Social Kitchen Will Open in Vancouver, Washington

Last month I stopped in at Social Kitchen in downtown Vancouver to learn more after learning about them from a colleague. Described as a “culinary experience venue,” it offers personalized culinary experiences with the goal of education helping to create connection and community. I had a chance to chat with Gene Fritz, one of the founders, and here is what I learned.

Who Is Behind Social Kitchen?

I mentioned Gene earlier, but he has a business partner, too—his wife, Gretchen. They both have spent time in the culinary and hospitality world.

Gene has been a personal chef, worked in restaurant operations, and is a teacher. Gretchen has spent over 30 years in sales and customer service in hospitality. She is currently the Territory Manager for Southwest Washington for the Washington Hospitality Association.

They met while attending WSU’s School of Hospitality.

The Location

I was intrigued by this location when I first came to understand its recent history—it was the previous home to Vinnie’s Pizza. They closed and moved to Portland and opened Vincenzo’s Pizzeria in 2022 there in the old Holy Goat space in Rose City Park. So, a nice Vancouver-Portland connection.

The space is right there on the corner of Main and West Evergreen in the heart of downtown Vancouver, not far from both the Library and Esther Short Park. It’s convenient to get there right off I-5, and if the MAX line does indeed extend into Vancouver, Social Kitchen would be just a block or so away from the station.

Gene told me that this is the location of the very first Social Kitchen, and they are open to franchising it, with an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) as part of the plan.

Inside The Social Kitchen

You enter on Main Street to a room with a good amount of natural light flooding the space (lots of windows in the front). As you head toward the back, the cooking area is on your right; dining space, with two 12-foot communal tables, is on your left; and a kind of mini-cafe space is in the back with leather chairs and a coffee table. The chairs at Social Kitchen are being made custom for them by Ecology in Woodland.

They’ve encountered some complications with the hood arrangement, and we talked about it a lot at the beginning of our conversation. It was pretty interesting—the process had a lot of moving parts. But it’s moving in the right direction and will be resolved.

They are really excited to welcome people into the space to introduce them to the social experiences they will offer.

Social Kitchen: The Basic Concept 

As I mentioned before, Social Kitchen focuses on providing culinary experiences that not only teach you how to cook, but make it easy to connect with others, all led by hospitality and service industry experts. Facilitating human connection is a really big deal to Gene and Gretchen. They hope to encourage “laughter and relationship-building through the universal language of food”—having fun combined with “a dash of learning.”

There are essentially two sides to the Social Kitchen coin: cooking experiences for adults (singles, couples, groups) and kids; and private occasions—private cooking experiences with friends and family that are customized to your group’s needs/wants. In both cases, teaching, learning, socializing, connecting, and making memories are what they aim for.

What Social Kitchen is not is a conventional restaurant; experiences are booked ahead of time. However, there will be some events where a few spaces will be available for walk-ins. “If the timing is right, they can come in and sit and and be part of the experience in a in a little bit more of a passive capacity,” explained Gene.

What To Expect When You Get There

You’ll head to their downtown Vancouver space; the hosts will greet you, you’ll put on your apron, and have a bubbly drink (alcohol or NA). They’ll offer you an amuse to set your palate. “Something—a bite just to get everybody going,” explained Gene.

Then you’ll be told the game plan for your time together. You’ll head over to the island on the cooking side and the person leading the experience will show you the recipes (likely displayed on digital tablets) and help you work through the first course. Then you’ll get to work!

Three more courses will follow, with dessert to end your time there. And through the whole experience, they’ll serve regional beer, wine, and specialty non alcoholic options Afterwards, you’ll be sent the recipes as a PDF.

You’ll find their kitchen will have some commercial elements to it but will mostly have familiar aspects you’d find in a home kitchen—counters, islands, and induction cooktops (no gas appliances) through partnerships with Invisacook, Vasco, and Thermador.

“The experience is more important to us than anything else,” said Gene. “People will just be festive. Laughter is super important to us. We want you to have a great meal that you actually were involved in preparing.”

Digital Eyes

Speaking of the digital aspect of things, there will be TVs displayed where you an view the action from an overhead standpoint (an overhead camera will be looking into the pot, pan, cutting board, etc). The island is long and if you are on the end you may not be close enough to see things directly. So, this is a help.

