By Rebecca Henely
Would you eat a chocolate marshmallow? How about one in butterscotch flavor? Or maybe tomato?
All these flavors and many more are for sale at Mitchmallows, an online marshmallow shop that is the brainchild of Manhattanite Mitchell Greenberg and one of many businesses that work out of the Entrepreneur Space in Long Island City.
From grape and creamsicle to maple syrup pancake and pretzels and beer, Greenberg’s Mitchmallows are desserts that can be sweet but also savory.
“Candy is memories,” Greenberg said, “and it brings back great memories for people.”
After putting in more than 20 years as a production designer for theater and television, Greenberg decided he needed a different type of change in scenery. He started to wonder how to make a marshmallow.
“I’d always been a huge fan of candy, but I never made any candy,” he said.
Greenberg spent about a year learning how to make marshmallows on his own through online research and YouTube videos as well as trying out a myriad of flavors. He later discovered the Entrepreneur Space, a food business incubator, at 36-45 37th St. in Long Island City, where startups can use a kitchen and get resources in how to grow their business, from a newspaper story.
Joining the Entrepreneur Space allowed him to make larger batches as well as benefit from the guidance of Kathrine Gregory, whose consulting firm Mi Kitchen es su Kitchen runs the space in a partnership with the Queens Economic Development Corp.
“Mitchmallows would be lost if it wasn’t for the Entrepreneur Space,” he said.
In addition to being a designer, Greenberg also graduated from Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College. He said his design background taught him how to present and be creative with the product, while his clown training taught him to inject humor into advertising it.
“Marshmallows are pretty silly,” Greenberg said. “It’s not a very serious food.”
In addition to selling through his website, Greenberg also does catering, combining marshmallows with other foods to make tasty treats. Some of these combinations include vanilla marshmallows with chocolate and graham crackers to make s’mores or melting a tomato marshmallow on a mini-baguette, lettuce and a piece of bacon to make a marshmallow BLT.
Greenberg hopes to start selling wholesale soon and to make more types of marshmallows.
“It’s my dream to make an entire meal in marshmallow form, soup to nuts,” Greenberg said.
Mitchmallows can be ordered in packs of 18 for $16.95 or more from mitchmallows.com.
Reach reporter Rebecca Henely by e-mail at rhenely@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
