Everytable provides healthy meals at affordable prices


By
 in

Everytable, the newest member in a line of diverse eateries near campus located on W. 23rd street, sells nutritious, delicious grab-and-go food with a social mission. The restaurant, which opened its first location in July, has the goal of making healthy food available and affordable to every community.

Each meal is priced according to neighborhood, benefiting families and parents in lower-income neighborhoods. The same Jamaican jerk chicken sold in this South Los Angeles location for $4.50 will be priced at roughly $8 in other, more affluent communities.

Everytable CEO and co-founder Sam Polk is also the founder of Groceryships, a non-profit created to “address food-related health problems in South L.A.” after feeling tired of working as a hedge fund trader on Wall Street.

Groceryships aims to equip families in South Los Angeles with fresh food for six months and hold workshops where they can learn cooking and shopping skills. Eventually, former volunteer and future co-founder David Foster helped grow the nonprofit into Everytable.

“This is the first of what we imagine to be 20 or 30 across L.A., and the second one in Downtown, which is a wealthier area, and is selling the food for $8 which is really affordable for those who are used to going to Tender Greens. But, it also allows us to be a profitable and scalable business.” Polk said.

Everytable is committed to hire from the local community and from organizations like Groceryships, and from the Right Way Foundation, a non-profit that supports foster kids aging out of the foster system.

“If you’re a foster kid, you’re 17. You’re living with your foster family, and right when you’re 18, you’re out of the system,” Polk said. “So, the Right Way Foundation supports them with education and jobs, and we are going to continue to hire from there to include kids who need a lot help and wouldn’t otherwise have access to these resources.”

The theme of the menu is aimed at celebrating the different cultures and ethnicities of Los Angeles. Some of the dishes include Vietnamese Chicken Salad, Puebla Chicken Tinga with Spicy Chicken in Chipotle Sauce and Pozole Rojo.

Polk plans to take Everytable to new heights and has a grand vision for the future — to end food deserts and to have an Everytable in every community in the country.

“We believe that every life is equally valuable, and we want to take the responsibility onto our shoulders and to take care of that in a way that’s both profitable and sustainable,” Polk said.