Everytable is a new restaurant chain founded in LA with a mission to bring healthy food to both a affluent and poorer neighborhoods. Their current focus is South L.A. Not only is the food healthy, it’s local, sustainably grown and organic.
Everytable will soon have two locations: the original in the heart of South Los Angeles, and its next location at the center of Downtown Los Angeles. There’s not much that varies between Everytable’s two locations. Both of them will offer locally sourced food, both menus are “inspired by the cultures and flavors of Los Angeles,” and both will offer nutritional information about their menus.
But, the two have different clientele, different neighbors, and most importantly, different prices.
At the Downtown LA location, most of the meals will cost around $8, which is an accurate valuation for the quality of the ingredients that they use. But in South LA, that Cobb Salad that would have cost $8 at the downtown location, will cost $4. By lowering prices in South LA, Everytable appeals to the community, whose average annual income is $13,000 and has poor access to healthy food.
Sam Polk and David Foster left Wall Street to start Everytable, a concept that grew out of Sam Polk’s original non-profit, Groceryships, which supports programs to help communities learn about nutrition, healthy cooking and shopping skills; offers gift cards for fresh and organic produce and runs support groups focused on overcoming food addictions and healthy eating.
According to an interview with Polk and Foster published in the online magazine attn:, Polk has “a personal connection. [His] entire family grew up overweight, and [he] was an overweight kid who got bullied.” He also noted in the interview that as a boy, he realized that there were parts of the city he grew up in which had little access to healthy food.
How can a restaurant offer a dish in one neighborhood for $8 and in another for $4? Everytable’s financial model, as described on their website, is simple. Production of each individual meal — which includes “simple wholesome ingredients,” from “local kitckens and chefs,” and “Everytable, Grab and Go stores” — comes to a total of $3.85. Then, they are sold at $4.00 in South LA, and $8.00 in Downtown LA.
While Everytable is only in LA at the moment, the strategy of lowering prices for the poor could be key for improving health in many communities, including the Bay Area. San Francisco, while experiencing gentrifcation, simultaneously has a growing homelessness crisis; the homeless are often forced eat in fast food restaurants because of their prices. Everytable would provide a healthy alternative prepared food source, which could ultimately impact morale and health.
While the concerns regarding Everytable are minimal, they are present. In the same interview with attn:, Foster explained that some people in South LA doubt whether the community will utilize this new alternative. But Foster and Polk are optimistic, “From speaking with our customers and friends in the area, we know that the community wants to eat healthily — they just didn’t have the option before Everytable.”
Everytable’s staff is a vibrant mix of employees hailing from a variety of backgrounds. Anar Joshi, Everytable’s vice president of Marketing, left her job at the Bay Area’s own Paypal to join the team. The classically trained chef, Craig Hopson, has over 20 years of experience working in high-class restaurants in New York City and created the menu at Everytable. To help Hopson, Everytable has a culinary director: Johnny Yoo. Yoo has a background in LA dining and has worked with renowned chefs.
Everytable, adding onto their role as a community catalyst for change, only hires their clerks within the South LA community.
Everytable hopes to expand into more neighborhoods all over Los Angeles. But, for now, they are focused on the opening of their Downtown LA shop.
photo courtesy of http://www.everytable.com/community
