13 FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 5, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Backpedaling Beliefs HOW DENVER’S VEGAN RESTAURANT NICHE IS FARING POST-PANDEMIC. BY ABIGAIL BLISS Across the board, times are tough for the food-service industry. But vegan restaurants face particular chalenges as they try to attact new customers. “If you stand by veganism as a whole, not just the food or trying to make money from it, you would not put non-vegan stuff on your menus. It’s just going to tarnish the brand, and I’ve seen it happen numerous times,” says Jonathan Mora, owner of local plant-based eatery Mora Pizza. Sage Regenerative Kitchen out of South- ern California is a recent example of this. After the former vegan mainstay placed meat and dairy products on its menu last year, it was bombarded with negative online re- views. Protesters banded together outside its two locations and in January, both shuttered. Denver eateries have seen pushback, too. When “99 percent vegan” restaurant Vital Root introduced chicken and fi sh to its menu last May, multiple one-star reviews appeared in response. Justin Cucci, founder of the employee-owned Edible Beats restaurant group, said at the time that some staff mem- bers vocalized “challenging” thoughts on the change. He declined to comment on the restaurant’s current status, though chicken, salmon, eggs and a newer addition, pork, are available on the current Vital Root menu. Total Vegan Indian Restaurant in High- lands Ranch rebranded as Great Taste Indian & More in December after introducing meat and dairy. The change resulted in some ad- verse reviews and a lengthy debate on the business’s Facebook update. One user wrote, “Then you were never ‘Total Vegan.’ Lost me and a lot of other vegan customers. I made it a special point to visit you with friends for my birthday when I was in town.” However, another commented: “I love your restaurant and bring all my friends, both vegan and non-vegan. Some of my vegan friends travel from Boulder. While I under- stand some of the disappointment from those who do not eat meat, my friends and I will con- tinue to frequent your amazing restaurant.” According to owner Bobby Lamsal, his restaurant’s vegan orientation drew many guests from distant areas. “Obviously, people driving from that far away cannot be there every day — that was the downside,” he notes. Based on demographics, Lamsal, who is not vegan but abstains from eating beef, was initially interested in opening a plant-based restaurant in Boulder “to stand out and try something new,” he says. But limited real estate led him to launch in the south Denver suburb. In hindsight, he believes that was a misstep. “In that particular spot, there was a de- mand for regular Indian items like chicken tikka masala, paneer saag, some of the curry items with meat. People always looked for that and we always thought maybe we were losing a segment” of customers, he explains. “These days, it’s a lot of headache to run a restaurant, and at the end of the day, [we weren’t] making any money. Sometimes, maybe, tending to lose a little bit. That’s where we were fi nancially. “After COVID, everything got expensive. Food got expensive. Labor got expensive. If we were able to make business better, I would never have quit that idea. But the main thing was to survive,” he says. When Meta Burger closed its last two vegan restaurants in November, co-owner Michael Reeves expressed worry about the viability of other local plant-based eateries. “Sales are down for restaurants across Denver, especially niche places like vegan fast-casual,” he said. Raw vegan restaurant Thrive in Boulder shuttered at the end of last year, followed by Dos Santos Pastéis in January. Legacy brands are also struggling. In 2023, vegan chain Native Foods closed several eateries in Colorado. It once boasted 26 locations nationwide; today, the independently-owned outpost in Glendale is one of only three left in the country. “We’re dealing with a lot of really insur- mountable challenges,” affi rms Lauren Rob- erts, co-owner of Watercourse Foods, which opened as a vegetarian restaurant in 1998 and became Denver’s fi rst entirely vegan eatery in 2014. “I think a major reason behind any decision that a restaurant is making today has to do with all of the fallout from COVID.” She echoes Lamsal’s sentiment regarding the cost of goods and labor, and adds that people working from home has impacted sales at both Watercourse Foods in Uptown as well as its vegetarian sister concept, City,O’ City in Capitol Hill. “It’s just created this triumvirate of really