
Cooking Lessons - pepys
https://story.californiasunday.com/cooking-lessons
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greenyouse
Isn't it interesting how people self-organize by what they identify with?

It kind of seems like the food at McDonald's et. al is good enough or has
cultural status that makes it hard to compete with. Locol has better tasting
food at comparable prices, good decor, and locals working the store but people
are still hesitant to make it their go-to burger joint.

From the article, maybe people see a fancy looking store and assume that it's
not a place for them?

Any ideas what they could offer to connect better with their communities?

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pitaa
I'm reminded of an article [0] posted on HN last year about "McDonald’s
[being] de-facto community centers". Perhaps difference is that Locol has a
'mission' and is thus seen as a sort of charity, whereas McDonald's is very
clearly a capitalist enterprise.

Overall, it seems the proprietors were very out of touch with the community. I
have to wonder if they would have been much more successful if, instead of
coming up with a hipster sounding name and hiring an architect to design a
restaurant that would be "welcoming" to the locals, they had opened it as 'Ez
Burgerz' in whatever dilapidated retail space they could find.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11886795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11886795)

~~~
deeth_starr_v
Yeah, when I look at their design it says "White hipster" to me. I can see why
AA looking in the door would think it's not their kinda place. Still cool that
they are trying.

~~~
pitaa
Not to mention the menu. I'm a (lower) middle-class white dude and when I hear
that their burger is a "combination of ground beef, tofu, barley, quinoa, and
seaweed" I definitely think it's not my kind of restaurant. I can only imagine
how a poor, intercity, working class person would feel about it.

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JosephLark
I haven't had time to read the article yet, but look forward to being able to
do so. Semi-related comment: California Sunday Magazine has done some great
food writing, to the point of wining (I can't remember which) either a James
Beard or IACP writing award at least once this past year.

A few are linked at the bottom of this article (including the following one),
but a personal favorite of mine is My Dinners With Harold (McGee) [0]. In
fact, I believe that was the award winning article that turned me on to the
publication initially.

[0] [https://story.californiasunday.com/my-dinners-with-
harold](https://story.californiasunday.com/my-dinners-with-harold)

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omegaworks
>Garbage sat uncollected in alleyways; street-cleaning vehicles sped through
so fast they seemed to make everything dirtier; police allowed constant low-
level criminal activity outside the smoke shop with the bulletproof Plexiglas.

This, here, is our society failing the residents of Watts.

>Getting all this dealt with, however, risked raising local resentment over
outsiders receiving special treatment.

It's not just unfounded resentment and fear of outsiders. People in these
neighborhoods have been actively and systematically denied access to capital.

There needs to be is an active effort to increase ownership among the existing
residents in an area before promoting massive outside private investment.
People need the education, security, and access to capital to own their own
homes and open their own businesses.

>Every local business, as a result, was out of compliance and therefore
required to pay an annual variance fee for nothing at all.

It's ridiculous how local governance can get so awful.

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neves
Does anybody here ate there? I'd like to know personal opinions about the
food.

~~~
long
I've eaten at the Oakland location. It's actually pretty tasty.

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DiabloD3
Did dupe detection fail to pick this up?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14071421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14071421)

