Welcome to Vegan Quarantine: Day 26. This daily video series is my way of helping to keep spirits high within the vegan community while also supporting independent business, charities, and musicians.
Welcome to Vegan Quarantine: Day 23. This daily video series is my way of keeping spirits high within the vegan community while also supporting independent business, charities, and musicians.
Hi all. Fat Gay Vegan back again with another video to try and keep spirits high within the vegan community AND draw your attention to independent businesses and charities that need our support.
Links are below for everything I discuss. Please add your own links and suggestions in the comments.
Unicorn Grocery is a vegan coop supermarket in Manchester. They now have special opening time slots for 70+ and vulnerable people. Support this vegan business: https://www.unicorn-grocery.coop/
Here I am with Day 2 of my reach out video series during the global pandemic. These videos are to foster a sense of community for vegans around the world and to bring attention to some of the independent businesses, charities, and even bands that could use our help.
Please use the links below for all the mentions from the video:
Bandcamp is a place to buy and stream music by independent bands. The platform is waiving their revenue share on Friday March 20. Buy music if you can afford it: https://bandcamp.com/
I’m watching a wonderful series on Netflix called Gentefied. I love it. Give it a try!
After opening in Chelsea in 2017, Wulf & Lamb has been at the forefront of the plant-based casual dining scene in London, offering an array of vegan dishes including their greatly adored Chilli-non- Carne, Wulf Burger, and Cauliflower steak.
Wulf & lamb has been one of my favourite places to eat in the UK since they opened, so this news of a second location is certainly a cause for celebration.
The new location on Chiltern Street, Marylebone boasts 90 seats and will offer full table service, outdoor seating, and a bar with an exciting cocktail menu.
There will be a number of exciting new dishes added to the menu including Glazed Miso Aubergine, Bao, Artichoke Pesto Linguine, and Crème Brûlée developed by Head Chef Konstantinos Kotidis.
I’m so excited for this addition to the London food landscape.
Founder Philip Ryan said:
We are thrilled to be opening in Marylebone. Since we opened in Chelsea three years ago we have been delighted by the growing trend for plant-based eating. Our customers have fallen in love with our take on classic comfort foods including Mac-n-Cheese and Wulf Pie. For Marylebone we’ve added more dishes including starters, indulgent desserts, and a full cocktail and wine list.
Wulf & Lamb Marylebone will open to the public on Thursday February 27, 2020 from 7:30am – 10:30pm, 7 days a week.
You can see the exact location of the new Marylebone Wulf & Lamb online thanks to Google Maps.
It has been just over 24 hours since the announcement was made, so the feelings are still fresh.
Legendary (I mean, really REALLY legendary) vegan bakery business Ms. Cupcake announced it is set to close in March 2020.
This is sad news but of course it is not completely surprising.
I talk with vegan business owners often and they are struggling. People want convenience and are willing to sacrifice independently owned vegan businesses to get it. It feels like our community is increasingly becoming a block of faceless consumers unable (or unwilling) to support small business.
This phenomenon already happened to non-vegan businesses, with many independent stores shuttering their doors over the past few decades.
Now it feels like it is veganism’s turn to lose our pioneering retailers and business owners to big ticket capitalism.
The Ms. Cupcake bakery in Brixton stayed open a lot longer than it should have thanks to owner and founder Mellissa Morgan and her ingenuity, talent, and compassion. The vegan retail scene changed drastically and radically, but Mellissa kept her head above water with savvy choices. Her cupcake distribution deal with Whole Foods Market stores was one of the first major deals of its kind for a vegan business in the UK.
If you want to know what hard work looks like, study the output of Ms. Cupcake.
Mellissa started her business with all-night baking marathons followed by all-day selling stints at outdoor markets. She turned the London vegan scene upside down with her delicious and inventive creations, giving us hope that a better future for animals was around the corner and it included cake.
The Ms. Cupcake business was born at a time when London was still a struggle for vegans. Seriously, if you were vegan ten years ago you will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Mellissa showed us that we could expect more as vegan consumers while she also inspired dozens and dozens of others to take a risk with vegan business.
Ms. Cupcake didn’t just open the door through which other superstar vegans businesses strolled. Mellissa’s bakery smashed the door off its hinges.
We suddenly had a world class vegan food business and is not dramatic to say it felt like a hopeful new dawn for London.
The opening of the physical bakery location in Brixton took things to another level.
People would come from all over the UK to visit the bakery. Remember, this was long before vegan cake options were even a thought for Costa or Tesco. Ms. Cupcake gave us a peek into a strange new world and we lost our collective shit over it.
People would even come straight from the airport with their luggage because of all the hype. They couldn’t wait.
Mellissa wasn’t just a clever and talented cake maker. She showed us you could do all of this and also do what was right for your community.
Because of her kindness, the Ms. Cupcake and Fat Gay Vegan stories are inextricably connected. Mellissa went above and beyond what most would do by allowing me to start my monthly London Vegan Potluck social event (and then host it for six months) in the space outside her shop.
Four years later, when London Vegan Potluck was coming to and end, Mellissa and her team showed up to our final event with a personalised cake to thank me for my contributions to the London vegan community.
When London was absolutely bereft of exciting vegan social events, Mellissa allowed me to host a vegan pizza party in her shop on two occasions. I was desperate to create social capital for vegans and Mellissa and her bakery team were on the frontline with me.