impossible operations for most restaurants today,” says Roberts. “We’ve had really big changes in how we staff, how we operate. But one fundamental thing is we want to remain plant-based. That’s our North Star. “We’re going to fi gure out how to make this work,” she adds. “We’ll blend menu items; we’ll blend prices. We’ll get creative with our stakeholders, our community partners. We’ll fi nd a way to make it inviting to all people.” As at Watercourse, accessibility is a core value at Oregon-based Next Level Burger, which became the continent’s largest plant- based restaurant concept after acquiring Veggie Grill last year. One of its 27 outposts is in the University of Denver neighborhood; when it opened in 2022, co-owner Matt de Gruyter says it surpassed every other location’s sales metrics. “We attract this real signifi cant percent- age of guests who are not vegan but are looking for more plant-based foods in their diet. I’m delighted to feed vegan families like mine, but I also believe that the biggest mar- ket opportunity is to feed everybody else,” says de Gruyter, estimating that roughly half of the guests are omnivores. The selection at Next Level Burger is massive, and everything is made with organic produce and vegan ingredients: various veg- gie burgers, beef-like patties and “chicken” fi lets, plus loaded fries, onion rings, shakes and more. “The novelty of veganism is worn off. People aren’t buying something just be- cause it happens to be plant-based. It still has to be delicious,” de Gruyter notes. Roberts agrees with that, too. At Water- course, everything from comfort-food dishes to health-centric fare is made from scratch. Think dairy-free cheeses, housemade seitan, smoked barbecue jackfruit and even blocks of tofu from its sister brand, Colorado Sun Tofu in Trinidad. “I would always encourage folks who are in a niche to really nail that niche,” says de Gruyter. “When I see someone who has a vegan concept take a step back, it pains me. I also understand there’s most likely a business owner behind that decision who’s desperately trying to make ends meet.” “It is expensive to operate in Denver,” affi rms Mora. “That is, personally, why I’ve looked at operating with a non-vegan piz- zeria. Running a dual concept, you can split all that overhead.” At the end of last year, Mora Pizza opened alongside non-vegan Tua Mama’s Pizzeria in the former Benny Blanco’s space in Cap Hill. Prior to that, it shared a space on Col- fax with another non-vegan restaurant, the now-closed Rico’s Pizzeria. “I haven’t received any negative feed- back from operating under the same roof,” says Mora, adding that vegan food trucks and other businesses often use commissary kitchens that are not strictly plant-based. For some diners, omnivorous eateries and dual concepts like Mora Pizza still raise concerns about cross-contamination. “I’m vegan, so a vegan isn’t going to be in any better hands than mine when it comes to that matter,” comments Mora. While he shares space with Tua Mama’s, vegan and traditional cheeses lie on opposite ends of the prep sta- tion, oven space is separated and plant-based slices are always stored above regular pies. Following its rebrand, Great Taste Indian & More brought in two fryers, with one dedi- cated to vegetarian dishes and another for meat items. Vital Root processes, par-cooks and packages all animal proteins off-site, and uses separate equipment when preparing orders with non-vegan add-ons. Still, de Gruyter notes, “You don’t have to worry about [cross-contamination] when you walk into a pure-play restaurant. You know the cheese is going to be vegan. The steak that tastes so very real is not made out of animal protein. You can rest assured that within those four walls, all is going to align with your value set.” He continues, “Does Denver need vegan restaurants? I don’t know if it needs them in the brass-tacks sense of the word ‘need.’ But I think it wants them. I think there are all sorts of people who really want to have that extra sense of confi dence and trust.” “I absolutely believe in [the vegan niche] or I wouldn’t be continuing to do it, espe- cially over these last years when it’s really taxed restaurant owners,” Roberts says. “I mean, there’s no time in history that I can remember it’s been this hard. “We’re fi ghting through it because we believe in what we do and we think that it’s a needed and wanted part of our city.” Email the author at [email protected] CAFE FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS Plant-based dishes from Watercourse Foods, Denver’s fi rst vegan restaurant. WATERCOURSE FOODS
