Mercedes Stevenson built a respectable catering business out of a shared kitchen in Hopkins, but it left her feeling cut off from her own community in North Minneapolis.
That all changed in April, when she became the first tenant to rent a front-facing retail kitchen in the food hall of NEON Collective Kitchens, a lustrous, state-of-the-art facility built to jumpstart the careers of aspiring food entrepreneurs.
More of the public got a taste of Stevenson’s Sadie Mae’s Comfort Food menu, which includes salmon and ox tail, on May 21, when the Northside Economic Opportunity Network hosted an open house to show off its $22 million incubator on West Broadway Avenue…