The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate low income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market opportunities. We focus primarily on women from communities of color and immigrant communities. Our vision is that entrepreneurs gain financial security by doing what they love to do, creating an innovative, vibrant and inclusive economic landscape.
San Francisco’s First Incubator Kitchen
La Cocina is a ground-breaking business incubator designed to reduce the obstacles that often prevent entrepreneurs from creating successful and sustainable small businesses. By providing shared resources and an array of industry-specific services, business incubators ensure small businesses can succeed. La Cocina follows this model by providing commercial kitchen space and technical assistance focusing on low-income women and immigrant entrepreneurs who are launching, growing and formalizing food businesses.
Breaking Down Barriers
The food industry has a notoriously high cost of entry: the fees for licensed and insured commercial kitchen space, the start-up costs to open a restaurant, the standards set to compete for shelf space at specialty stores and large retailers. Such restrictive barriers to entry often discourage burgeoning food entrepreneurs from launching a business. Those who do face an uphill battle for success in an overwhelming and incredibly crowded marketplace.
La Cocina provides a platform for these motivated entrepreneurs to hone their skills and successfully transition into the highly regulated and competitive food industry.
The Story of La Cocina
La Cocina (pronounced la co-see-nah, meaning “The Kitchen” in Spanish) was inspired by its current home, San Francisco’s Mission District. It is located in an ethnically diverse and economically vulnerable neighborhood that thrives in part due to the many small informal businesses that serve the community. As is the case in many cities, food lies at the heart of this community, and you don’t have to look far to find hidden entrepreneurs in the kitchens of many homes.
Recognizing a need to formalize these food businesses and the opportunity created when you turn inconsistent and illegal home restaurants into sustainable legal businesses, organizations like Arriba Juntos, The Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment and The Women’s Foundation of California and one very special and visionary anonymous donor created La Cocina. La Cocina is both the space-a modern building and commercial kitchen that has been featured in Metropolis Magazine—and the program—an innovative business incubator that supports a growing roster of small businesses.
La Cocina was born out of a belief that a community of natural entrepreneurs, given the right resources, can create self-sufficient businesses that benefit themselves, their families, their community, and the whole city. The food that has come out of this kitchen since 2005 reflects that aspiration and, quite simply, tastes amazing.
The La Cocina Family
La Cocina is a home for 30 up-and-coming businesses and a growing roster of graduates, representing all aspects of local food from gourmet catering to specialty products to farmers market stands. As a result of these businesses and La Cocina’s support, community jobs have been created and thousands have been introduced to the flavors of the world. As a testament to their quality, the businesses of La Cocina sell their products locally, regionally, nationally, and even internationally.
To learn more about the businesses currently in incubation at La Cocina, visit the Our Businesses section of our website.
La Cocina would like to thank the following foundations, supporters and individual donors:
Chevron
Isabel Allende Foundation
Mayor's Office of Community Development, San Francisco
May & Stanley Smith Charitable Trust
Mitchell Kapor Foundation
FHL Bank San Francisco
Levi Strauss & Co. Foundation
San Francisco Foundation
Tides Foundation
Thomson Family Foundation
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Wallace HUFED Center
Union Bank Foundation
Wells Fargo
Y&H Soda Foundation
Zellerbach Family Foundation
As Seen In…
* Saveur
* 7x7
* San Francisco Magazine
* New York Times
* Sunset Magazine
* NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
* Diablo Magazine
* San Francisco Chronicle
* Christian Science Monitor
* Oakland Tribune
* Univision
For more stories about La Cocina, visit the Press section of our website.
About La Cocina
Mission Statement
The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate low income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market opportunities. We focus primarily on women from communities of color and immigrant communities. Our vision is that entrepreneurs gain financial security by doing what they love to do, creating an innovative, vibrant and inclusive economic landscape.
San Francisco’s First Incubator Kitchen
La Cocina is a ground-breaking business incubator designed to reduce the obstacles that often prevent entrepreneurs from creating successful and sustainable small businesses. By providing shared resources and an array of industry-specific services, business incubators ensure small businesses can succeed. La Cocina follows this model by providing commercial kitchen space and technical assistance focusing on low-income women and immigrant entrepreneurs who are launching, growing and formalizing food businesses.
Breaking Down Barriers
The food industry has a notoriously high cost of entry: the fees for licensed and insured commercial kitchen space, the start-up costs to open a restaurant, the standards set to compete for shelf space at specialty stores and large retailers. Such restrictive barriers to entry often discourage burgeoning food entrepreneurs from launching a business. Those who do face an uphill battle for success in an overwhelming and incredibly crowded marketplace.
La Cocina provides a platform for these motivated entrepreneurs to hone their skills and successfully transition into the highly regulated and competitive food industry.
The Story of La Cocina
La Cocina (pronounced la co-see-nah, meaning “The Kitchen” in Spanish) was inspired by its current home, San Francisco’s Mission District. It is located in an ethnically diverse and economically vulnerable neighborhood that thrives in part due to the many small informal businesses that serve the community. As is the case in many cities, food lies at the heart of this community, and you don’t have to look far to find hidden entrepreneurs in the kitchens of many homes.
Recognizing a need to formalize these food businesses and the opportunity created when you turn inconsistent and illegal home restaurants into sustainable legal businesses, organizations like Arriba Juntos, The Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment and The Women’s Foundation of California and one very special and visionary anonymous donor created La Cocina. La Cocina is both the space-a modern building and commercial kitchen that has been featured in Metropolis Magazine—and the program—an innovative business incubator that supports a growing roster of small businesses.
La Cocina was born out of a belief that a community of natural entrepreneurs, given the right resources, can create self-sufficient businesses that benefit themselves, their families, their community, and the whole city. The food that has come out of this kitchen since 2005 reflects that aspiration and, quite simply, tastes amazing.
The La Cocina Family
La Cocina is a home for 30 up-and-coming businesses and a growing roster of graduates, representing all aspects of local food from gourmet catering to specialty products to farmers market stands. As a result of these businesses and La Cocina’s support, community jobs have been created and thousands have been introduced to the flavors of the world. As a testament to their quality, the businesses of La Cocina sell their products locally, regionally, nationally, and even internationally.
To learn more about the businesses currently in incubation at La Cocina, visit the Our Businesses section of our website.
Levi\’s Foundation La Cocina Video