Why this South L.A. hotspot ditched the restaurant model to become a nonprofit

LocoL was all the buzz when it opened in 2016, but it shuttered just two years later. Now, it’s trying something different.

When chef Keith Corbin walks into LocoL, the Los Angeles restaurant where he’s a partner, he passes different chapters of his own history. Located on 103rd Street in the Watts neighborhood, an impoverished part of South L.A. where he grew up, the restaurant sits across the street from Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary (it was 102nd Street Elementary when he attended).