Winston Prouty Center & Campus
The Winston Prouty Campus is making our expansive and unique commercial kitchen available for immediate lease to a prospective campus partner. Ideal candidates are emerging or established food service entrepreneurs eager to have a kitchen to call their own, and interest in serving the campus community. The vibrant Prouty campus community includes a strong potential customer base of building tenants, their clientele, and those who attend the frequent meetings and special events hosted on campus.
Organization Overview and History
The Winston Prouty for Child and Family Development, Inc. has been providing high quality early learning and community-based services to children and families in the Brattleboro community and beyond for over 50 years. The organization lends support to hundreds of families each year and works closely with early learning providers and many other partner organizations in the community.
In January of 2016, Winston Prouty purchased the former Austine School for the Deaf. The 184-acre campus is a vital asset to the community and region. The campus welcomes visitors to Vermont via I-91 north and sits less than a walkable mile from bustling downtown Brattleboro. Campus tenants, event attendees, and visitors access campus by foot, bike, car, and bus. Abutting the active Delta campus and near I-91, between the Route 9 and Route 5 corridor, the Prouty campus sits on land that connects the Town of Guilford to West Brattleboro and the downtown Brattleboro area. The town of Brattleboro shares its eastern border with New Hampshire and is 10 miles north of the Massachusetts line. Major metropolitan areas of Boston and New York City are easily accessible by car.
More than 30 businesses and 160 tenants call the campus home. Campus partners include schools and educational programs, health care providers, performing arts organizations, and a diverse array of individual and small group professional offices. In addition to the multiple school programs that bring more than a hundred families onto campus each day, the extensive trail system, green space, playing fields, cabins, and gymnasium bring neighbors and the public to campus for outdoor recreation, athletic practices, and play. Prouty completed a campus planning initiative in 2019, which brought together more than 100 members of the community to develop a vision for the future of the campus. From this process and the organization’s long history in the community, Prouty enjoys deep support from energized champions of its campus vision and the broader Brattleboro community.
Business Opportunity
Winston Prouty seeks an onsite catering partner to join the campus community. The ideal catering partner will provide:
- A la carte options to the campus community on regular business days, including coffee, baked goods, and take out lunches.
- Catering services for regular and one-time campus business events, including breakfast and lunches for a variety of meetings, trainings, and events.
- Catering services for onsite special events, potentially to include weddings, family reunions, and other group gatherings.
In addition, Prouty encourages potential catering partners to consider additional uses of the kitchen, such as:
- Catering prep for offsite catering business, including wedding catering and/or food truck operation
- Food production for entrepreneur’s own product
- Food production as private labeler for other businesses’ product(s)
- Expanded retail operation, serving campus or broader community, including takeout dinner or other special product (pastries, etc.)
- Meal production for onsite school programs in need of food services
- Other innovative models for kitchen use
The kitchen is available for immediate use. The over 1,500 square foot space is equipped with walk-in freezer and refrigeration space as well as a spacious preparation area, a steamer, large mixer, cooking surfaces, multiple ovens, significant storage, and proper cleaning and sanitizing equipment. There are a variety of materials, serving supplies, and cookware available onsite. The spring, summer and fall seasons provide fair weather outdoor seating options for customers.
Once we have secured an agreement with a catering partner, Prouty will explore grant funding for the renovation of the commercial kitchen. The renovation scope of work will be developed in partnership with the caterer to address their specific needs and vision. Potential projects include replacement or upgrade of some equipment and the creation of a small retail space/café.
The rent for the first year of start-up operations will be $1,000 monthly, ideally starting no later than September 1, 2020. For parties interested in beginning the work of developing their business by occupying the kitchen before September, Prouty will consider negotiating a reduced rental rate over the summer as the campus returns to normal operations.
Timeline and Response Requirements
Letters of interest will be accepted beginning immediately. Prouty encourages interested parties to submit a letter of interest by June 30, 2020. Selected parties, based on the contents of their letter of interest, will be invited for site visits and in-person meetings. From there, parties will be invited to participate in next steps by submitting a more formal description of their business plan.
Letters of interest must include:
- Name, address, phone, and email.
- Summary of related experience and professional goals.
- How you heard about this opportunity.
- Description of how the commercial kitchen would be utilized to meet campus community needs and onsite event and meeting catering.
- Description of proposed business model, work style, and related roles and responsibilities.
- A description of your overall menu approach, including any planned emphasis on healthy, local, or ethnically diverse offerings with examples of a range of menu items you might offer and estimated pricing.
- Winston Prouty would like to help provide local economic stimulus through job creation. Please describe the number of and types of employment opportunities that could be created.
- A description of how catering operation can continue to help Winston Prouty grow the campus into a hub of business and leisure activity.
Ideal partners will have a sense of humor, open communication style, strong ethical standards, enthusiasm for growing their business base, and a willingness to be flexible and grow with the campus.
Letters of interest can be sent to:
Winston Prouty Center
Attn: Lisa Whitney, Director of Campus Operations
209 Austine Drive
Brattleboro, VT 05301
lisa@winstonprouty.org
Other Requirements:
Selected partners will be required to provide a certificate of general liability insurance coverage and must secure all proper licenses and permits to properly operate their business. All local, state, and federal laws must be followed, and appropriate Department of Health approval or licensure must be obtained. Winston Prouty will not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, color, age, creed, or national origin. Winston Prouty expects the same of campus partners.
Download the kitchen Floor Plan
Campus and kitchen photos
