Brooklyn’s next great food trend could be born at the Williamsburg’s Moore Street Market.
The city will spend $1 million to design a kitchen facility that would help the growing class of foodiepreneurs produce their tasty fare for an affordable price — and (finally!) with the blessing of city health inspectors.
Borough President Markowitz, who is funding the food business incubator, believes that the project will create much-needed jobs in one of the borough’s fastest-growing industries.
“Entrepreneurship doesn’t know income levels, and I know that great ideas can come from anywhere,” said Markowitz.
Markowitz has floated several locations in central Brooklyn, but the Economic Development Corporation is targeting East Williamsburg’s Moore Street Market — a beloved 60-year-old indoor market it manages.
The business incubator project would make sense at Moore Street, given that the city is also pouring $2.5-million into a new public plaza on a stretch of Humboldt Street directly in front of the market. The Department of Transportation has already hired Bushwick artist Austin Thomas to make the plaza and its tables and chairs “more artful.”
“The market has a very strong, vibrant community,” said Thomas. “There’s music always playing there. It’s full of life and potential. It’s a fiesta all the time.”
Food entrepreneur and Greenpoint resident Joann Kim is keeping watch on the market for possible rebirth of her Greenpoint Food Market, which was shuttered by health inspectors last summer because few of its vendors made their food in commercial kitchens.
“It would be an amazing idea,” said Kim. “We have a vast inventory of food entrepreneurs who are all based in North Brooklyn. It’s definitely on our radar.”
