A cool concept with an odd name from a pair of California chefs was announced today at the MAD food symposium in Copenhagen, and it's called Loco'l. S.F. chef and restaurateur Daniel Patterson (Coi, Alta CA) is joining forces with acclaimed L.A. chef and restaurateur Roy Choi (Kogi BBQ, A-Frame) to open the first of what will be multiple locations of Loco'l across the U.S. here in the Tenderloin next spring, focusing on providing fresh, seasonal, affordable fast food to low-income communities.
As the Chronicle reports, Choi and Patterson were inspired to work on this project after last year's MAD symposium and a talk that Choi gave about the hunger crisis in Los Angeles. Also, Patterson has been working with Larkin Street Youth Clinic on a project to teach cooking skills to homeless youths, and as he says, "They need to crave something before they want to cook it," and every kid eats and craves fast food.
Patterson is going to be heading up all recipe development and the cooking at Loco'l the name for which is supposed to be a play on "crazy" and "local" and he's already developed a burger that is 70 percent beef and 30 percent tofu and grain, in order to emulate fast-food burgers and keep costs down. They're looking to keep price points between $2 and $6, serving things like salads, rice bowls, falafel, and tacos, using seasonal ingredients wherever possible.
The pair are currently seeking out spaces of about 1,500 square feet in San Francisco and L.A., and plan to open the first Tenderloin location of Loco'l in Spring 2015.
[Chron]
[Eater National]
