Vegan Restaurants Are Erratic and Unreliable
Challenges of being vegan — Part four
This article is part 4 of a 5-part series on real world challenges one can expect to face while following a vegan diet. Read part 3 here.
Introduction
Vegan restaurants once made an explosion on the outdoor dining scene. There were plant-based restaurants everywhere as more people became aware of their diet’s impact on the planet and switched to more eco-friendly forms of consumption that were softer on the environment.
However, over the past many years, many of them have shut down as quickly as they’ve managed to spring up.
I’ve frankly lost count of the number of vegan and health food restaurants that have shut down over the past 7 years in my city itself. This particular trend is regardless of the Covid-19, although the pandemic was the last nail in the coffin for many vegan restaurants that were already struggling with operations and were finding it difficult to stay profitable.
There are a couple of issues here where the realities are much more complex and complicated than what we might presume. So I’m not going to trivialize it by making this article short and concise. It’s going to be as long as it needs to be in order to tell the full story, so that people thinking about going vegan know what they’re getting themselves into.
Here’s the fourth structural issue you might face once you start following the vegan diet — the unstable and erratic vegan outdoor dining scene. Here are a few reasons why:
Issue number 1 — Vegans are a heavily floating population
Let’s get the biggest issue of all, one that pertains to vegans themselves, out of the way at the very beginning. Living in a cosmopolitan city, it comes as absolutely no surprise that vegans are a floating population. In fact, of the dozens of vegans I’ve mingled and become close friends with in my city over the last decade, only 3 remain to be here. Even amongst those 3, one of them was someone whom I met just 2 years ago.
Of the dozens of vegans I’ve met over the last decade, all but three of them remain in my city. Let that sink in for a while. These were the same people I used to keep bumping into every single week at my favourite vegan joint in the city. Some of them went back to their home states in the country. But most others just migrated to Western or European countries for a better standard of living.
This is terrible from a business point of view as there is no one to receive consistent and honest feedback from. In the restaurant business, repeat customers are not only a symbol of a restaurants success, but also a testament that their food works and is affordable enough for someone to keep coming back to, month after month and year after year. Repeat customers are one of the most significant sources of feedback to restaurants since they are the only ones who can give you suggestions on the consistency of taste in dishes, how it can be improved, and whether the quality of service is up to the mark.
“As a restaurant owner, you must always look for ways to make your restaurant superior and cater better to your customer’s needs and wants. You can talk to your repeat customers and collect their feedback since they have interacted with your restaurant quite a few times they will give you honest suggestions.”
Restaurants can fool one-time customers all they want, but they can never mess with repeat customers. Unlike one-time customers, repeat customers come with expectations. This means the restaurant is forced to live up to those very same standards they set right at the very beginning. Vegan restaurants have a very low rate of repeat customers. Most of their customers consist of people trying vegan food for the first time, or are flexitarians. Actual vegans are the greatest minority at vegan restaurants. Don’t take my word for it. Go ask your nearest vegan restaurant.
Due to inconsistent and slower feedback, they aren’t able to innovate and improve their dishes as quickly as mainstream restaurants, which see regular and repeat customers every single week.
“Restaurants can fool one-time customers all they want, but they can never mess with repeat customers. Unlike one-time customers, repeat customers come with expectations. This means the restaurant is forced to live up to those very same standards they set right at the very beginning. Vegan restaurants have a very low rate of repeat customers.”
Issue number 2— Unrealiable stream of customers
When you have an unreliable stream of customers, taking kitchen inventory becomes a logistical nightmare. At most vegan restaurants in Indian metro cities, a majority of the customers are either flexitarians or mainstream non-vegans looking to eat healthy for a change. With that kind of volatility, planning your menu for the day turns into a true logistical nightmare as there is absolutely no predictable pattern as to who might order what.
I’ve seen this happen right in front of my very eyes at the vegan restaurant I used to be a loyal patron of for years together before it finally shut down during the pandemic.
They were constantly apologizing to me or their other customers regarding the availability of certain items on the menu. They would close the restaurant whenever they wanted, Pizza wouldn’t be available on a Friday night, they would run out of ice cream, and the taste and texture of the ice creams would keep changing from one week to the next. They were not just new to the vegan restaurant business, but new to the food business itself.
