meez podcast

Camilla Opperman Morse on Revolutionizing Shared Kitchens

Rectangle image with navy background of Camilla Opperman

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About this episode

#47. We are thrilled to introduce our guest for today, Camilla Opperman Morse, the Founder and CEO of Nimbus. Based in the hub of New York City, Nimbus offers a fresh take on the traditional ghost kitchen model, providing a collaborative cooking infrastructure that fosters creativity and community.

In our conversation, Camilla shares insights into the unique concept behind Nimbus, which goes beyond mere kitchen spaces to encompass a vibrant experience and an inviting event space for brands to connect with their audience. With a diverse clientele ranging from CPG brands, to meal prep businesses, to established favorites like Ivan Ramen, Nimbus is at the forefront of culinary innovation.

Camilla's transformative journey, from her athletic upbringing to her immersion in finance and analytics, culminating in the founding of Nimbus, is truly awe-inspiring. We explore her strategic approach to growth, her dedication to operational excellence, and her insights on navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship.

Join us as we sit down with Camilla in the heart of downtown Brooklyn, where she shares her story and her vision for the future of Nimbus.

Where to find Camilla Opperman Morse:

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

What We Cover

(04:47) The New Haven Pizza Debate

(07:09) Camilla's background as a gymnast and its similarities with entrepreneurship

(12:32) Camilla's career background before Nimbus

(17:41) Overview of Nimbus

(23:09) Things Camilla has deployed that have helped operators be more efficient

(30:54 The specificities of operations within Nimbus

(36:34) How Camilla is different as a leader from when she started

(41:46) What makes Camilla really really angry

(54:43) The benefits of scaling down

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey:

You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate and how they consistently execute at a high level.

[00:00:23]

Day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a 5 star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky, anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support. And as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:43]

My guest on today's show is Camilla Opperman Morse. Camilla is the founder and CEO of Nimbus. It's a new approach to the Ghost Kitchen, really more of a shared kitchen space. I think they call it a co cooking infrastructure. It's a really incredible concept. They have four locations. They're based out of New York City and we actually went on site to their spot in downtown Brooklyn and man I was blown away.

[00:01:08]

They service all types of food businesses. They also have this front of house where in addition to sort of the virtual kind of ghost kitchen spaces where you can do production and obviously delivery, customers can come and order at a counter and there's, you know, Concepts like Ivan Ramen and Domo Sushi and Cheesecake Factory, they partnered with DoorDash as well.

[00:01:27]

So a lot of cool concepts that are producing out of her spaces. And there's this really beautiful event space where each brand can also tell their story to the community, which I think is such an important part about building, uh, you know, a virtual brand. But what I loved most is, one, she is super detailed, so this operation is really tight.

[00:01:47]

And not only is there kitchen space for these brands to do delivery and pick up, but there's also a bunch of space for CPG brands, for restaurants to do R&D. The Noma Kitchen came to her space I think last year and are coming back again. And generally speaking, you know, it's clearly like a space that's built for all types of culinary execution.

[00:02:10]

And Camilla's background is really interesting. She came from more of the sort of finance, uh, analytics background. She was a Yale graduate, was actually the captain of the gymnastics team at Yale, worked in some retail and operations, and then eventually sort of moved right into starting her own food business, Nimbus.

[00:02:28]

And it's been, I think, five years and they've grown incredibly well. She'd been really mindful about growing slowly and being strategic, but we had a really awesome conversation. We were sitting in the event kitchen and just talked a lot about, you know, how she built the company and some struggles along the way that she deals with stress and her approach to what she calls operational scalability, which I really loved. Anyways, I had an amazing time chatting with her We had met a couple times via phone and zoom, but this is our first time meeting in person So as always I hope that you enjoy the conversation as much as I do.

[00:03:11] Josh Sharkey:

Welcome to the darn show.

[00:03:12] Camilla Opperman:

Thank you for having me super excited to be talking with you.

[00:03:16] Josh Sharkey:

We're in Nimbus kitchen Here in Brooklyn. There's how many of them?

[00:03:20] Camilla Opperman:

We have four locations around New York.

[00:03:22] Josh Sharkey:

Okay. I Was totally surprised with what this is and there's a million more questions. I have now than when I had planned coming here, so I'm excited But anyways nice to see you in person.

[00:03:33] Camilla Opperman:

I know we met right when I was starting out and I don't think we've actually met in person yet So it's good to see your face.

[00:03:40] Josh Sharkey:

We haven't met in person and I do want to give a shout out though because I believe we met through a mutual friend Alex Beltrani.

[00:03:47]

The best. He is. Shout out to Tattle. If you don't know Alex Beltrani and Tattle, first of all Tattle's awesome. You know, it's a customer insight product. But Alex is just incredible. I met him when I was, when I still owned restaurants and I bought his product mostly just because of him.

[00:04:01] Camilla Opperman:

His energy, sorry to interrupt, is unparalleled. I met him for the first time and was just blown away with how kind and giving he was with his time.

[00:04:12] Josh Sharkey:

He is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And just an incredible entrepreneur as well. He's coming on the show. So let's talk about you. I want to talk about your background and we're going to get into that, but we're going to start with New Haven because you went to Yale.

[00:04:27]

Yale is a college, a university that some people go to. It's pretty easy to get into. You can kind of like just, I think if you get like a 2.0 in high school, you can get in. But anyways, it's a college in New Haven. I'm kidding. I love New Haven. I actually spent a lot of time there when I was starting a restaurant called Bark, and we were researching mostly actually hot dogs because there's a place called Frank's there.

[00:04:47]

But let's talk pizza for a minute. We got Sally's, we have Pepe's, we have BAR, Modern. What's your pick?

[00:04:53] Camilla Opperman:

I'm so glad you mentioned BAR, because that is absolutely my favorite. Oh my god, it's so good. It's so good. Most people automatically default to Sally's or Pepe's, which is fine. I think they're great pizza.

[00:05:06]

Honestly, I think I like Bar the most because of its proximity to campus. It's like a two minute walk from where I lived, versus Sally's, Pepe's, and Modern are all like 15, 20 minutes away, which when you're in college, that feels like a world away. But the BAR crust, that thin crust, their toppings are unparalleled.

[00:05:24]

I don't know, most people, oh my gosh, it's incredible. And most people default to the mashed potato pizza, which is good, but the eggplant parm is out of this world. And weirdly, their salad is really good. I don't like salad. Yeah, I'm not like a big salad gal, but. For whatever reason, they're caramelized nuts and the pears and the blue cheese.

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