Food fight: Everytable expands food justice concept to Orange County
Alexander Aguilar greets each customer that comes into Everytable on Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana at lunchtime with a smile.
“Is this your first time here?” Aguilar asks Deb Towns, who has stopped by the new Everytable grab-and-go store, which opened this month. The storefront sells prepackaged salads, wraps, grain bowls and juices.
“Our mission here is to transform the food system by making nutritious meals affordable and accessible to everyone, from every community,” said Aguilar.
Everytable is cofounded by Sam Polk and David Foster, who took their concept to ABC’s “Shark Tank” in 2018. Polk founded a nonprofit called Feast, which addressed food-related health problems in South Los Angeles by providing nutrition education, cooking classes, free produce and support groups.
While Feast helped the community eat healthier at home, Polk found that when people were on the go, they didn’t always have healthy options available to them. He and Foster worked together to create Everytable, hoping to serve food deserts, areas where it is difficult to find affordable, quality food.
“Everytable is on a mission to become the McDonald’s of fresh, nutritious and affordable fast food,” Polk said in a statement. “We hope to serve the Santa Ana community by providing a new type of dining experience for guests on the go and looking for a meal that is as healthy and craveable as it is affordable and convenient.”
Everytable has 10 locations in the L.A. area but is expanding rapidly with plans to triple its footprint by 2022. Two locations are now open in Orange County, both in Santa Ana.
Aguilar is the general manager at Santa Ana’s second location on Harbor (the first one is on Bristol Street) and is enrolled in Everytable’s Social Equity Franchise program at Everytable University. Created in 2021, the program aims to empower and train entrepreneurs from marginalized communities to own and operate Everytable franchises.
“They bring you in and you start learning all the operations; you start out as a store manager,” Aguilar said. “And while you are managing the store and learning all the operations, there are also classes that they are providing for you.”
Aguilar said he has taken classes on finance, accounting, entrepreneur mindset and public speaking since joining the program in August.
“The classes are helping us build our knowledge and when it is time to open up our own franchise, we can put all these skills into play,” said Aguilar.
Everytable University is part of Everytable’s mission to achieve true food equality. The free program prioritizes candidates who belong to a marginalized group or community, and those who successfully complete it have the opportunity to own and operate an Everytable storefront.
Aguilar is the only employee at the Harbor store, which keeps overhead low. A central kitchen supplies stores with the prepackaged meals and also supplies Everytable’s meal subscription service. Meal subscriptions can be delivered to customers homes weekly, biweekly or monthly. Customers can also pick up their weekly subscriptions at their nearest Everytable location, which Aguilar said sets Everytable apart from other food prep services.
“One of the big differences is we have storefronts, which allows people to come in and shop,” Aguilar said. “To actually choose their meals and actually see what they are picking out.”
Meals range from salmon adobo to butternut squash and quinoa salad as well as wraps, snacks, gluten-free desserts, juices and kombucha all priced from $6 to $9.
Aguilar said he is a big fan of the turkey taco bowl and the pineapple pork luau bowl. But even more than the food, Aguilar enjoys connecting with the community.
“There are a lot of people that come in that want to change their eating habits,” Aguilar said. “Those customers become regulars, and you start to see how just having access to this food can change their weight or even their attitude. One thing that I believe in is if you feel good, you do good.”
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