Locol’s Next Location Will Be in Richmond According to Roy Choi

Self-described revolutionary fast food chain Locol is opening its next location in Richmond, California. That’s the news that Roy Choi, one half of Locol’s celebrity chef leadership team, broke over the airwaves during a KTLA interview with Frank Buckley.

“We’re opening a location in Richmond in a couple months in a shipping container,” Choi said. That would be Locol’s fourth location overall, and a departure from the three-year-old chain’s existing locations: One in West Oakland, one in Watts, and the most recent in San Jose, tucked into a Whole Foods Market in a partnership with the grocery chain.

“We’re hip hop, we’re different styles, different feels,” Choi, who runs Locol with the restaurateur Daniel Patterson, told KTLA. “You’ve got to understand, the model doesn’t exist out there... we’re creating the blueprint as we go.”

As for shipping container: Those aren’t without precedent in the area, where they’ve been transformed into everything from an AT&T Park adjacent food court, The Yard, to ice cream shops and cafes in SF and Oakland and even a full restaurant on Treasure Island.

So far, Locol has struggled to scale into a larger chain, but it’s still exploring its options for expansion. “The goal is for us to continue to grow,” Choi told Eater SF when Locol’s San Jose location opened in January. That partnership with Whole Foods, which once seemed unlikely, was “just another bridge to what we’re trying to do: Make food more accessible and affordable.”

Eater has reached out to Locol for details on the planned Richmond location

Update, 4/12: “Nothing to report as of now,” says Choi, who is “still working on it.”

That’s all for now, then, so don’t touch that dial.

• Frank Buckley Interviews: Roy Choi, Chef-Entrepreneur [KTLA]