Illana Eck has been baking since she was a kid, but selling her creations, that began more recently after the birth of her second daughter.
"I can't eat gluten, and I also couldn't eat dairy or soy when I was a breastfeeding Mom, and so I was like, what am I going to eat?" Eck, the Owner of Stylish Spoon said.
She started making baked oatmeal cups and liked them so much, that she decided to share them on a Facebook Moms Board. Those Moms started buying her homemade baked goods.
"A lot of them asked me to start doing subscriptions, and so all of a sudden within two weeks I had orders for 250 of my baked oatmeal chia cups," Eck said.
She had to make these in the kitchen of her Upper West Side Home. When she outgrew the space, she came here to Hot Bread Kitchen Incubates in East Harlem, a shared commercial kitchen space developed seven years ago.
The goal is to support the growth of start-up food businesses, create jobs, and bring nutritious foods to the community. Illana Eck says the space has done wonders for her business. Last year she made more than 20 thousand Chia cups.
"When I made them in batches at home, I would make 34 Chia Cups at a time, I make them in batches of 526 now," she said.
Clinton Shabazz, also known as the Harlem Pie Man, is another success story to come out of the commercial kitchen. He started making his pies in Hot Bread Kitchen Incubates after his 125th Street Bakery lost its lease.
"We get around all that stuff like garbage carting, water bills, and all that other extra stuff, and we can come in as we need it, as opposed to brick and mortar you've got to pay every day whether you are there or not, whether you are making any money or not," Shabazz said.
Shabazz's pies are sold at the Whole Foods in Harlem and shipped across the country by the Goldbelly Gourmet Food Website. Of course, around this time of year, there are a lot of pies to be made, so he hasn't had a day off in a while.
"Right now I'm running that show. I'm the baker, the shopper, the everything guy," Shabazz added.