Celebrity Chefs to Open Healthy Fast-Food Chain

Loco’l seeks to bring healthy fast food to California’s low-income areas.

September 02, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO – Last week two celebrity chefs in California announced plans for a new, health-focused fast-food chain that will serve low-income communities.

Chefs Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson hope to open their first Loco’l restaurant in San Francisco’s Tenderloin area in the spring of 2015, with a second closely following in Los Angeles, writes the San Francisco Gate.

The newspaper writes that Loco’l is “designed to compete with the likes of McDonald's and Burger King, especially in low-income neighborhoods.”

"We are going to open a new kind of fast-food restaurant," Patterson told the newspaper, adding, "Roy and I are going after the fast-food market by re-looking at every aspect of how they do business."

Loco'l menu items will cost $2 to $6, be prepared by chefs on site and use well-sourced and often seasonal ingredients. Menu will include salads, rice bowls and vegetable bowls, falafel and tacos. Burgers will be made with a beef and grain smash, a patty consisting of 70% beef and 30% grain/tofu mixture, and served on a 24-hour fermented koji bun engineered by Tartine Bakery's Chad Robertson, writes the newspaper.

Choi and Patterson also want to redefine the role of chefs have in shaping the foods we eat. "It's not that chefs aren't making an effort. What I question is how our efforts are being used," Patterson told the newspaper, adding, "The fact of the matter is if you want to fix the food problem in this country, you should talk to chefs."

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