Value proposition

Cultivating working-class BIPOC & immigrant entrepreneurs as they formalize their food businesses.

La Cocina is a nonprofit working to solve problems of equity in business ownership for women, immigrants and people of color. We provide talented entrepreneurs with affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific mentorship, and access to market opportunities and capital. The result? A kitchen incubator that outperforms any Bay Area restaurant group with 50+ graduating businesses and 32 of these entrepreneurs in their own brick-and-mortar restaurants. Six businesses born out of La Cocina were named in San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants of 2019.

Through our new book "We Are La Cocina"​ and our own storytelling platform, F&B: Voices from the Kitchen, we share the voices from the food industry that are less often heard.

In April of 2021, La Cocina opened the nation's first women-led food hall in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. The La Cocina Municipal Marketplace stands as an innovative model of conscious, community-led development, offering economic opportunity for women entrepreneurs, jobs for Tenderloin residents, and delicious and affordable food for community members and those looking to eat with purpose. While Marketplace construction is complete, we’re activating the space, for now, with La Cocina businesses providing take-out and to prepare meals for local food security programs. We hope to open our doors for dine-in later this year. Learn more and order food here: https://lacocinamarketplace.com/about

Food business incubation, Catering, Packaged food, Gift Baskets, Economic Development, Business Incubation, Community Nonprofit, and Work force development