This article has been edited since it first appeared in print.
(From left) Jill Donaldson of PastryBase, Tammy Brawley of The Green Kitchen, Kellie Hughes Jordan of Owl Spoon Kefir Co. and Meredyth Archer of Mother Shrub at the RVA Food Co-Lab (Photo by Kate Thompson)
Earlier this year, four edible businesses found a shared home in an unlikely place: the mall.
Making its public debut in March, RVA Food Co-Lab at Stony Point Fashion Park houses a collective of woman-led food- and beverage-centric concepts. In the 2,500-square-foot, allergen-free space, PastryBase, Mother Shrub, Owl Spoon Water Kefir Co. and The Green Kitchen coexist under one roof.
At the combination production space and storefront, the coincidentally gut-conscious businesses make their products — which range from drinking vinegars and gluten-free and vegan baking mixes to bubbly probiotic beverages — on-site, while brainstorming with one another and meeting customers.
“It’s four female entrepreneurs within the same spot, all doing local products and taking advantage of a great space,” says Tammy Brawley, a longtime chef and founder of The Green Kitchen.
Brawley’s connection to the building dates to 2003, the year Stony Point Fashion Park made its debut. She says, “We came to this store and opened up the door, and I see copper pots hanging from the ceiling, and I found out they were offering cooking classes.”
The store was cookware purveyor Sur La Table, whose Stony Point location closed in 2020. Now, Brawley finds herself in the same kitchen she once cooked in 20 years ago — with a few upgrades — teaching cooking classes, offering catering services and hosting private events at Co-Lab.
But it was Jay McGee and Kellie Hughes Jordan of Owl Spoon Water Kefir Co. who kick-started the collaborative group. When another cooking class venue, Edible Education (now operating in Midlothian), shuttered after having taken over the Sur La Table space in 2021, they took over the lease and storefront. Hoping to curate a community there, when the chance came to connect and share the space, they seized it.
This space is breathing a breath of fresh air into my business.
—Meredyth Archer, owner, Mother Shrub
In business for seven years, Meredyth Archer of Mother Shrub had pivoted to making her drinking vinegars from home during the pandemic, but she says she was ready for a change.
“This space is breathing a breath of fresh air into my business,” Archer says. “I was kind of hitting a wall on everything. Just working around another person and being able to talk to people and bounce ideas off them — being a solo entrepreneur is hard.”
Much like the shared office model of Virginia-based Gather, the coworking hub has become the group’s unique solution to the struggles faced by many food businesses. Traditionally, such businesses start as cottage ventures, or their owners rent space at commissary kitchens. Co-Lab allows for streamlined production, personal freedom and flexibility, and a controlled number of tenants.
An added bonus: The Co-Lab workroom doubles as a storefront. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, mallgoers can sample and purchase products or simply get to know the owners.
PastryBase founder Jill Donaldson previously ran her baking mix company out of Hatch Kitchen in Manchester while using co-packers on the West Coast. Her dream was to upgrade to an allergen-free facility in the region. Hosting baking demos and classes for all ages and introducing a customer-facing element has unlocked a new level of her business.
“We’ve never had a retail space; we’ve been working out of a windowless warehouse,” Donaldson says. “The ability for people who aren’t familiar with the businesses to just walk by, and connecting directly with our customers, is something I never got to experience before.”
And while malls may have earned a reputation for being places of retail slumber, Stony Point has been working to change that. “Credit [is] due to the mall, that they are working to preserve like half of the spaces for experiential and local business, and the rest for traditional retail. ... I think that’s a story that a lot of Richmond doesn’t know or understand,” Archer says.
The social benefits of RVA Food Co-Lab are among its biggest perks. “For me personally, it’s been the community outreach and having a space where our existing customers can see us in action,” Jordan says. “We also bounce ideas off each other all the time. Many days we find ourselves standing in a circle talking about an issue we’re trying to fix. We’re technically all in different genres and categories, but it’s such a nutritive community of people.”
