Iconic SF street food festival celebrates 20th anniversary of nonprofit La Cocina

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- One of the nation's best food festivals is back this weekend in San Francisco after a five-year absence.

La Cocina Street Food Festival in China Basin celebrates the 20th anniversary of the food incubator that launched in the Mission District in 2005.

More than 25 businesses that came out of La Cocina will be offering meals, including Minnie Bell's Soul Movement, which specializes in fried chicken.

"La Cocina helped me with every aspect of learning the business, from starting with a vision board to designing a business plan, recipe development and teaching me how to operate in a commercial kitchen," said Minnie Bell's founder Fernay McPherson.

The hard work paid off. Minnie Bell's was recently named as one of the nation's 20 top new restaurants by Bon Appétit magazine.

McPherson was a Muni driver with a passion for cooking when he reached out to La Cocina for guidance.

La Cocina's cautious approach has proved successful; 70% of the food businesses that went through the program were still open 10 years later.

Compare that to the overall survival rate for restaurants, where 80% close within five years.

"It's like easy to forget that it wasn't like they just didn't open that restaurant and get the award. They've had all these years of cooking, prepping, selling, working in a shared kitchen, doing catering jobs and hustling for years to grow your brand," said Leticia Landa, La Cocina's executive director.

La Cocina was was started by community organizations in the Mission District that wanted to give street vendors access to a commercial kitchen.

The idea evolved into a food business incubator that serves primarily immigrant women and women of color.

"We have been beating this drum that women chefs deserve to be recognized, immigrant chefs deserve to be recognized, these are foods that are very special and unique. Just because you haven't seen them on the menu before, does not mean they are not really deserving of accolades," Landa said.

Currently, there are more than 30 brick and mortar restaurants in the Bay Area born out of La Cocina, which means "kitchen" in Spanish.

Some alums have been nominated as outstanding chefs by the James Beard Foudnation, including Nite Yun of Lunette, Reem Assil of Reem's California and Henna Patel of Besharam.

Many of the restaurants have made the top restaurants lists of the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times.

Alicia Villanueva grew her food businesses through La Cocina. She got her start selling tamales on the street.

"And when she tried to sell them at her kids school, they were like, 'where's your permit,'" Landa said.

That's when Villanueva turned to La Cocina and joined the incubator program in 2011..

Her business, Alicia's Tamales Los Mayas, has grown exponentially.

Villanueva now owns her own food factory in Hayward, supplying tamales, burritos and pupusas to 24 school districts from Sacramento to San Diego.

Her tamales are also sold at markets like Mollie Stone's and the Berkeley Bowl.

"From having been told you can't sell at schools to having a contract with school districts all over California, it goes to show you what's possible when people have access to the resources that they need to be able to do this," Landa said.

Villanueva now employs more than 20 people. Recently, she also started supplying tamales for first class meals on Alaska Airlines .

"I am grateful, because now I play in the big leagues. My business is growing little by little. The feeling is amazing. I never thought it would happen this way," Villanueva said.

Ayesha Rashid joined La Cocina a year ago to expand her Afghan food business, Sisters Catering.

La Cocina helped Rashid set up a food stall at Outside Lands, where she sold Afghan inspired chicken wings.

"Through just everyone's help and support from tasting to being in the kitchen with me, helping me scale and also just believing in me, all that came together and created new recipes and really great success that I could not have done by myself," Rashid said.

La Cocina Street Food Festival will be held Nov. 8 and 9 at China Basin Park in San Francisco. The festival will be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Individual day tickets cost $12.