By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Three years ago, Ken and Karen Bryan founded Making Thyme Kitchen by leasing Fountain Street Church’s kitchen on an as-needed basis. This year, they celebrate three years in business in a 1,000-square-foot combined kitchen and retail space at 962 Cherry Street.
Making Thyme specializes in ready-to-cook foods prepared from scratch for customers to pop into their own ovens. Whether customers pick up meals, entrees or single servings at the retail shop or choose home delivery, the dishes—like pork tenderloin with herb crust or Lebanese spinach pie with pine nuts and feta—are made from locally grown foods.
“We start with whole foods, like fresh produce we prep ourselves, and we make all our own sauces,” says Karen Bryan. “We get our meats from Sobie Meats in Walker, who gets hormone- and chemical-free beef, pork and veal from local farmers and butchers it for us. We buy flour from King Milling in Lowell and use Traverse City dried cherries and fruits.”
The philosophy is to make foods customers would make themselves if they had time.
“We will customize meals for people, make them less spicy, leave out dairy or make a gluten-free menu,” Karen says. “Often you have a family where one person eats gluten free and the rest of the family doesn’t, so we’re able to change recipes so everyone can eat the same thing.”
The Kitchen also offers a full vegetarian menu and vegan entrees.
And the Bryans do their own deliveries.
“We know our customers by name,” Karen says, “we go to their house, we sit down and visit with them. This is the most engaged I’ve ever been in this community.”
Source: Karen Bryan, Making Thyme Kitchen
Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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