Our Story
Our Story
We are a crew of friends and family from low-income, working-class, immigrant communities, with limited formal education and nearly no money. We grew up during a time of violence in Los Angeles during the 80′s and 90′s. Local activists, organizers, counselors, teachers, gangsters, and other community leaders kept us out of trouble by teaching us how to organize ourselves and our peers. BBQ literally kept us from being shot.
As we grew older, BBQ was our gift to our family, friends, and community. Cooking at birthdays, celebrations, conferences and other events was our contribution.
Utilizing the services of the same non-profits we grew up with, we took an Entrepreneur Training Program funded by the SBA to learn how to build a business plan, save, and market our product. With no money, we initiated our own capital campaign fund to provide the initial seed money to purchase equipment, pay for licenses, and build our brand. Although we had no budget for marketing, we eventually reached the #1 spot on Yelp for one year straight as the best restaurant in Los Angeles (even though we didn’t have a brick-and-mortar yet and were just operating as a catering company), based off of the strength of our service and product reviewed by customers we have catered for.
The Impact
So with that, The Park’s Finest, a mobile catering company based in Echo Park, has brought a distinct flavor to the LA food scene with our Filipino take on traditional American cuts of BBQ. We have blessed backyard boogies and community events all over the Southland, and have steadily gained popularity. To meet the rise in demand, as a community-oriented company, we aim to reinvigorate the blighted district of Historic Filipinotown in Echo Park. Our community fundraising campaign will build capital for a restaurant that offers a fulfilling dining experience, for families and friends to enjoy savory BBQ in an atmosphere where musicians and artists can showcase works that reflect and celebrate the intersections of the dynamic cultures and histories bridged by this vibrant area of LA.
