A vegan hamburger shop owner is turning to meat to keep the business viable and will include more ethically sourced animal products on the menu.
Soul Hamburger owner Amit founded his vegan-friendly restaurant nine years ago, but has been thinking hard about closing for the past six months, saying he was turning away hundreds of customers every week due to the lack of meat options on the menu.
With the burger chain’s sales down 60% since its peak in 2017, the owner had to decide whether to close its stores or change its concept.
“Our choice was to close at least three stores (or maybe all of them) or add meat to the menu and change the concept,” he said.
Amit said the problem with vegan fast food outlets is that they mostly appeal to vegetarians and vegans and other people don’t find vegan fast food appealing.
Once other fast food outlets like Grill’d and Hungry Jacks added plant-based burgers to their menus, their sales also declined and they no longer offered unique offerings.
“It was a slow, painful realization,” he said.
“I think we can exist as a non-vegan space and be much more ethical than the standard food joints, by becoming plant-centric,” he said.
The restaurateur will open a new store that is 80 percent plant-based and 20 percent meat-based, offering all plant-based sides, condiments, drinks and sauces.
“While our current model is not financially viable at all, the bright side is that this new ‘plant-based’ approach could have a greater impact on animals than the previous approach, as we will no longer be turning away carnivores and vegetarians at restaurants that adhere to the status quo (in terms of ethics),” Amit said.
“Perhaps the focus on plants is a move towards scalable casual dining restaurants.
“I don’t want perfection to be the enemy of progress.
“I don’t want us to be just a little burger joint in a suburb full of vegans, not making a difference.”
Soul Burger has played its part in encouraging plant-based options, and the new Humble Burger Co. may play its part in encouraging more plant-based focus in national food brands, Amit said.
“Some will say that closure is ‘noble’; but closure simply means replacing it with a status quo restaurant, factory farms, restaurants that rely heavily on animals. And that’s worse for the animals,” he said.
Since Amit opened the restaurant, his goal has been to use hospitality as a means to drive change in the animal agriculture industry and reduce animal suffering.
“I thought the best way to do that was through a vegan burger restaurant,” he said.
But the reality for the owner is that Soul Burger has essentially become a hub for vegans and vegetarians, and while they love their customers, they needed to become more sustainable.
“By appealing to carnivores in this way, we may be doing more for the animals than we would as a purely vegetarian space,” he said.
