kitchen 66 began in a separate space in downtown Tulsa, featuring a rentable commercial kitchen, food-focused business classes, and a pop-up market during the lunch hour. Ellison was conceptualizing her own cupcake business, and seeing a lack of resources available for start-up restaurateurs and culinary entrepreneurs, Kitchen 66 took shape to ease the cost of entry for like-minded folks in the food business. The pop-up market hosted rotating restaurant concepts, offering an opportunity for entrepreneurs to test out their concepts—and get real-world experience with everything from customer service to kitchen training—without needing to go all in on an expensive brick and mortar right away. “It was wildly embraced by the community,” says Brian Paschal, Chief Executive Officer of Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation, which operates both Kitchen 66 and the food hall. “Out of that success, we built Mother Road Market, which is the piece in the community that most people visually connect with. The heartbeat of Mother Road Market is entirely a result of the Kitchen 66 program.”
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