Fasta Cooking Up Something New for Downtown State College Location

Eight years ago, Bob Ricketts opened up Fasta & Ravioli Co.’s first location at 129 S. Fraser St. Now the storefront is closed, but not for long, and not because of a lack of success for the local pasta company.

In fact, success is a big part of the reason behind what’s coming to the location.

Ricketts and the Fasta team will reopen the spot this fall as Kitchen Incb., a ‘micro-kitchen incubator’ for local food innovators to develop their work, culinary classes of all kinds, pop-up restaurants and a place for catered events and hosted meals. It’s ‘a project in social entrepreneurship, giving back and bringing you closer to your food,’ as described on the Kitchen Incb. website.

Fasta has locations in Pleasant Gap and Harrisburg and sells its products at McLanahan’s in downtown State College and at local farmers’ markets. That led Ricketts and his staff to discuss other ways they could use the space on Fraser Street, which is tucked away in the plaza alongside the Fraser Street Garage.

‘We had a conversation and said rather than having to worry about staffing it, why not just sell our products out of McLanahan’s and assume kind of a pay-it-forward attitude and share what we learned over the past eight years with other food entrepreneurs,’ Ricketts said.

The space is already well-equipped. In addition to Fasta’s operations, it previously housed Good Seed Baking Company, a gluten-free bakery developed by Fasta and baker Louisa Smith. The location is already licensed for cooking operations, and borough health inspector Kevin Kassab told Ricketts that the idea for the micro-kitchen would be permissible.

Kassab also mentioned that the Martin Luther King Plaza, which is largely completed, would offer opportunities.

‘He said they just finished redoing the Martin Luther King Plaza and that would be a great place potentially for pop-up dinners,’ Ricketts said. ‘We thought that was a great idea.’

Kitchen Incb. is already lining up programming for the space and people who are interested in using it. Ricketts has talked with a team of Penn State graduate students who are developing pasta made with cricket flour who could potentially use the location. He’s heard from people interested in setting up classes for baking, pasta-making and kids cooking. He’s talked with Rising Spring Meat Company in Spring Mills about possible butchering classes. A young, aspiring chef who currently runs a catering business spoke with Ricketts about using the space for private dinners.

‘The idea is really to be a place for food entrepreneurs to test their products, and help them with the experiences we’ve had over the past eight years,’ he said. ‘We’ve always had a passion for entrepreneurship.’

The storefront has long been a launching point for food businesses, he noted. Aside from Fasta and Good Seed, Herwig’s Austrian Bistro got its start there before moving to West College Avenue, and Insomnia Cookies was in the location before relocating to its spot on East Beaver Avenue.

‘It’s been a spot for entrepreneurship over the years,’ Ricketts said. ‘It’s just a great place for businesses to get started.’

Over the summer, Kitchen Incb. will work on getting the space ready to go and lining up more events. Ricketts said he’s excited to see where the project leads.

‘We’re just looking to see where it goes, whether it’s classes or pop-up dinners or a little more traditional incubator that we’re sharing what we learned over the years about how to grow a food business,’ he said. ‘We’re excited. I can’t wait to do things like pop-up dinners. There’s just so much young culinary talent, whether its people with food trucks or just people that have ideas that it’s a perfect thing to say ‘Hey, let’s put together a menu and have a popup dinner.”