La Cocina cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties for low-income and immi­grant entre­pre­neurs to estab­lish eco­nom­i­cally self-sufficient food busi­nesses through afford­able com­mer­cial kitchen space and industry-specific tech­ni­cal assis­tance. La Cocina (pro­nounced la co-see-nah, mean­ing “The Kitchen” in Span­ish) was inspired by its cur­rent home, San Francisco’s Mis­sion Dis­trict, 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.