We work in a dream factory.”

Lisa Raiola

Lisa Raiola, the visionary behind Hope & Main, Rhode Island’s first food business incubator, now celebrating its 10th year, has a surprising admission.

“This whole thing was an accident,” she said. “I was not trying to do this.” The genesis of Hope & Main goes back to 2006 when Raiola, who at the time was an administrator and clinical assistant professor in Public Health at Brown, was diagnosed with cancer.

As she spent the next three years fighting her way back to health, she learned a lot about food, and food systems. She developed a very clean diet for herself, plant based, no sugar or gluten. “A lot of people helped me to follow the diet I had created,” she said. “Here I was with a clinical background in Public Health, but I knew so little about nutrition. I thought if I ever get better I want to pay it forward. I wanted a meal service, online, where you could buy prepared food.

“Back then you couldn’t order prepared food online,” Raiola said. “And when I was sick, I didn’t need flowers, I needed food.”

An idea takes hold

Armed with the desire to start her own small food business, Raiola started looking at commercial kitchens. One day in September 2009, she was driving through Bristol and Warren with her father when she saw a home in foreclosure at the Bristol Warren line, where Hope Street becomes Main Street. When she went to the Warren Town Hall to ask about that building, she was told about the former Main Street School, which had been available for years. The town was accepting RFPs for its development.

“I just knew I needed about 1,500 square feet,” Raiola said. “This building is like 18,000 square feet. What would I do with it?” She thought further — there was a recession going on, and people were out of work.

“I thought maybe others wanted to start their own businesses and I thought of a tech incubator. Then I spoke to Waterman (Waterman Brown, Raiola’s husband) about it and he suggested a food incubator. I had never heard of such a thing. But I started googling and turns out there are about 50 of them around the country.”

The more Raiola and Brown thought about a food incubator, the more sense it made. “Johnson & Wales is here, it’s a hospitality state, it’s a restaurant state,” Raiola said.

Also, the Town of Warren did not have any other RFPs for the Main Street School.

“I had to apply for the RFP and present the idea to the town council,” Raiola said. “When I did, there was a long pause, then someone said, ‘Hope & Main, I guess it’s better than nothing’.” Armed with that initial approval, the next hurdle was the fact it was going to cost $3 million to buy, remodel and equip the building with commercial kitchens.

“I didn’t know where that $3 million was going to come from,” Raiola said.

Warren comes to the rescue

In a happy coincidence, Warren resident Paul Brule was at the time the local representative to the USDA for Warren which, based on population, is considered rural. Brule saw the proposed Hope & Main project met the criteria for a federal loan that could help get it off the ground. “The USDA basically knocked on our door,” said Raiola. “We got a USDA rural development community facilities loan for $3 million.”

Brule was not the only member of the Warren community supportive of her idea. She also mentioned local farmer and community leader Dave Frerichs and former Warren Times-Gazette editor Ted Hayes, whose coverage of the future of the public building helped get them over the next hurdle.

“I needed the media attention because it’s a public building, so as a result of the process the public noticed,” Raiola said. She mentions one editorial in particular, written by Hayes, that criticized the state for denying Raiola a business development grant. “It said something about how Curt Schilling had one video game and got $75 million — I just wanted $1 million to create 75 businesses. I still have the editorial.”

“Part of the lore of this place it what a highwire act it was just to get it launched,” Raiola said. Before they could finally get the project off the ground, they needed one final thing — a yay vote in a public, community meeting with a quorum of 125 people.

“I was very worried about getting that quorum,” Raiola admits. “Waterman and I went door to door knocking, asking people to come to the meeting. And 500 people showed up and we had to move the meeting to the middle school on a rainy Monday night. About four people opposed it. Everyone else cheered.

“It shows the power of food to bring people together.”

From dream to reality

The doors to Hope & Main opened in 2014, with a hired staff and Brown on site. Raiola continued working in academia, joining the faculty at Roger Williams University until returning to Hope & Main full time in 2019.

