BY VENI FIELDS
OCEANFRONT — Dainty peaks of pale pink frosting with fresh, sliced strawberries tucked between them. A dusting of cocoa on rows of red wine truffles. Glittering sugars and tiny curls of lemon peel on pastel puffs of icing.
These are a few of the front door teasers.
The ingredients that make Kevin Jamison and Ishiah White’s Prosperity Kitchen & Pantry noteworthy go beyond what they mix in their bowls, prompting the city and state last year to demonstrate their faith in the business by putting their money where their forks go.
“I think it stands out as something really unique,” said Kate Pittman, executive director of Virginia Beach’s ViBe Creative District, where Prosperity has its home near the Oceanfront.
“Just even the physical layout of the space, where more than half the space is dedicated to the kitchen,” Pittman said. “That really speaks volumes to the person that walks in the door, that this is a gourmet commercial kitchen and you can see everything happening. It’s not just a restaurant or just a place to go have a pastry, you’re actually watching them create everything from scratch, using hyper-local ingredients, so I think it’s really an experience when you walk in there.”
Those were points Jamison had in mind when he opened restaurants that share the Commune name in Virginia Beach and Norfolk over the last several years. White is his partner and head baker.
In March 2018, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced that it would award the company another $15,000 from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund toward the bakery expansion for its creation of new jobs and commitment to sourcing the majority of its products in Virginia – about 90 percent, Jamison said – most of them from within the city itself.
Right down to the furniture.
“We built this out by hand,” Jamison said, pointing out rough-hewn wooden shelves, tables and counters crafted from beams from a demolished barn on his Pungo property, New Earth Farm, which he purchased in 2016 after working there for years, and where he and White met.
“We’re trying to make something we can make a living off of,” Jamison said, “but we wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t something that was good for the community as well, and good for the people that work here and good for the people that eat here and good for the people that are working with us, our colleague farmers and producers. And then it’s really just about quality from that point on.”
Which means, to the partners and their patrons, as clean, organic and community-oriented as possible.
Bagged and boxed conventional favorites like sticky buns reside next to challah French toast sticks, savory bread pudding and containers of homemade buttercream icing. Shelves are stacked with preserves, honey and other local products alongside agave habanero handmade peanut butter and vanilla hickory syrup.
Coolers display an array of wines, juices, sparkling drinks and water. Bold but silky Haitian coffee – Jamison’s favorite – is available by the bag or fresh brewed.
The difference between the Commune restaurants from which Prosperity originated and what it offers is the bakery’s use of certain items, like chocolate and citrus, that are not produced in the area.
And everyone in the kitchen, White said, plays a part in its making.
“I really like how collaborative the whole thing is,” she said. Of their 14 employees, “it’s never just one person’s hand on it.”
Interacting with the public while they do it is part of what makes it special, she said.
“A lot of times in restaurants it’s closed off and nobody knows what’s going on, the people never see the people that are creating the food,” she said. “Here, we have a lot of the team who loves just watching people enjoy the moment. A lot of love goes into it, and we want people to see that and feel it.”
This is part of what drew the respect of the agencies investing in its future, as well as the business’s sustainability practices – what Jamison describes as completing the circle. Prosperity uses only compostable to-go packaging and reusable items, and, as at the Commune restaurants, scraps from the bakery go back to the farm.
Prosperity Kitchen & Pantry is located at 532 Virginia Beach Blvd, Suite B. Call (757) 390-3256 for more information or visit prosperitykitchenva.com or search @prosperitykitchenpantry on Facebook.
© 2019 Pungo Publishing Co., LLC