CEO OKRA Restaurant Group, Executive Chef, Richard Petty Visits LA Kitchen

IGM Art Gallery Director, Lynn Crandall, and Okra Restaurant Group Founder and CEO, Richard Petty, USC IGM Art Gallery Advisory Council Member, and USC registered vendor, visited the LA Kitchen site with staff today.

                                        To view a slide show with captions of the visit, left click on top photo.

Chef Petty, is interested to learn how L.A. Kitchen is developing Strong Food, a for-profit subsidiary that will compete for food service contracts and produce value-added wholesale and retail products from locally sourced fruits and vegetables. Opening in 2015, Strong Food will have the capacity and infrastructure to hire graduates of L.A. Kitchen’s culinary job training program and offer them an employee profit-sharing plan. Many of L.A. Kitchen’s graduates will be older adults that have little or no savings and a short time to achieve financial stability before reaching retirement. Providing a stake in Strong Food ensures that graduates won’t slip back into the cycle of poverty once they age out of the workforce.

Short video interview with Richard – under development

Red Yam Southern Grille is being developed by the Okra Restaurant Group, Inc. and was created as a fast casual hand crafted/chef driven Southern food concept by renowned Chef Richard Petty, author of the award winning cookbook Beyond Soul Food, Modern Heritage Cuisine, an Amazon Kindle Best-Seller and the Radio Show Host of Let’s Do Lunch with Chef Richard Petty on LA Talk Live.

Chef Petty has developed a fresh, healthy take on Southern food which includes his Signature Sweet Potato Bread Hoagies with Applewood Smoked chicken, pulled pork and brisket.  To these he adds healthy sides such as Southern Succotash, Yam Chips and other mouth-watering choices.  He will be mentoring apprentice chefs and aspiring restaurant owners while at the same time building out his restaurant franchises.  A U.S. Navy veteran, he views his work in developing a waste free, entrepreneurial program as a tool to reclaim fellow veterans and those entering this dynamic food industry into substantive community capacity building and mindful stewardship of self, others and the planet.