BUSINESS
70
Sizzling Affair
ANTHONY INSWASTY PHOTOS
The Sunshine Kitchen crew includes, from left, Tony Santiago, Tracey Callahan, Matthew Piscitelli, Indian River State College student Alexis Aiello and
Mike Nattis. Piscitelli is the manager of the new culinary space.
Chefs and food operators enhance culinary
skills for better business and opportunities
at Sunshine Kitchen
BY SUSAN BURGESS
Chef Matt Piscitelli was having a really good day.
He opened the door of Sunshine Kitchen and there
in front of him stood 4,600 square feet of gleaming
new commercial kitchen space waiting for its
first use. Behind him were years of making do, from renting
kitchen space in restaurants to cooking in clients’ kitchens as
he pursued his passion for catering.
Now he not only has a space of his own to work in, but he
is also the new manager of the commercial kitchen known as
the Sunshine Kitchen Food Business Incubator — available to
anyone who wants to start or grow a food production business.
For Piscitelli, whose father had been a chef in Italy, St.
Lucie County’s first and only commercial kitchen was a
dream come true. “I first heard about it from a Fort Pierce city
commissioner and I was watching and waiting,” he says. His
eight-year-old catering business, The Flavored Fork, needed
its own commercial kitchen space to grow.
St. Lucie County, which built the $2.5 million 10,000-squarefoot
building in Treasure Coast Research Park off Kings Highway,
contracted with Your Pro Kitchen of Largo to operate
Sunshine Kitchen.
As opening day drew near, the chef’s excitement grew. He
approached Cindy Pickering, founder of Your Pro Kitchen,
about renting kitchen space for his catering business. He >>