Root Catering owner creates a new space for events

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Kristin Klock-Wattie, who owns Root Catering, has leased and renovated a 4,000-square-foot industrial space at 52 Sager Drive that she has named Kin Event Space.  Renovations are scheduled to be done by the end of this month, and the first event booked in the space is a United Way Women’s Leadership Council mixer on Nov. 14.

“It’s going to be pretty much a blank canvas,” Klock-Wattie said during a recent tour of the venue while it was still under construction. Though a catering kitchen is being installed and a bar has been set up near the Sager Street entrance, many of the room’s original features – exposed brick and a grain scale large enough to weigh a dozen people at once – will remain. The space was originally used to hold livestock feed, Klock-Wattie said.

As a chef and caterer, Klock-Wattie said she frequently has customers ask her for recommendations on where to hold an event she’ll cater. “I think there’s really a need for event catering spaces,” she said. But people renting Kin for an event won’t be required to hire Root Catering, too.

“I always felt venues should allow people to choose,” Klock-Wattie said, adding that she has always appreciated when other venues with house caterers allowed outside caterers to work in those spaces, too.

Shannon Klymochko, who has worked for Root Catering for years, will manage Kin.

Use of Kin will come with basic event coordination, and Kin will operate the bar, as it holds the liquor license. Other details will be up to the customers.

“If people can dream it, we can do it,” Klock-Wattie said.

Sager Drive is a narrow street that looks more like an alley, running parallel to University Avenue between Culver Road and East Boulevard. The building’s address is actually on University Avenue, but the part of the building that KIN is in is more easily accessed from Sager.

Klock-Wattie said she discovered the space about a year ago when talking to owners of Living Roots Wine & Co. in the front of the building about a catering event there. They suggested she consider leasing the space behind them and at first she dismissed the idea. But after some time, she decided to look into it after all.

The chef will continue to operate her catering business from its location in the Winton and Blossom area. She said having both a catering business and an event venue will allow her to provide more employment through the year for the 52 people on her payroll, as the events and catering jobs tend to be seasonal, with different busy seasons.

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