When a new restaurant called Everytable opens on Saturday in the poverty-stricken area of Los Angeles known as South L.A., a grab-and-go Jamaican jerk chicken bowl with coconut rice, beans, plantains and carrots will be the most expensive meal on the menu at $4.50.
But this fall, when a second outpost of Everytable opens just two miles away in more affluent downtown Los Angeles, the same Jamaican jerk chicken bowl will cost $8.95.
The big price difference represents an unusual experiment to address the persistent issue of limited food choices in poorer neighborhoods around the country. The higher prices at the downtown store are effectively meant to offset smaller profits at the other location, making the lower-priced restaurant more economically viable.
Just don’t call it a subsidy. “We don’t love the word subsidize because each store is designed to be individually profitable,” said Sam Polk, co-founder and chief executive of Everytable.
Rather, he said he hopes customers in affluent neighborhoods will understand they are helping to underwrite sales of the same nutritious meals they are eating in neighborhoods where such food is typically unavailable because no one can afford it.
“I think it’s similar to Toms, where you buy a pair of shoes knowing that someone else in some needy part of the world is going to get a similar pair of shoes for nothing,” Mr. Polk said.
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