A New Socially-Conscious Concept Brings Healthy Takeout in South LA

There’s an intriguing new player in the South LA food scene, as takeaway shop Everytable seeks to change the game by providing healthy, efficient, low-cost meals to families throughout the Southland. And they’re starting with a walk-in space just off University Park.

Co-founders Sam Polk (previously a Wall Street type and founder of South LA non-profit Groceryships) and David Foster, a former private equity executive, hope to bring healthful meals in a grab-and-go format to parts of the city that need it most. Their first location sits in the University Park stretch of South LA, just southeast of Downtown. It’s not far from USC but is still very much a neighborhood of diverse financial means, which makes the fresh food options here an intriguing proposition.

Craig Hopson, who previously worked Le Cirque in New York City, is on as executive chef, while Johnny Yoo, who has worked with Roy Choi, David Myers, and at Koi, is the overall culinary director. Their focus, says Everytable, is to bring high quality ingredients into low-cost environments, selling sub-$5 bowls and kids meals that are shelf-stable for hours at a time, and offer the neighborhood something they’re interested in. A sample opening menu, including barbecue chicken salad, spaghetti squash and meatballs, and pozole is below.

Everytable

Everytable says that meals at that price point, in those neighborhoods, are still profitable, though with a tight margin. To help make the entire operation more sustainable — and to bring in a variety of customers who might not otherwise interact with their brand in a particular location — Everytable has plans to open kiosks and low-footprint storefronts across Los Angeles. They’re already in the works on a second outlet at The Bloc, the upcoming shopping center in the heart of Downtown.

Eventually you may find locations in West LA, Venice, the Valley, Compton, Long Beach, and beyond. Each location will offer some level of variable pricing, too, with the folks from West LA subsidizing some of the costs of the other locations by paying a higher, but still reasonable, price.

Better still: the food is made offsite daily, and anything that's not sold that day gets donated to local homeless shelters. That helps to keep costs even lower, because the day-to-day operations at a given shop won't include more than a couple of folks working the point of sale machines.

The first Everytable opens this Saturday at 11 a.m., with plans to keep daily hours thereafter from 11 a.m. until evening. In addition, they’ll be giving out free meals to anyone who stops by on Saturday.

Everytable
1101 West 23rd St.
Los Angeles, CA