Jess Messer Credit: File: Caleb Kenna

A longtime shared commercial kitchen, business incubator and community gathering place has closed its doors at 26 Main Street in Bristol.

Lauren Gammon of Nomadic Chef Catering and Jess Messer of Savouré joined forces to open Tandem in 2015, using the production space — marked only by a blue tandem bicycle hung above the door — for their already established businesses.

At the end of this catering season, Gammon will hang up her apron. After 27-plus years in the physically demanding career, she’s moving to a consulting job with Bristol Collaborative Campus, home of Bristol Botanicals, as that nursery expands into a food hub and event space.

Meanwhile, Savouré will continue in a new production space. Messer plans to grow her soda and seltzer distribution in kegs as well as bottles and cans.

Tandem had an “intentionally obtuse” public face, Messer said, with no website or posted hours. But its cofounders used that flexibility to sublease affordable space to fledgling businesses, including Ariel’s Honey Infusions, V Smiley Preserves — which moved down the street when owner V Smiley opened Minifactory in 2022 — and, most recently, Downhill Bread, which is now looking for a new home.

Messer and Gammon had hoped Downhill would take over the space, but “it wasn’t our decision, and it didn’t end up working out that way,” Messer said. The future of the space remains uncertain.

The duo also highlighted new American chefs with pop-ups, hosted community functions and ran seasonal events that have since become staples, including a Day of the Dead shrine; winter solstice celebration Lumen (now run by Bristol CORE); and a night market that predated the 2023 return of the Bristol Farmers Market.

“The community piece was more of a project than an actual business plan, which meant we had a lot of freedom to do a lot of different things,” Gammon said.

Messer considered staying but “wasn’t so interested in doing the community-focused aspect solo, because the fun part of it was doing it in tandem — pun intended — with Lauren,” she said. “We created a thing that was exactly what we wanted it to be, and [now we] thought, Maybe it’s somebody else’s turn.”

The original print version of this article was headlined “Tandem Closes After 11.5 Years in Bristol”

Jordan Barry is a food writer at Seven Days. Her stories about tipping culture, cooperatively-owned natural wineries, bar pizza and gay chicken have earned recognition from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia's AAN Awards and the New England Newspaper...