By Jacob Kamaras
LA JOLLA, California — Kosher-observant San Diegans are perpetually starved for kosher restaurants. Joey Aron decided to bring the restaurants to them.
La Jolla native Aron, 24, who graduated from Yeshiva University’s (YU) Sy Syms School of Business and is now working at Citibank in New York, launched and now operates a business venture that facilitates the delivery of kosher food from 15 of the most popular kosher food vendors in Los Angeles — not only satisfying local appetites in San Diego, but generating gross income of more than $1 million for the Los Angeles businesses, he says.
San Diego’s limited selection of kosher restaurants currently includes the Botanic Burgers at the Lawrence Family JCC and the French bakery Parisien Gourmandises. Kosher takeout is also available at the Ralphs supermarket in La Jolla.
But when the predecessor of Botanic Burgers at the JCC, the Israeli meat restaurant Place Café, closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Aron says he witnessed “a clear demand for a solution, and I saw an opportunity in our nearby Jewish hub of Los Angeles.”
Aron, who has taken many entrepreneurial classes along with business management courses at YU, arranges the transportation of kosher food, groceries, and meat from Los Angeles to the Irvine and San Diego Jewish communities on a weekly basis. Since March 2020, he has arranged more than 100 deliveries. He manages the service through WhatsApp groups with more than 450 members, posting the selection of Los Angeles restaurants offered each week along with information on how to place an order. On delivery day, San Diego customers pick up their orders at a private home in La Jolla.
“It satisfied a community need of having kosher food products. Many families have told me that this service helps make fully keeping kosher a lot easier,” says Aron.
The participating vendors — some of which are offered to San Diegans as frequently as twice per month — include Shanghai Diamond Gardens, Western Kosher, Lieders, Lenny’s Casita, Lenny’s Bazaar, Taeem Grill, Beverly Hills Thai, Nagila Pizza, Sidewalk, Schwartz’s Marketplace, Pico Kosher Deli, Schnizly, PSY Burger, and Pat’s.
Particularly in the earlier stages of the pandemic, Aron says the venture “was helping fund many struggling businesses in Los Angeles. Bringing in this revenue to kosher institutions has helped keep them afloat in challenging COVID times.”
The young entrepreneur adds that he “got to apply the lessons I was learning at school by trying to make this business profitable — and it also gave me an excuse to get out of the house.”
As a spinoff, Aron would also help San Diegans deliver packages to Los Angeles and on the return trip, pick up packages for people living here, in addition to providing airport rides as well as rides for San Diegans who attend yeshiva day schools in Los Angeles.
“From the youngest of ages, I have always considered myself to be very entrepreneurial,” Aron says. “From the lemonade stand outside the YMCA to the reselling of items on Ebay, I have always been fascinated by the way business and services operated. That being said, I am more interested in businesses that also help people and most importantly communities that I am close to. This delivery service directly fulfills both my entrepreneurial need and my desire to help out the community. This venture is directly along the lines with other businesses and start-ups that I hope to start in the future, and I believe many of the lessons I have learned from this venture will lead to success in the next ones.”
Once he moved to New York to start his full-time job and could no longer manage the food delivery venture from Southern California, Aron transitioned the business to a passive income model by establishing exclusivity contracts with vendors and hiring a local partner to coordinate on-the-ground operations.
Yet Aron continues to emphasize the positive influence of his La Jolla roots. A graduate of Southern California Yeshiva High School (SCY High), his family is highly involved in San Diego’s Jewish community — including at Congregation Adat Yeshurun, which he still attends when he visits La Jolla.
“I’m happy to give back to the Jewish community where I was raised,” Aron says.
Anyone interested in joining Aron’s WhatsApp groups, suggesting a new restaurant to participate in the deliveries, or in other aspects of the service can contact him at 858-232-1823 or joseph@josepharon.com.
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Jacob Kamaras is editor and publisher of San Diego Jewish World.