What do so many of our favorite new restaurants in the Bay Area have in common? For us the answer came slowly, as we sopped up the last tangy drops of Cambodian pork belly dip laced with fermented fish paste at Nite Yun’s Nyum Bai (one of our 2018 Hot 10 restaurants) in Oakland. As we tried to recreate the ideal crispy-to-chewy ratio of Reem Assil’s za’atar-dusted flatbread—found at her two award-winning Oakland restaurants, Reem’s and Dyafa—in our Test Kitchen. When we spotted Alicia Villanueva’s downy vegan tamales, so long a fixture at San Francisco farmers markets and food festivals, on the shelves at Whole Foods. The answer? All of these businesses originated in the same place, and that place is La Cocina.

San Francisco’s first nonprofit food incubator, led by Caleb Zigas and Leticia Landa, has more than just a lofty mission: to provide low income women of color the chance to succeed in a market most lack the resources to break into. It follows through on that mission. “We started La Cocina because the barriers to entry have always been high,” says executive director Zigas. “The changing dynamic of San Francisco only makes that more extreme.” By providing affordable kitchen space, technical training, marketing connections, and hands-on help with the nitty-gritty stuff—like permits and payroll—La Cocina is helping to level one of the nation’s most competitive playing fields, and proving that true wellness goes beyond what’s on our plates. It’s about the strength of our communities.

By summer, the nonprofit will take their 14-year endeavor to new heights by opening the La Cocina Municipal Market, a food hall in the Tenderloin filled with the businesses they helped foster. Here, we take a look back at some of La Cocina’s most successful alumni to date—and where they are now.