I know of more than a dozen non-vegan restaurants which have existed in my city since decades. I know for a fact that they’ll never run into any such logistical issues since the dining habits of their target population is predictable and they are in the majority. Biryani houses in India know for a fact that families go out together on Sundays and long weekends to feast on delicious Biryani. So they stock up accordingly. They know its a cultural thing. Same thing for ice cream parlours, pizza joints, cafes, and bakeries.
You just can’t go wrong with those.
Issue number 3 — Inconsistent taste of offerings
Since most of these vegan restaurants are run by newly turned vegans or new entrepreneurs, the taste of their offerings vary considerably from one occasion to the next. Seldom does one come across a restaurateur who has expertise in both, veganism and business. So because of this, these restaurants are always lacking in either quality or consistency.
Veganism has given birth to a lot of entrepreneurs who see starting a vegan restaurant as one way of winning people over — through their taste buds. But all the aspiration and drive in the world cannot make up for domain experience, something that only comes through acquired knowledge, years of experimentation, and toil.
Over the span of just a few years, dozens of vegan and health food joints have shut down for this one reason alone. The inability to maintain consistency with their offerings.
Issue number 4— Vegan restaurants run by non-vegans or a non-vegan franchisee
Many vegans have learnt not to trust vegan restaurants run by non-vegans for one single reason: They aren’t connected to the cause the way we are, so they screw up all the time.
Over the past few years, many non-vegans seeing the investment and growth potential of the vegan business space have decided to hitch a ride on the money train. If only things were that simple. Being vegan, and by extension running a vegan restaurant, takes values.
No amount of seed funding or investment from corporate angels is going to compensate for that.
When you’re an entrepreneur who has started a vegan business to bring about a change in the world, those values are reflected in your food. Because of this, we vegans can usually sniff a vegan restaurant run by a non-vegan from a mile away, and know exactly what to expect from them the moment we enter.
Here are a number of faux pas’ committed by non-vegan restaurateurs that I’ve noticed over the years:
- They unintentionally use honey/dairy products in their kitchen, or use processed ingredients in their food that contain honey/dairy.
- They’re unaware that certain processed foods contain animal products and unkowingly use them in their cooking. Coconut milk powder is a great example of this.
- They use ingredients whose alleged health benefits they aren’t sure of.
- They attempt to recreate a certain non-vegan delicacy using alternative vegan ingredients and then fail at it.
In fact, the first faux pas was committed very recently by a newly opened vegan restaurant in my city. Here’s a copy of the letter from the franchisor to the franchisee which the restaurant’s Instagram handle made public on their stories:
It is truly traumatizing to be eating animal products unintentionally even years after going vegan. Such incidents erode trust and brand loyalty that vegan customers like myself would have developed for the restaurant over a period of time. The end result is that I’m now doubtful and suspicious of any new vegan restaurant that pops up regardless of the food preferences of the owner. If one vegan restaurant can mess up like this, then so can the others.
If the very restaurants that I once used to brag about to my friends about the amazing quality of food are going to stab me in the back, then I’m definitely going to be apprehensive about making any kind of restaurant suggestions to them in the future.
When I once used to proudly say: “You don’t have to sacrifice anything on a vegan diet. You can get vegan ice creams, pizzas, burgers and desserts at soandso restaurant, and it tastes exactly like the real deal.”
Turns into:
“Yes vegan restaurants exist, but I wouldn’t put my money on them if I were you. Since a lot of restaurants have managed to screw up on me in the past, I could suggest them to you, but I will not be blamed if the restaurant inadvertently happens to use non-vegan ingredients in their preparation.”
Issue number 5— Trying to copy non-vegan food
This is a subset of the above point. I’ve seen this happen with vegan and health food restaurants as well. They’ll take a mass produced product such as pizza, doughnuts, or pastry, and try to veganize them in order to satisfy the cravings of their vegan customers, and then spectacularly fail at it.
In the process of health-ifying said junk food, the restaurant manages to strip off all of its originality, leaving behind a completely new product that has absolutely no resemblance to the original. Talk about thin-crust cheeseless pizzas, bland lifeless donuts, and pastries that taste of wheat. Refined wheat flour and processed sugar are the very essence of some of these food items. If you’re going to swap them out for healthier ingredients, then they’re definitely not going to taste the same!
