Economic Impact
What Hatch has contributed to Richmond's Southside — real numbers only.
Structural figures are computed live from RentManager; every other fact is cited to a
published source. Compiled July 2026.
185
Member businesses hosted all-time
82
Operating today — 63 Hatch Kitchen · 19 Hatch Logistics
37
Graduates
31
Grew into their own brick & mortar
166
New jobs — Nightingale expansion (2025)
The Hatch timeline
2014
The former Philip Morris warehouse complex that will become Hatch's home is purchased.
2015
Renovation of the warehouses that will house Hatch begins.
2018
Lynx Ventures launches; a $622K Virginia Community Capital loan funds the first three Hatch buildings. Hatch Kitchen opens August 1 with capacity for 34–40 food businesses.
2019
The first member cohort moves in; Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches anchors the campus.
2020
60+ client businesses; Hatch Helps serves ~2,500 free meals a week during COVID.
2021
Hatch Logistics opens — cold storage & fulfillment push the Hatch footprint to 80,000 sq ft.
2022
Hatch Local food hall opens at The Current in Manchester.
2023
Biggest intake year yet — 34 new member businesses.
2024
Hatch Local closes (March 31); the incubator model keeps growing.
2025
Nightingale announces a $5.8M expansion and 166 new jobs (VEDP); makes the Inc. 5000 at 204% growth.
2026
81 member businesses operating across Kitchen and Logistics today.
New member accounts per year from RentManager lease move-in dates (first move-in per business, intercompany excluded). Hatch Kitchen Hatch Logistics. Members who joined before RentManager record-keeping began appear under 2019.
Arrivals & departures by year
New businesses in, businesses moving on — toggle the series
Show
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
From RentManager leases: arrivals are each business's first move-in;
"graduated" counts a business's final move-out year only when it appears in the Hatch
graduates directory — businesses that simply left aren't shown.
18 more of the 58 graduates left before lease record-keeping and can't be dated on this chart — they're all on the Graduates page.
The businesses
What Hatch companies actually make and do
33
Food trucks & mobile kitchens
19
Sweets, baked goods & desserts
19
Packaged foods & CPG
16
Catering & personal chefs
All 126 researched member & graduate businesses, classified
by what they do (each business counted once, by its primary line):
Food trucks & mobile kitchens · 33Sweets, baked goods & desserts · 19Packaged foods & CPG · 19Catering & personal chefs · 16Other food & beverage · 13Beverages · 10Restaurants & food stalls · 8Warehousing & non-food · 6Meal prep & delivery · 2
The investment in Hatch
From tobacco warehouses to a food economy
$622K
VCC loan built the first Hatch buildings
~$978K
equipment & FF&E purchased 2018–2020 (actuals)
20,000
sq ft — Hatch Kitchen at opening
80,000
sq ft Hatch footprint by 2021
3
Hatch buildings + a 125-seat café
$622,000 loan; 3 x 20,000 sq ft buildings
Lynx secured a $622,000 loan from Virginia Community Capital to redevelop three 20,000-square-foot buildings at Clopton Siteworks
~$978,500 equipment (actuals)
Roughly $978,500 of kitchen and facility equipment was purchased for Hatch between 2018 and 2020 — documented actuals from the equipment ledgers in Box, including $225K in freezer panels, a $190K bottling line and a $116K boiler; $341,666 of it was financed at 9% through WT Coyote equipment leases.
Hatch equipment ledgers & WT Coyote lease schedules (Box, Hatch Richmond folder) · 2018-2020
20,000 sq ft facility; 9,500 sq ft kitchen; 30+ businesses capacity; $200-$2,000/mo
Hatch Kitchen RVA opened at 2601 Maury St as a 20,000-square-foot commissary-style kitchen, with the kitchen occupying about 9,500 sq ft of the building plus a 2,000 sq ft cafe; memberships ranged from $200 to $2,000 per month and the facility was designed to house over 30 local food businesses at full capacity
34-40 businesses capacity; opened 08/01/2018
Richmond magazine reported 'room for 34 to 40 businesses when Hatch Kitchen opens' on 08/01/2018, within Clopton Site Works' 26 historic warehouses of 20,000 sq ft each
60+ member clients
By May 2020, over 60 clients operated within Hatch Kitchen, ranging from pop-ups to meal-prep services and food trucks
20,000 sq ft Hatch Logistics; 80,000 sq ft total Hatch footprint; 10-15 users
Hatch launched co-warehousing offshoot Hatch Logistics with 20,000 sq ft of storage and logistics services serving 10-15 users; at the time Hatch leased a total of 80,000 sq ft at Clopton Siteworks
3 buildings; 125-seat cafe
The three-building Hatch campus at Clopton Siteworks includes a collaborative commercial kitchen, private commercial kitchens, a 125-seat cafe, and production and warehousing space
9,000 sq ft
Hatch Local, the 9,000-square-foot food hall in Lynx Ventures' The Current building in Manchester (owned solely by Lynx), opened in early 2022 as Richmond's first food hall
20,000 sq ft leased from Hatch
Nightingale Ice Cream leases a 20,000-square-foot space in South Richmond from food-and-beverage incubator Hatch, and after freezing its planned relocation decided to remain at Hatch
Jobs
Documented employment plus a stated-method estimate
≈775
estimated jobs across all Hatch businesses
312
documented at 5 businesses with published headcounts
166
new jobs — Nightingale expansion (VEDP 2025)
How the estimate is
built
Published headcounts are used where they exist (Nightingale
~250 per VEDP, 4P Foods 52, JiJi 10, Redfern 9, and others). Every other business gets a
conservative small-business average by type — 2.5 per food truck, 3 per caterer/baker/CPG
maker, 8 per restaurant, 7 minimum for any business running its own storefront. Rounded to
the nearest 25. This is an estimate to refine as real headcounts come in — tell Caroline a
business's actual staff count and the number updates.