Private Occasion Customization

For private occasions, the experience can be further customized—for instance, you can include your own music playlists, or submit photo archives to be displayed during your time there. Think like for something like a family reunion, you can have family memories cascading through the digital screens located throughout the space.

“We want to help build memories,” Gene remarked.

Timing of Experiences

Each cooking experience lasts about two and a half hours. However, if it’s something like a bread baking experience, it might last four hours because of all the proofing and time demands that come with baking bread.

Gene also mentioned a possible experience having to do with meat smoking (possible partner: The Smokin’ Oak), which could be an all night experience.

“So you come in on, say, a Friday evening, and we’re going to do a one hour session on how you prepare a brisket and ribs for smoking,” he explained. “Then we’d pull up [The Smokin’ Oak’s] 45 foot long smoker. We’d put the meat in the smoker, and then have a staff member here all night—the people who attended the experience can check-in all night anytime they want and watch the fire being managed and watch us feeding in the wood.

He continued, “And then they come back in the morning, and we’ll have a brisket breakfast, and then we’ll send send some brisket home with them.”

As far as timeframes for private occasions, they can be adjusted outside of that two and a half hour period, too.

Social Kitchen Cooking Experiences

Here are some of the types of cooking experiences you’ll find at Social Kitchen:

• Meal Prep: quick meal-preparation parties
• International/Global series
• Techniques: essentials, foundations, skills
• Baking/Pastry
• Nutrition, Health, and Wellness
• Food Preservation  
• Outdoor Cooking (grilling, smoking, etc.)
• Seasonal Ingredient Themes via Local Farmers Market Experience
• Dish Themes: Pasta (lasagna, fettuccini, macaroni)
• National Day Calendar themed experiences (Here’s the National Day Calendar for reference—think National Chocolate Day, National Hot Dog Day, etc)
• Cultural Events: Superbowl, Sporting Events, Emmys, Grammys, Cook Through a Movie Theme, etc.
• Kids Culinary/Baking Camps: after school and homeschool experiences

They anticipate holding a minimum of one experience per day during the week, with two on Fridays, and three experiences on Saturdays and Sundays. They also want to do some seasonal things over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, as well as spring break, and a summer kids culinary camp next year.

Cost

You’re looking at a fee of $145 per person for a standard single cooking experience at Social Kitchen—that’s the two and a half hour event, so things that last longer (e.g., baking, smoking meat) may be at a higher price point. Gratuity is included and they discourage any additional tips guests may want to contribute.

Private Occasions at Social Kitchen

When it comes to arranging a private experience at the Social Kitchen, Gene encourages you to make your reservation two to three months in advance. This gives you more flexibility, time-wise, for your planning.

Forty-five is the max number of guests they can see being able to accommodate for any event. If you are the one putting the private event (e.g., family reunion, bridal shower, birthday, etc) together and you want to adjust how much time it will last (more or less than two and a half hours) that is an option.

Aside from the aformentioned reunion, shower, or birthday, other events that are a good fit for a private occasion include anniversaries, team-building, rehearsal dinners, holiday celebrations, or simply a private party for no reason whatsoever!

“There are so many different types of celebratory, events that people have, and we want to be a place where they want to come together,” Gene remarked. “But we’re not interested in just catering a meal to that. We want to bring them in for an experience—and they’re gonna get their hands dirty!” He believes most people who want an experience like they want to get into it and be hands-on.

However, if you’re more of an introvert or a reserved person, that’s ok. … “Now, there are some people that just want to stand back with a glass of wine or a bottle of beer in their hands,” he said. “They just want to observe, and that’s completely fine.”

He added, “There’s going to be a balance. We’ve found that some people are like, ‘I want to be at the stove with the culinary guide, the chef that’s taking us through it—I want to be right there the whole time!’ And then there’s going to be people that are like, “I want to hang back.'”

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They are looking at an early September opening, with some soft opening activities prior to that; I’ll share updates when those are clear.

Wishing Gene, Gretchen, and the team all the best as they get closer to opening Social Kitchen.

Social Kitchen [projected opening September 2025]
1000 Main Street, Vancouver Washington
Social Kitchen website | Instagram

Updated August 7, 2025.