Why Our Food Isn't Exciting

If I had a penny for every time someone walked past Urban Vegan Kitchen, saw the word VEGAN on our sign and said, "I don't eat vegan food," I would have retired years ago and be living out my final days on a beach somewhere eating "weird vegan food."

But here I am, still in Chelsea, still running a vegan restaurant, and still trying to figure out why a word on our sign can make someone decide they don't like our food before they've even walked through the door.

Growing up in a Latino household in the '80s and '90s while practicing yoga and eating mostly vegetarian, I have a lot of experience being the "weird one." It sucks to be made to feel like an outsider because of your beliefs. Somewhere along the way, the word vegan itself became almost a slur in some people's eyes. I've learned to laugh at that kind of stuff and keep it moving, but when you're running a vegan restaurant, it's also a very real business problem. Nobody walks past an Italian restaurant and says, "Absolutely not. I NEVER eat Italian food." Imagine that.

I've probably spent thousands of hours explaining that people have been eating vegan food their entire lives. Rice, beans, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, bread, spices, herbs. Put them together on a plate at a vegan restaurant and suddenly everybody gets nervous.

But I'm tired of explaining it.

I've always been interested in the idea that progress isn't necessarily about adding more to our lives. Sometimes progress comes from figuring out what we can take away. In a lot of ways, that's how I see the vegan philosophy. Can we remove an ingredient that causes harm to an animal and still make something delicious? Can we make choices that might be better for our bodies and the planet while still enjoying the foods and flavors we grew up loving? That's a challenge that excites me.

So when somebody walks through our doors skeptical of vegan food, we try to meet them halfway. We offer food that's familiar and flavors that bring comfort. Some people walk into a vegan restaurant expecting to be judged or lectured about what they ate for breakfast. That's not the moment to attack them. That's the moment to feed them.

If compassion is really at the center of vegan culture, shouldn't some of that compassion extend to the person who doesn't understand us yet? Maybe the goal isn't to win an argument. Maybe the goal is to make somebody a really good sandwich. Let them eat. Let them enjoy themselves. Then maybe somewhere around the third bite they think, Wait...this is vegan? That's a win.

We knew what we were getting into when we put the word VEGAN in the name Urban Vegan Kitchen. Having our backs against the wall all these years might have actually made us stronger. We've spent a lot of time explaining ourselves and defending ourselves, and I'm kind of tired of playing defense. Maybe it's time for some dynamic offense.

And I don't mean yelling at somebody because they're eating a steak. I'm talking about showing people how much FUN this lifestyle can be. Eat great food. Listen to great music. Have a cocktail. Drink some mushroom coffee. Go to the gym. Do some yoga. Dance. Make some shit. Stay out too late once in a while. Wake up the next morning and try to be a little healthier than you were yesterday. Have more fun. Get healthier. Spread good vibes. Make people curious. Hell, make them a little jealous. And then kill them with kindness.

I also think vegan restaurants put way too much pressure on ourselves to be "creative." We feel like we constantly have to prove something. Every plate has to be innovative. Every menu needs some ingredient nobody can pronounce. We see what the hot restaurants are doing and suddenly feel like we need to do our version of it. Somewhere in all that trying to compete, we can lose the very thing that made us interesting in the first place: our identity, our authenticity, our culture.

Why are we trying so hard to fit into the status quo when vegan culture was never really about fitting in? We shouldn't have to chase every restaurant trend to prove that vegan food belongs in the conversation. WE ARE THE TREND. The food world is talking about eating more vegetables, sustainability, alternative proteins, functional ingredients and finding ways to reduce our impact on the planet. These are conversations our culture has been having for decades.

So instead of constantly looking over our shoulders at what everybody else is doing, maybe we should stand ten toes down in what we already are. That doesn't mean we stop evolving or creating. It means our creativity should come from who we are, not from trying to become somebody else.

People have criticized us for not making "exciting" enough food. To that I say: delicious vegan food IS exciting. Take a BLT. Everybody understands a BLT. It's familiar. It's simple. It carries memories for people. Now find a way to create that same experience without requiring the death of a pig. Why isn't that exciting? You've taken something somebody already loves and transformed it into something that can represent compassion instead—and it can still taste fucking good.

That's exciting to me.

The reason we don't make fancy vegan food is probably the same reason we play the hits. We want to be your everyday, not your special occasion. There's absolutely a place for the chef who creates something you've never seen before and plates it like a Picasso. I love that shit too. But that's not what we're trying to do.

We're interested in the beauty of the everyday. The sandwich you order every week. The mac and cheese you crave when you've had a shitty day. The burger and fries with a beer. French toast on Sunday morning. The song you've heard a thousand times that somehow still makes you turn it up when it comes on.

To me, some of the best art in the world finds beauty in things other people might consider mundane. There's something very blue collar about that. Show up. Do the work. Make it good. Do it again tomorrow. Taking something classic and finding a way to make it with less harm isn't a lack of creativity. That's the creativity.

Maybe that's what Classic Food. Better Ingredients. has really meant to us all along. We're not embarrassed that our food looks familiar. That's the point. We're not trying to erase your memories of food. We're trying to honor them while asking whether there's another way to create them. It's the same philosophy we've always had about art and music. You can sample it. Remix it. Keep what was beautiful. Change what wasn't. And create a new classic.

So maybe our food isn't "exciting." That's okay. We're not trying to be the restaurant you visit once a year to see what crazy thing we put on a plate. We want to be the place you come back to every week. You know the food. You know the music. You know the people. And somehow it still feels good every time.

That's our kind of exciting.

Peace,
Dave