Locol — Roy Choi + Daniel Patterson's Watts experiment (2016-2018)

Locol opened in January 2016 at 1950 E 103rd St in Watts, Los Angeles, as a collaboration between chefs Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson, designed to bring healthy, affordable fast food to a neighborhood considered a food desert ^[5][8]. The original menu was vegetable-heavy and priced mostly at $5 and under, featuring items like a $5 Cheeseburger (a 70% beef patty blended with fermented grains, tofu, fish sauce, and seaweed), a $5 Veggie Cheeseburg, $2 Bean & Cheese Foldies, $2 Messy Greens (braised collard and mustard greens), $2 Fries, and $2 Agua Fresca ^[2][3][7]. The bun was developed by Chad Robertson of Tartine using a sourdough starter from Patterson’s Coi ^[7]. Locol also operated a location in Oakland, which opened in May 2016 ^[7].

In January 2017, New York Times critic Pete Wells gave Locol’s Oakland location a zero-star review, calling the food ‘bland’ and ‘like hospital food’ and suggesting the chefs prioritized social mission over taste ^[8][9]. The review sparked controversy, with some accusing Wells of elitism and others canceling their Times subscriptions ^[9]. Los Angeles Times critic Jonathan Gold responded that ‘Wells may not have been wrong, but he was ungenerous,’ noting that at Locol you could feed a dozen people for the cost of a single Per Se supplement ^[10]. Despite the backlash, Locol won Food & Wine’s Best New Restaurant of 2016 ^[8].

Locol’s Watts location closed in August 2018, attributed in part to a mismatch between the menu and community preferences ^[5][8]. The restaurant had hired and trained local residents, including Keith Corbin, who later became chef-partner at Alta Adams ^[4][7]. The experience taught LA chefs that food-desert intervention requires deep community input: when Locol reopened in August 2024 as a nonprofit under Alta Community, the chefs asked residents what they wanted and shifted to a soul food menu ^[4][5]. The new iteration staffs roughly 10 employees from Watts, seven of them trainees from the Yo! Watts youth center, with plans to place them in permanent restaurant roles ^[4].