166 new jobs; ~250 total planned
Hatch member Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches announced an expansion creating 166 new jobs in South Richmond, growing the team to around 250 employees (implying a pre-expansion workforce of roughly 84)
Businesses that grew here
From incubator kitchens to storefronts and national retail
31
grew into their own brick & mortar
$16.1M
Joyebells lifetime sales
204%
Nightingale growth — Inc. 5000 (2025)
37
graduates
See Members and Graduates
for each story. Documented milestones:
$8,976 (2019) to ~$10.4M projected (2022); 1,100+ Food Lion stores; 600 Sam's Clubs
Joyebells grew from $8,976 in first-year sales (2019) to $53,000 (2020), ~$350,000 (2021), and $6 million YTD in 2022 (projected $10.4 million by Q4); its pies reached 1,100+ Food Lion locations across 10 states and 600 Sam's Club stores, with a 17,000-case (136,000-pie) Food Lion production run, while still using Hatch Kitchen to fulfill orders for area stores
$5.8 million; 29,000 sq ft; 5,000+ retailers
Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches announced a $5.8 million investment in a 29,000 sq ft facility (24,000 sq ft of production space on 5.01 acres) in South Richmond; the company was founded in 2016 and sells in over 5,000 chain and independent grocers
$16.1M lifetime sales; $7.7M (2023); $4.3M projected (2024)
Hatch Kitchen member Joyebells reached $16.1 million in lifetime sales since its 2019 launch, though annual sales fell from $7.7 million in 2023 to a projected $4.3 million in 2024 (figures presented by founder Joye B. Moore on Shark Tank); the company is headquartered in Hatch Kitchen RVA
Inc. 5000 No. 2,108; 204% 3-year growth; 5,000+ retailers
Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches earned the No. 2,108 spot on Inc. Magazine's Inc. 5000 list with 204% revenue growth over the previous three years, its first appearance on the list; the company distributes to more than 5,000 retailers nationwide
$5.8M project frozen
Nightingale put a freeze on its planned $5.8 million, 29,000 sq ft relocation to 2807 Transport St just months after announcing it, opting to remain at its Hatch facility (relevant caveat when citing the May 2025 expansion announcement)
~$344,500 sought; ~$1.27M personal debts
Joyebells was sued by lender Locus Bank seeking no less than ~$344,500 on a $350,000 loan (May 2023) and its owners filed for bankruptcy with combined personal debts of ~$1.27 million, including $144,000 to the IRS and ~$570,000 to manufacturer Apple Valley Foods (caveat when citing Joyebells sales milestones)
Distribution beyond Hatch
Hatch-made products on shelves across Richmond and the country
51
members & graduates distribute beyond Hatch
18
retail chains & grocers carry their products
6,000+
stores carry Nightingale nationwide
1,700+
Food Lion & Sam's Club stores carried Joyebells
Counted from each business's researched profile — any documented
wholesale, retail, farmers-market or delivery distribution counts. Retailers named in
member profiles, with how many Hatch businesses each carries:
Whole Foods · 5Ellwood Thompson's · 5Good Foods Grocery · 5Kroger · 4Union Market · 4Libbie Market · 4Walmart · 1Harris Teeter · 1Food Lion · 1Sam's Club · 1Publix · 1Wegmans · 1Trader Joe's · 1The Fresh Market · 1Total Wine · 1QVC · 1Stella's Grocery · 1Little House Green Grocery · 1
Beyond the headliners:
55 smaller businesses distribute too
Setting Nightingale
and Joyebells aside, 55 member and graduate businesses sell through at least one
channel beyond the Hatch facility — by channel (a business can use several):
Grocery & retail shelves · 30Farmers markets · 21Wholesale & distributors · 17Online & ships direct · 23
Community & context
Beyond the balance sheet
~2,500
meals/week served by Hatch Helps (2020)
400
people fed weekly during COVID
~2,500 meals; 400 people/week
Through its pandemic-era Hatch Helps program, Hatch Kitchen distributed approximately 2,500 meals and served 400 people each week at the Mount Olive Baptist Church food pantry in what founder Austin Green described as 'basically a food desert'
2 awards (GRACRE incubator; Golden Hammer best adaptive reuse)
Hatch Kitchen RVA at Clopton Siteworks won the incubator award at the 20th annual GRACRE (Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate) awards and one of two Golden Hammer awards in the 'best adaptive reuse' category for converting part of the former Philip Morris tobacco warehouse complex
closed after ~2 years (opened 2022, closed 2024)
Hatch Local food hall closed after roughly two years of operation; Lynx co-founder Bernard Harkless said operating the food hall was fundamentally difficult (context for the Hatch/Lynx Manchester footprint timeline)
Method: business counts are distinct tenant
accounts in RentManager (intercompany entities excluded); brick-and-mortar count is from
the researched member/graduate profiles; cited facts were verified against their sources
in July 2026 and include known caveats rather than only positives.