The inaugural class was 30 members (known as “makers”) and it has just grown steadily from there. Some pretty iconic businesses have started there, including Feast and Fettle, which now has 350 employees and 10,000 clients; Backyard Food, now a national brand; and PVDonuts and Sacred Cow Granola.

Over the past decade, Hope & Main has launched more than 500 food businesses, of which 60 percent were women-owned and 45 percent owned by founders of color. Raiola notes that those numbers are completely organic.

“That’s just who walks through our door, looking to start a food business,” she said. “Compare that to statewide, where 30 percent of businesses are women-owned and 7.4 percent are owned by people of color.” At Hope & Main, 45 percent of food businesses survive for five years. “We have launched 500 businesses, and more than 200 are still in business, so that is a good survival rate. Normally 92 percent of food businesses don’t survive,” she said.

Why the difference? Hope & Main de-risks the entire venture. “We are only making them pay for the time they use, so there’s no big investment,” Raiola said. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes in to taking a food business from concept to viability, from regulatory compliance to access to markets, business and technical assistance, and connections to capital. It’s a full 360° comprehensive program, with Hope & Main helping its makers every step of the way.

“They can try different things, without losing everything,” Raiola said. “The way to have generational wealth is to own your own home or own your own business, and this allows people to support themselves and their community build something for their families. This business creates generational wealth.”

The effect of 2020

The pandemic had an impact on Hope & Main, though not necessarily how you might expect.

“Covid had me very worried we would have to close,” Raiola said. “But people in the food service industry were laid off and it brought them to our door looking to start their own thing.” Hope & Main’s applications doubled, and businesses, including Basil and Bunny, Navad Bakery and Tizzy K’s Ice Cream, all launched during that time. 

Hope & Main also stepped up during the pandemic, launching Nourish our Neighbors (know called Main Street Meals.) Initially, Hope & Main was simply a pick up point for Bristol Warren schools and families who needed a complete meal when food insecurity soared in 2020. Despite the easing of the pandemic, food insecurity has actually increased, and now one in three Rhode Islanders are food insecure.

Hope & Main makes between 300 and 400 frozen meals a week, and distributes to partners like the East Bay Food Pantry and Head Start. The program costs about $200,000 a year to run, and the costs are covered by grants and fundraising efforts. “We pay our businesses $10 per meal,” said Raiola, “and they are really good, made with locally-sourced ingredients.” Using local ingredients from small businesses is a way of diverting federal money from big food and big agriculture, according to Raiola. “That’s usually where federal dollars go, but now they’re staying local.”

Hope & Main also sells the meals for $20 at their markets, so they are buy one, donate one. The program depends on contributed revenue and grants. “I would like to see that grow,” said Raiola. “The meals are so great, and I want to keep that going.”

Expansion in Providence

Ten years on, and Hope & Main is expanding their brand. A new facility on Westminster Street in Providence, Hope & Main West End, will be coming online in summer, 2025. “We’ve had a doubling of the demand, and half of our applications were already coming from greater Providence and underserved communities, so it made sense to grow into Providence,” she said. “We just started a Spanish language Food Business Boot Camp and have put 20 people through it.”

They also have a Downtown Makers Market at 100 Westminster St., a grocery restaurant hybrid that Raiola calls a “groceraunt.” With an eye toward what more they can do, Raiola wonders if there’s a way Hope & Main can evolve to an entity where members build equity and it becomes more of a cooperative. “It’s something we are thinking about,” she said.

The importance of what has been created at Hope & Main over the past decade has not gone unnoticed; Raiola has been showered with awards for the innovative and effective Hope & Main model. Most recently, she was awarded the Rhode Island Black Business Association’s Partnership Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals for their contributions to economic equity, leadership, and community empowerment. She was also named the 2024 USA Today Woman of the Year for Rhode Island.

Raiola is honored, but gives credit to the entire Hope & Main family. “Any accolades I get, I only get because of our team,” she said.

“We have an amazing team. And we work in a dream factory.”