MAMA's Drive-By Kitchen helps struggling ethnic restaurants

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021
MAMA's Drive-By Kitchen helps struggling ethnic restaurants
MAMA's Drive-By Kitchen is a new take on take-out. The group is on a mission to help underrepresented ethnic restaurants in the Los Angeles area.Pop-up charity, MAMA'S Drive-By Kitchen is helping struggling ethnic restaurants with specialized menus and take-out during the pandemic.

LOS ANGELES -- Jared Jue and Alice Han are on a mission to help preserve immigrant culture through restaurants, food and different cuisines.

In May, they launched MAMA's Drive-By Kitchen to help with that mission.

"We just started seeing the community hurt so much, you know, during the pandemic and then when we were on lockdown you see all these restaurants start slowly closing down," said Han.

They choose one or two restaurants to highlight for one week and create a limited menu from the restaurant to help customers pre-order.

"Then people can pick it up across L.A. at our different locations on Sunday," said Jue.

They recently featured the restaurant Hwang Hae Doe in Koreatown.

The 20-year-old spot, owned by Sunyi Chae, is known for Korean barbeque and their take on a Vietnamese spring roll.

"This last year was so hard for her. She just wants to work harder and just make sure that people are fed. Even though it's a really hard business, this is what she loves," said Han.

They also use social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok to help promote these restaurants with fun content.

"Some of these older generations -- they're not very tech savvy. They don't have social media, it's all word of mouth for them," said Han.