Chef Roy Choi of Kogi truck fame and a pioneer of the food truck movement in America has a crazy idea called Loco’l. He is working with San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson and others to bring this idea to fruition. They want to revolutinize the food movement in inner cities of America, which are often described as food deserts.

“Us chefs are really idealistic people,” he said in a talk at BITESV, a food and tech conference held for the first time in Santa Clara.  “That is what drives us as chefs … this idealism of …lets feed everyone and have fun that is rooted in deep pain and   complex emotions. But then there is always this hope.”

What Roy and Patterson are doing is going head-to-head with the big fast food giants and create healthy alternatives in inner cities, where healthy options are almost non existent. “People are starving up there,” he said.

Roy wants to take the best chefs and put them in inner cities and serve healthy food instead of the frozen brown stuff that comes in boxes and served in fast food places he explained. Loco’l will serve vegetables, grains, rice bowls and other healthy food with prices ranging from $2-6 he said.

Choi and Patterson raised money through a Indiegogo campaign are working on opening their first Loco’l in Watts in Los Angeles.