New restaurant incubator 'The Shop One Stop' fighting food insecurity in Louisville's West End

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A new space in Louisville's West End will help fight food insecurity and empower more entrepreneurs to start their own restaurants. The Shop One Stop: Your Creative Kitchen Space officially opens on Monday, Oct. 2.

The Shop One Stop is located on South 30th Street across from the Norton Healthcare and Learning Center in the Russell neighborhood. The 10,000 square-foot facility will help people start their own restaurant.

Aaron Williams, the co-owner of The Shop One Stop, wanted to follow in his mother's and grandmother's footsteps.

"I grew up in a very loving and cooking home," Williams said. "Living in this area, there was a limited amount of food."

The Shop One Stop: Your Creative Kitchen Space opens in West Louisville tomorrow. The new restaurant incubator can host 14 chefs at a time. I’ll show you the 10,000 square foot space at 10pm on @WDRBNews. pic.twitter.com/hdGtNmU7gl
— Molly Jett (@MolJett) October 2, 2023

His family moved to 35th Street from Chicago. Williams has gone from cooking at home to owning a food truck, Chicago's Jerk Tacos.

"It's been a long time waiting so coming in every day and seeing it and seeing the growth of it and knowing that we're ready to actually ready to keep off, it is a blessing in and of itself," Williams said.

Williams, a graduate of Shawnee High School, is committed to serving chefs and ending food deserts in west Louisville.

"There's a lot of great chefs but not all great chefs are great business owners," Williams said. "And so we'll be choosing this area and occupying this space and the heart of the West End of local and assisting those great chefs with a great business that they need to be successful will return give the immediate community access to great food."

The Shop One Stop: Your Creative Kitchen Space officially opens on Monday, October 2nd — Aaron Williams, the co-owner of The Shop One Stop, wanted to follow in his mother's and grandmother's footsteps.

With ovens, mixers and small ware, The Shop One Stop, like ChefSpace, will be an asset for Louisville.

"We just wanted to be a tool and a resource to the community and provide them with a lot of the tools and the time to slowly acquire the things that they need to be successful," Williams said. "With us being as far west as possible, we feel like that it'd be a lot more comfortable for people living deeper in the West end versus going down to ChefSpace."

The space is large enough for 14 chefs at a time.

Tiffany Adams owns Amiracle Ade Lemonade Company, which opened in 2018. She said the new restaurant incubator is also going to provide a home for the West end's cooking community.

"Oh my good, I hope to see everyone, every last one of these stations fill up," Adams said. "You never know who you meet. And then you never know who you're going to be able to grow and bring your business up from there."