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Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012

Life

The Standard

Sisters In Thyme offers fresh food, rental kitchens Venue on Commercial Street features rent-by-the-hour community kitchens By Kaycie Surrell The Standard

Sisters In Thyme

Sisters In Thyme opened up on Commercial Street about five months ago. With it came a dream realized by owner Marty Cooper for a community kitchen that could be shared and enjoyed by all wanting to make and sell their goods throughout the year. Cooper has been baking and selling her delicious breads for about five years and had been doing well at the Commercial Street Farmers Market, but during the winter business would slow down. She decided to open a business that helps those from the farmers market sell year round. A community kitchen can be rented by the hour and has been inspected by the health department. It meets the standards and guidelines necessary to be able to sell goods anywhere in Springfield. “People can come and we help them get their business license, health inspection, insurance and we have people lined up to help them with graphics if they need logos and things like that,” Cooper said. Sisters In Thyme currently features treats from Cupcake Retro, a delicious selection of cupcakes offered by baker Jessica Zimmerman; Julia’s Java, a locally roasted selection of gourmet coffees and; Ruthie Faye’s Sassy Sweets, plus so much more. There’s a lot packed into the small space right across the street from the farmers market pavilion on Commercial Street. Cooper loved the charm of the building when she saw it and converted a gutted storefront without walls into a community kitchen. Their bakery also takes EBT food stamps. Everything but their hot soups and sandwiches can be pur-

Smith Continued from page 4 fans and I like that as well. We transcended a lot of things in our culture.” The benefit for Bill Thomas was organized mostly by musician Dallas Jones. Jones said the amount of pro-

326 E. Commercial St. Tuesday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. -Sandwiches run $4.99 for a small/ $5.99 for a large -Chicken Salad sides $1.50 or $6.99 a pound. -Quiche is $3.99 a slice -Spinach and Feta Focaccia bread $3.50 -Small sandwich or quiche with a cup of soup $6.99 -Cinnamon Roll $3 or $5.99 for an XL Cinnamon Roll -Fresh Brewed Coffee is $1.25 for 12 oz. or $1.75 for 16 oz. -It’s $18 for renting the kitchen up to 42 hours a month then it drops to $16 an hour

chased with the stamps and they offer a wide selection of gourmet sandwiches and sides to choose from. If you don’t see something you like, call ahead and the ladies will whip up a specialty sandwich for you. Among their fresh sandwiches and delicious soups are pickled beats, chicken salad, a wide variety of cheeses, two kinds of quiche every day and their famous baked potato soup. Cooper sells grass-fed beef from Everton, Mo., as well as organic spices and pastas and homemade cobbler that can be bought frozen, an easy way to surprise someone with dessert on the fly. Although there are community kitchens in many larger cities, Springfield was a little late in coming

around to the idea. When Cooper first proposed the idea nobody seemed interested but without anywhere to sell their goods during the winter and without the resources to do it on a larger scale, her dream of opening a

community kitchen with a homelike feel finally came to fruition. “It’s to help a lot of people, we kind of consider it an incubator where we bring people in and then we help them grow,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s delicious breads are also available at Homegrown Foods at 601 S. Pickwick Ave. as well as Urban Flea Market at 1315 E. Trafficway St. and coming soon to MaMa Jean’s Natural Market.

ceeds vastly exceeded their expectations. “We had seven instruments that were donated and they all had pretty high minimum bids and they all sold for more than what they were expected to get,” he said. “There was close to $1,100 just in instruments.” Among the items up for bids in the silent auction were a pair of Big Smith tickets to their farewell show

at the Gillioz in May at $40 face value that sold for $210, and Ozarks memorabilia prints and posters that sold between $150 and $200. “What I think was the coolest thing that sold, we had a pretty cheap entry-level guitar that was signed by all of the night’s performance,” Jones said. “We auctioned it off live. It sold for $230.” “When we started it I was hoping

we might raise $1,000 at the door and $1,000 at the auction and I know we probably did four or five times that,” he continued “At some point it changes from being a small benefit show to this big non-profit event. So we are kind of hoping we’ll fly under the radar.” Jones believes Patton Alley will also contribute a portion of the evening’s sales to the recovery

effort. “I put out one email and about 20 people said they’d be there,” he said. “That was a pretty good selection of musicians in town and it literally was no effort at all. A lot of people were saying I’d done such a good job, but it was really no effort at all. It really worked out well, I could not have asked for a better night for Bill and his family.”

Photos by Josh Campbell/THE STANDARD

Sisters In Thyme, located at 326 E. Commercial St., offers rental community kitchens that meet the standards and guidelines necessary to be able to sell goods anywhere in Springfield.

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