Our beloved shop, MAD Rebel Health Kitchen, needs your help or we might have to close our doors forever.
We are four crazy kids (in our hearts, at least) who had a dream: to open a place of our own that served healthy, delicious food.
A little bit about us, the Mad Rebel family. Three of us, Chef John Gwinn, Tera Isadore Ramirez, and Tom Halloran, all met in Los Angeles while working in various restaurants all over this amazing city. We all had a love for food, healthy lifestyles (with some room for fun along the way), and music. Like so many wierdos who move to this town, we found our people and made them our new families. In 2017, our family had a great loss, when Isadore's father Daniel Ramirez, lost his fight against cancer. Dan's dream had always been to open up a healthy restaurant (since he was a life long health food advocate) and his dying dream was to open one up with John as the chef. With Dan gone, we took in his widow and the matriarch of our new family, Victoria. We were stronger in numbers, and in agreement that if we had the opportunity, we were going to make Dan's final dream come true.
In 2021, in the midst of all the COVID craziness, we did the craziest thing of all; we opened MAD Rebel Health Kitchen. The name comes from another shared obsession of the group David Bowie! (Moon Age Daydream / Rebel, Rebel). Since we opened, we have been 'the little shop that could', making food that tastes amazing, but actually fuels you to take on your day. We've seen our clientele grow, were grateful to be able to feed our local fire department during the recent wildfires, and we are extremely proud to say we have a perfect 5 stars on google with over 100 reviews. But all that is in danger of coming to an end.
Due to structural issues with the space that we are renting (that pre-existed us even moving in), the health department has shut us down as of 4/8/25, and we are forced to cover the costs of repairs and renovations. To make matters worse, we obviously are not able to be open for business, so revenue has completely dried up at the time that we need it most. We are doing as much work as we can do ourselves, but the only way to solve a problem this big is to spend money.
And now for the worst part for a group of independent-minded owners like us, now we ask for your help. Simply put, we need money and we need it quickly. That is the main reason we are using *spotfund rather than GoFundMe or other fundraising sites, because they allow access to any funds as they come in, not after a long 'campaign'. When you are balancing on a knife's edge, any speed bump can be catastrophic. We need your help to get us over this one.
We are reaching out to all the 'Friends of the Rebel', our families, and friends. Those of you who know us probably know how little we like doing this, but this is our hour of need. Any amount you could give will go a LONG way towards helping us out. Please, if you can, consider helping us. We just want to keep providing quality food to the neighborhood, and we can't do it without your help.
- Thank you so much;
The MAD Rebel Family
