MAHA is on the menu.
What’s happening: Seed oil-free restaurant Talo Organic closed a seven-figure investment to open its first physical location in LA, with more sites planned.
Cut it out. Starting as a Sacramento-area pop-up, Talo serves organic, gluten-free fare without seed oils, including tacos, rice bowls, and signature tallow-cooked french fries.
Aiming to eliminate toxins, it opts for 100% grass-fed beef tallow over maligned oils, avoids ultra-processed foods, and uses no emulsifiers. Minimizing microplastics and PFAs, it ditched plastic cutting boards and nonstick pans while using reverse-osmosis on its water supply.
Smash hit. Talo is already a viral success, with patrons lining up before opening and fries quickly selling out.
Spurred on by social media, Talo grew to 50K Instagram followers in four months. Rebuffed by private equity, its investment round resulted from inbound DMs from tech investor Vinny Lingham, health advocate Calley Means, NBA star Spencer Dinwiddie, and more.
Scaling up, it’ll open in Venice, California’s Colony food hall this May and in Costa Mesa this fall before statewide expansion in CA, TX, and AZ, plus hotspots like NYC and Miami.
New all-natural. Acknowledging the cultural moment as “fortuitous timing,” founder Graham Honig leans into RFK Jr’s MAHA Movement.
Before launch last fall, he estimates 10–20% of eaters knew about the potential harms of seed oils. At launch, ~90% of patrons arrived explicitly for Talo’s strict non-toxic criteria.
In the fight against food additives, Honig sees MAHA as an uncontroversial rallying point, noting: “Politics don’t matter if we’re all sick in the hospital.”
Looking ahead: As the debate over seed oils heats up, chains like Sweetgreen and Shake Shack are making menu changes, but Talo Organic wants to replace fast food with uncompromising, real food from the start.