Emily from SimplyHealthyVegan elaborates on one simple reason why this might be the case with baked vegan goods:
“One reason why vegan baked goods might not taste as good as traditional baked goods is because of the lack of eggs and butter. Eggs and butter help to add richness, flavor, and moistness to baked goods. Without these ingredients, vegan baked goods can sometimes be dry and bland. Another reason why vegan baked goods might not taste as good as traditional baked goods is because of the use of alternative ingredients. Vegan bakers often use ingredients like tofu, nut butters, and flaxseed meal in place of eggs and butter. While these ingredients can be healthy, they can also change the flavor and texture of baked goods.”
You just cannot replace the original ingredients of a product with vegan ingredients and expect it to look and taste the same. It takes years of trial and error and experimentation to see which ingredient would be the perfect replacement for a non-vegan ingredient in a mainstream food item. Only a handful of vegan restaurants manage to do that.
Issue number 6 — Vegan restaurants are hella expensive
If I just look at my city, all the vegan restaurants that I know of either come under the upper middle, or upper income bracket in terms of cost.
Most people do not possess the patience to understand that vegan restaurants have to be more creative in their offerings, have to make all their sauces and condiments in-house, and often use costlier ingredients than their non-vegan counterparts to bring the very same quality to the table.
Another very very crucial aspect that people forget about is the meat, dairy, and poultry industries are the most heavily subsidized industries on the planet. This makes the procurement of non-vegan ingredients a breeze, whereas vegan restaurants have to go hunting for plant-based vendors of the same ingredient which are, sometimes, twice as expensive as their non-vegan versions.
This is time and labour intensive which only adds to the cost of food.
Issue number 7— They inevitably shut down
In my city, there isn’t a single vegan restaurant that I can think of that has stood the test of time. Not one.
There isn’t a single vegan restaurant which I can proudly boast to my friends which has existed for over a decade and whose food I can vouch for. I cannot count even on both my hands the number of vegan and health food joints with vegan options that have shut down over the past decade, with nothing else to replace them.
Vegan restaurants are flaky, erratic, and are bound to shut down one day or another for all the reasons mentioned above. Most long term vegans know this, and know not to get too attached to a particular vegan restaurant for this very reason.
Now whenever I hear about or see a new vegan restaurant in the city, I know its only a matter of time before it shuts down, and so don’t get too attached to it.
My friend from the U.S. recently posted this to his Facebook timeline:
This indicates that the short lifespan of vegan restaurants isn’t purely an Indian phenomenon as I first thought, but pretty standard for them globally.
The depressing thing about the above post is that it was made by a vegan page on Instagram with the caption, “Profits mean more to them”. If only these online keyboard warrior vegans could understand that people don’t start businesses for social or philanthropic reasons!
If you’re so concerned as to comment “profits mean more to them”, why don’t you go ahead and infuse them with the capital they need to stay alive as a vegan joint? These “holier than thou” type keyboard warrior vegans whining online about vegan restaurants shutting down, or adding non-vegan food to their menus, would rather sit inside the comfort of their homes and throw shade at entrepreneurs for making decisions based on real world realities without sparing a thought about the everyday difficulties they might be facing as a purely vegan business.
A simple Google search reveals how volatile the vegan business scene is, and all the vegan restaurants that have either shut shop or have done a 360 by converting into non-vegan joints in the last couple of years:
Just the sheer number of results for this query show how volatile and risky this particular line of business is.
Conclusion
I’m not saying mainstream restaurants are immune to the adversities of the business climate, nor am I claiming that they never shut down due to factors, internal and external. When a non-vegan restaurant shuts down, there are dozens of others that can always take their place. But when a vegan restaurant shuts down, it might have been the only one offering plant-based options for the next 20 miles, or might have even been the only plant-based restaurant in the city.
That’s what makes it much more painful and agonizing.
Are you a long time vegan? How has the vegan outdoor dining scene changed in your city over the years? Has it been stable, or is it constantly changing?
Unstable operations, closing the restaurant whenever they feel like, inconsistent taste in offerings, menu items unceremoniously unavailable when you want them, and the constant threat of closing down for good are just some of the things you’ll have to put up with when you are a regular patron at vegan restaurants. Customer trust and brand loyalty is something that is forged over years together, with customers getting a chance to visit the outlet multiple number of times under different situations and multiple scenarios. When that gets eroded by any of the above mentioned faux pas’, there’s no going back.
Is there a particular restaurant or set of restaurants you knew for their plant-based offerings which ultimately shut down later only to break your heart?
Do let me know in the comments bar to the side.
