This Season at The Hive

Six commercial kitchens under one roof, and 20 local food businesses buzzing among them on different schedules: Siam To-Go, Noemi’s Dumplings, The Hungry Minnow, Faraway Chocolate, Bistro At Home, ACK Pastry Shack, Chef Kimmy, and Fato a Man, among others, moving in and out of prep shifts, pickup runs, and production windows. 

The rhythm of the space is almost like a relay. A caterer preps in the morning and heads off to an event in the afternoon. A dumpling maker comes in midday to fold and freeze. Chocolate is tempered in one corner while a Thai takeout order is packed somewhere else in the building. 

Owned and operated by Remain, The Hive opened in November 2024, with last summer marking its first full season in operation. This year, it’s running with a roster of returning Makers alongside new businesses, while also opening itself up more to the community through Sunday Makers Markets, porch events, and farm-to-table dinners in partnership with organizations like Sustainable Nantucket. 

Tom Pearson, The Hive's general manager, stepped into the role in 2024 after years in Nantucket's restaurant and hospitality industry, including as executive chef at the White Elephant. His focus now is helping local food entrepreneurs move beyond making a great product and toward building a sustainable business around it.

“To give them a launchpad and really get them past being a hobby and actually being a successful business,” he said. “We really want to see that happen.”

For many Makers, that support goes beyond renting kitchen space. The Hive offers guidance on everything from bookkeeping and LLC formation to wholesale licensing, websites, and social media. It also brings in outside experts and partners with organizations like SCORE and the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce to host workshops and seminars for Makers on topics ranging from accounting to artificial intelligence and other business tools.

Several businesses are now working toward wholesale licenses that could allow them to expand from direct-to-consumer sales into local stores, and eventually beyond Nantucket.

The shared kitchen model works because the businesses themselves have different needs. Private chefs and caterers often need daytime prep space before heading to off-site events, while packaged food makers often have flexible schedules and can work evenings and nights. Siam To-Go, for example, uses The Hive's pickup lockers so customers can place online dinner orders and retrieve them after receiving a text notification.

“If it were all private chefs, we just wouldn’t have the flexibility in the schedule,” Pearson said. “We need a mix of businesses.” 

The long term vision is to help businesses grow to the point where they outgrow The Hive itself. “Maybe their product grows and we can no longer accommodate their needs,” Pearson said. “That would be a great scenario.”

Running a food business on Nantucket comes with its own challenges, especially when so much of the year's revenue has to be earned in just a few busy months.

“That small window of summer months to really make that money — that's a challenge,” Pearson said.

Even so, The Hive’s model helps. Faraway Chocolate has moved production out of a home workspace and into The Hive, while Noemi's Dumplings recently secured a wholesale license after years of working toward that goal.

The building is designed to lower the barriers to entry. Five of its six commercial kitchens are shared-use, while one is dedicated to Faraway Chocolate because of owner Andre Marrero's specialized equipment. Shared ovens, mixers, food processors, cookware, and other equipment mean businesses don't have to make those investments themselves. One of The Hive's biggest kitchen assets, Pearson said, is its Combi Ovens, which can handle everything from roasting and steaming to grilling and can be pre-programmed to produce consistent results from batch to batch.

“They don’t have to purchase any of that themselves. It's all right here,” Pearson said.

The Hive is also looking beyond the kitchen itself. Nearly all of its kitchens are electric and use induction cooking, with plans to convert the remaining kitchen over the next few years. Solar is also planned for the facility, which will likely be led by Anne Dougherty, who works for Remain. Makers can also purchase compostable packaging through The Hive at cost rather than buying expensive bulk quantities. Conversations are also underway about future collaborations between local farms and Hive businesses.

“We are in [very early] stages of talks with a couple farmers, one farmer in particular about potentially pairing that farmer with one of our businesses to do a product over the winter that could then be sold at the farmers market during the summer,” Pearson said.

Eat Fire Farm also operates within The Hive and now uses the space to package scallops for commercial sale. “They have a wholesale license for commercial-based scallops that they can package here once they’ve been processed and taken out of the shell,” Pearson said. “So they can commercially sell those scallops rather than having to go through one of only a couple vendors on the island that were previously offering that.” 

The public is welcome to stop by 5 Amelia Drive during regular business hours, and the Sunday Makers Markets offer another opportunity to meet the people behind the products. Grab-and-go refrigerators and pickup lockers are also available, including for weekly subscriptions from Sarah Todd's Tenzo Kitchen. 

“It’s not about just offering a kitchen space,” Pearson added. “It’s about offering support that perhaps they haven’t had to encounter, like setting up an LLC, or finding an accountant, or figuring out social media — all the tools you need to run a business on top of producing a great product or offering a great service.” 

Keep reading for closer look at some of the Makers. 

To learn more about The Hive or to apply for kitchen space, visit the newly revamped website at hivenantucket.com.