The beginning
It started at home, the way most good food does.
Before there was a storefront, there was a cottage food business run out of the Young family kitchen. Benny cooked what he knew: soul food, made from scratch, the slow way. Word got around the way it does when the food is real.
Turning a home kitchen into a business is its own kind of long cooking. Benny and Denise decided to be intentional about every step, and they had help from people in Battle Creek who bet on them early.
Chef Benny & Denise Young
Owners · Mitts 2 Pits Catering
How we got here
A step at a time.
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01
Where it began
The home kitchen
A cottage food business, cooking soul food from scratch for a growing list of regulars.
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02
Building volume
Two years at Sprout BC
Cooking out of the Sprout BC shared incubator kitchen in Springfield, building the recipes and the volume that a business needs.
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03
The plan, funded
The Business Plan Cohort
A Northern Initiatives cohort, a pitch, a loan, and startup grants funded through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The plan on paper became a plan with money behind it.
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04
First doors
The first storefront
Doors open on Calhoun Street. The first place customers could walk in and order.
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05
We are here · June 2026
Downtown on Michigan Ave
A ribbon cutting at 215 W Michigan Ave. A bigger kitchen, a dining room, and room to do Soul Food Sundays right.
Faith and family
Three kids, two owners, one kitchen.
Benny runs the kitchen. Denise runs the operations. The three Young children are part of the story, and the family's faith is part of it too. We are not preachy about it. It is simply who we are, and it shows up in how we treat the people who walk through the door.
That is the whole idea behind the name. From our mitts to your pit. Food made by hand, by a family, for yours.
The village
We didn't do it alone.
A home kitchen turns into a storefront when a whole community bets on you. Here is who did, and what folks around town had to say.
Soul food comes to downtown.
Downtown Battle Creek Zine
A lifelong dream realized.
Second Wave Media · On the Ground Battle Creek
A Business Plan Cohort success story.
Northern Initiatives
Backed by the people who bet on us early
- Sprout BC incubator kitchen
- BC Food Reimagined
- City of Battle Creek Small Business Development Office
- Northern Initiatives
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Come eat with us.
Walk in, call ahead, or let us cater your next event. Either way, you are getting food somebody actually cooked.