Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1050416
NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 80 NOVEMBER 2018 PHOTOGRAPHS BY SARAH JORDAN MCCAFFERY On a Friday afternoon in the heart of Northern Essex Community College's ur- ban Lawrence campus, El Encanto restaurant is doing a brisk lunchtime business. Students wearing backpacks and women in business / I N - D E P T H / RTK gives restaurant entrepreneurs a chance to test out their business ventures in a high-end space while also contributing to Lawrence's economic development. By Alexandra Pecci LAWRENCE'S TEST KITCHEN RTK's currect resident is Danny Torres of El Encanto. attire fill the tables, their plates boasting authentic Puerto Rican dishes like mofongo, a green plantain dish. e restaurant is light and bright, with comfortable upholstered chairs and a sleek, modern décor. Across town the next day, another restau- rant, CocoRay's, is even busier, serving up tacos, smoothies, salads, soups, and Puerto Rican fare like pernil al horno (roasted pork shoulder) in a cozy, modern-looking space. As a taco order comes up, the owner, Ray Gonzalez, offers his signature sauces to go with it, a mild green one and a red one, along with a disclaim- er that the red one is super-hot. "I warned you once," he says with a mischievous smile. e red sauce is hot in every way—fiery and delicious—and so is CocoRay's, which opened in May 2018. Although CocoRay's and El Encanto appear, at first glance, to have little in common aside from their Lawrence ZIP codes and friendly owners, they're both part of the Revolving Test Kitchen (RTK), a business incubator and restaurant popup on Northern Essex's Lawrence campus. The RTK is a revolving that is, regularly changing restaurant that gives restaurant entrepreneurs a chance to test out their business ventures in a high-end space that's provided rent-free, while also contributing to Lawrence's economic development. The RTK hosts each restaurant startup for roughly a year at a time, during which the entrepreneurs learn the ropes of the restau- rant business, establish a customer base, and test out their business plans. A "G O L D E N T I C K E T " "It's a golden ticket because there are so many budding food entrepreneurs. But to really test out a product, there's a lot of barriers to entry," says Derek Mitchell, executive director of the Lawrence Partnership, a public-private partnership for economic development in and