Made with Care

 Ben Lubchansky at work in the 608 CSK kitchen. (608 CSK)

The unmistakable smell of a wood-burning stove and Ben Lubchansky’s strong handshake greet visitors to the  the home of 608 Community Supported Kitchen (608 CSK), a local business bringing homemade meals comprised of strictly local ingredients to family tables around the Madison area. 

608 CSK is clearly a labor of love: Love for the land, for the local community, for the food systems in this great agricultural state and for other people.  Ben and his wife Kate Zomboracz believe in to helping families eat in a nutritious and conscientious way that can also makes their tastebuds happy.

They operate the kitchen out of a commercial kitchen attached to their family home in the town of Mazomanie, Wisconsin, about 25 miles west of downtown Madison. The kitchen runs on a model very similar to that of a Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, share.

For the CSK, however, the delivery isn’t just produce. It’s hand-crafted meals made with the best local ingredients available.

“We knew about the CSA model and we figured out very quickly that if we could get a handful of families and everybody was simply willing to get a share of whatever it was that we wanted to prepare that week — based on what was available and inspiring — then we could streamline our labor and bring to people's homes outstanding quality food, locally sourced, at very reasonable prices,” Ben said.

The business first started in 2007 in Urbana, Illinois, where Ben was working towards his master’s degree in Crop Sciences and Kate was employed by the Park District. A woman received their name from a friend at the local co-op grocery store and approached them about  preparing meals for her family on a regular basis. Their immediate response was one of uncertainty, but after working the numbers on the back of a coffee shop napkin they realized the potential of this business model provided and decided to move forward.

Within six months the CSK was cooking for 30 people and Ben said, “our minds were blown.”

Four years later, the family decided the Madison area was a natural fit for the business and their life as a whole. The city provided the right type of client-base, had plenty of agriculture to glean ingredients from and was close to Kate’s family.

“It's our typical clientele: educated, employed, busy, conscientious people. A lot of academics are both academics, and they're both really busy and they're both at about the same point in their career (which is trying to get tenure) when they happen to have a kid!” said Ben. “So then they really love us.”

In November 2011, the family situated themselves in the town of Mazomanie, just outside Madison, and were using a local restaurant’s commercial kitchen to prepare the meals they delivered to their shareholders each week. Within three weeks of starting, however, the restaurant went up for sale, taking the incubator kitchen with it and leaving the 608 CSK scrambling for a way to keep business going.

One morning Ben realized that the unfinished room on the side of their house would be a perfect space for a kitchen. It had high vaulted ceilings and lots of light. He started researching requirements for a commercial kitchen and zoning information to get a home occupation permit.

Armed with his findings (all of which pointed toward a ruling in their favor), Ben went to the Town Board hoping for a permit and the go-ahead to begin construction.

“I think there are a lot of people who are self-employed in Mazomanie and they got it.   Here's a person who moved here, has a business, and wants to stay here and find a way to make this happen,” Ben said.

By April 2012 construction was finished and Ben and Kate were free to run their business entirely out of their home, which brings its own set of joys and challenges.

A meal ready for delivery. (608 CSK)
“The joys are many, and most of them are simple, but exactly the sort of joys we seek in life. We have an incredibly high quality of living, and most of our time is our own,” Ben said.

He jokes that the couple only works something like two-and-a-half to three days per week, the equivalent of a full-time job that they get to share.

“So we have four to five days a week to do the other things in life we want to do and the things we moved here for. We get to be with our kids and go outside and enjoy the Wisconsin area. Professionally and personally, it's an absolute joy to every single week work with the best and most beautiful produce and meats that this region, a great food region, is producing from some of the most dedicated artisanal hands around,” Ben said.

Self-employment isn’t without its challenges, however. Their member base takes a huge cut when families they normally service are away on trips or have time to cook on their own. Kate said this drop in membership can be nerve-wracking because of the direct implications for their income.

“Once you see your numbers going down you're like ‘Oh no, the dream is over!’” Kate said.

Those moments of panic can’t get under a business-owner’s skin, though, according to Ben.

“In self-employment learning how to take a long view has been a challenge but it's important. You just can't start worrying about bailing water at the first leak. You have to take this long view like ok, we've done this for long enough we know that people like us and it's going to be ok, and that we have this long term vision that will work,” Ben said.

The long-term is what the 608 CSK business is about, as their operational model depends on maintaining relationships over time.

“What makes the CSK unique, is that it's a relationship-based business model in that we have relationships with our members, they have relationships with us, and then we have relationships with everyone we do business with,” said Ben. “Whether it's local farmers in the area, other small businesses that we support, the co-op or whoever, [our members] know that they're tied in through us to that local food system so there's a series of relationships there that you have to maintain.”

As far as the future of the 608 CSK, Ben and Kate intend to keep things running full-steam ahead, with the option of starting various side-projects.

Ben talks about using the resource of the commercial kitchen in their home as a springboard for their children's’ future business endeavors (when they come of age, that is) or as an incubator kitchen for other food-related businesses trying to get up and running. A food cart or event stand is another idea Ben said he’s been toying with.

For both Ben and Kate, bringing in a sort of apprentice to learn the business model and then take it back to wherever they came from also is an exciting possibility.

“We would like to share the model with others, because that's the really exciting part of it, not necessarily us and how we got here, but the model itself,” Ben said.