I found a kitchen that's about a 15 minute drive for me from my home. It's in a church and they're looking to lease it out for a year. The realtor wasn't exactly sure on the price (he's checking with the guy) but he thought it would be around $200-$300 a month. Would that be worth it? I know that I would have to make enough cakes to cover that plus my expenses which sounds like a lot to me but I would be able to charge whatever I wanted once I got a legal kitchen... and then since it's not my own kitchen, how exactly do I go about this? Do I have to get a license still or am I okay to sell to the public since it's a commercial kitchen? Thanks!
Is $200 - $300 a month with unlimited usage or are you restricted to a certain amount of hours? Do you get storage/fridge space with this, too? What equipment do they have?
In my area, $30 - $40 an HOUR is pretty common for rental kitchen use and that doesn't include storage.
Shop around and get a feel for prices in your area are going for. $200 might be a steal or it might be out of line. I'd kill for a for $200/month! 
* As for licenses, you'll have to have business licenses for sure. Again, every area is different for bakers. Check with your local city/county clerk's office (whoever issues biz licenses) to get the scoop.
* Generally, for renting commercial kitchen space, the space owner (not the rentor) is responsible for getting inspections and maintaining the kitchen license. You, as the rentor, may still need to get your workspace checked out before a license will be issued.
but I would be able to charge whatever I wanted once I got a legal kitchen...
You can charge whatever you want in a rental kitchen, sure. Is your market be willing to pay your prices, though? Do your homework! Make sure you're not underselling yourself but also make sure you're not pricing yourself out of the market.
In addition to kitchen rental, other expenses you'll have: your payroll, kitchen tools and supplies, ingredients, electricity/utilities (if they're not part of your rental price), insurance (you DO have insurance, right?), taxes, licensing fees, marketing/advertising, gas and travel expenses (these add up quickly!), and office supplies.
Estimate what your monthly expenses are and then figure out what your profit per cake is. How many cakes will you need to break even? Turn a profit? Now take the amount of hours you have in your kitchen space and work out if you can (or want) to make it work.
Good luck to you!
I found a kitchen that's about a 15 minute drive for me from my home. It's in a church and they're looking to lease it out for a year. The realtor wasn't exactly sure on the price (he's checking with the guy) but he thought it would be around $200-$300 a month. Would that be worth it? I know that I would have to make enough cakes to cover that plus my expenses which sounds like a lot to me but I would be able to charge whatever I wanted once I got a legal kitchen... and then since it's not my own kitchen, how exactly do I go about this? Do I have to get a license still or am I okay to sell to the public since it's a commercial kitchen? Thanks!
$30-40 an hour! How do you make any money? When I do my pricing I figure on $10-15 an hour and depending on what I am making I am making zippo money and others I am still making decent money, so I had to decide I am not making the basic cakes to compete with the bakeries since I just can NOT compete with their low quality and economies of scale.
I have the opposite problem, I want to open a kitchen rental and I need to figure out how much I need to charge so that I don't lose money!
But to give you some info from what I've learned through this process:
www.mrcscatering.com is one website that has rental info that might help you. There are others, there is a thread on here (search for posts by me, although I tend to be on CC alot so you might have to weed through a few) that lists some different rental kitchens. You should be able to find some good info to ask good questions.
*Deposit
*How many hours
*Does clean up get charged at the same per hour
*What hours is the kitchen available
*Look at your prices and make sure you are including that overhead
*Does the rental include soap, equipment, storage, etc...
*What do you do with supplies you didn't use? You can't take that left over bag of flour home...
Good Luck!
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