I was once in the pub a few doors down from the Ms. Cupcake bakery, indulging in a few afternoon beers, when a random local pub goer noticed I had a box of Ms. Cupcake goodies on my table. He told me that when violent protests erupted around London (including Brixton) during August 2011 following the death of Mark Duggan at the hands of police, Mellissa went into the streets and gave away cakes to protestors.
This local pub goer had tears in his eyes as he told me that nobody touched or went near Mellissa’s bakery during the violence because of her act of support, solidarity, and community strengthening. He said everyone around those parts saw her as a good person and a treasured member of their community.
Through the bakery, Mellissa gave many people their first ever vegan job. Her team evolved over the years, however Mellissa always kept a strong, dedicated, and well trained group of people by her side.
I’m even friends with some of her team members to this day!
Mellissa gave her time and expertise with grace and humility.
Following on from her groundbreaking and highly-influential recipe book (which you need to order online here), many people started copycat baking businesses around the UK.
When I would ask her about this, Mellissa would shrug and wish them well. She really just wanted vegan cake to be everywhere and understood that she had created a sugary monster that she couldn’t control, so instead she hoped for the best for all the people following in her footsteps.
If you attended community events and vegan fairs in the early days, Mellissa could be found giving up her precious time and expertise for cooking demonstrations, panel discussions, and personal appearances. She worked as hard on building our vegan scene as she did on her own business.
At a time when we were all scrambling to build a vegan movement that would put compassion into the mainstream, Mellissa was ahead of the game with a world class product and an unwavering smile on her face.
I would never be able to overstate how important her role was in making veganism the unstoppable social and commercial concern it is now.
Mellissa might very well be the most important vegan business person that London has ever known. She is the original. Vegan Nights. Temple of Seitan. Hackney Downs Vegan Market. We all followed.
We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ms. Cupcake.
Extra note: I think you should all follow Ms. Cupcake on Instagram. Something tells me that she will be back with vegan goodness in some form before we know it.
Extra extra note: for goodness sake, buy her cookbook online NOW. Let’s send Mellissa out with a bang.
No matter if your Valentine’s Day is going great or less than desirable, this news is guaranteed to make it better.
Superstar purveyors of plant-based comfort food Young Vegans are launching a bottomless vegan brunch at their pizza restaurant in Bethnal Green, London!
What is a bottomless brunch?
Don’t worry, you get to keep your pants on. Bottomless brunch means you get to drink and eat as much as you can/want from a selected menu for a set amount of time.
The Young Vegans bottomless brunch features unlimited pizza AND unlimited Prosecco or beer for 90 minutes for a flat rate of £30 per person!
The bottomless brunch is available only via advanced bookings on the Young Vegans Pizza Shop website or Open Table for times between midday and 5pm every Sunday, starting on Sunday February 16, 2020.
Some of the rules for the bottomless brunch:
You must eat everything (no leftovers/takeaway)
Doesn’t include any side dishes
Only one pizza at a time per two people
I love the sound of this bottomless brunch!
The drink menu also features organic wines and cocktails (such as a gorgeous Bloody Mary), Aperol Spritz, gin and tonic, and their special Hackney Mule for extra cost. The beers are from Hackney Brewery, which brews just 15 minutes from the restaurant.
OmNom is a new vegan café and yoga space located in Islington, London.
The café founders have this to say:
Everything we do is focused on journeying together to an enlightened lifestyle through serving your Body, Mind and Soul. OmNom brings you delicious, fresh vegetarian/vegan food that acts like yoga for your belly. As well as this we offer yoga, mindfulness and meditation sessions so you can connect with the real you. As you may have guessed by now, we’re all about giving, and as a Conscious Charity every meal you have at OmNom will feed a meal to a child less fortunate across the globe.
I like the sound of a meal going to a hungry human in exchange for every meal purchased in the café.
Sandi from OmNom clarified further:
Our mechanism is pretty straight forward. With every meal/yoga class that we sell, we will pay for one child to be fed. We work with a number of charities, including Annamrita who serve 1.2 million meals to children across seven Indian states every day.
If you want to see the sort of food being served at OmNom and check out some of their classes, get over to their website now. They have some great opening specials and discounts featured online.
You can see the exact location of OmNom in the flyer above or online thanks to Google Maps.
Beer company BrewDog has announced an exclusive deal with vegan fried chicken pioneers Temple of Seitan to feature their signature seitan wings and burgers in BrewDog Bars across the UK available from Tuesday January 14, 2020.
I’m thrilled to hear my friends at Temple of Seitan are experiencing this phenomenal success.
But I’m not a BrewDog fan.
I genuinely hope BrewDog has morphed into a much more considerate and compassionate company following on from some of their thoughtless and unkind marketing campaigns and controversies of the (not too distant) past.
See examples here (sexism) and here (using dead animal bodies as promotional tools) and here/here (transphobia) and here (they were taken to an employment tribunal) and here (they sold a half meat/half meat alternative burger) and here (sexism mixed with misogyny) and here (explicit sexism and misogyny) and here (pay disputes and suggestions of intellectual property mishandling).
I will never personally drink a BrewDog beer again in my life however I wanted to report this news on behalf of my friends at Temple. I do not support the BrewDog company due to ethical and political reasons, but I love and support Rebecca and Patrick of Temple of Seitan even though I personally would have made a very different decision.
I wish they had found a less problematic beer brand for a partnership. I know this blog post makes me sound like a hypocrite by saying I don’t support BrewDog but here is some information about BrewDog.
I’m not the boss of vegans so I’m giving you the info and you can do what you want with it. Perhaps you can walk into a bar and only buy the Temple food? LOL.
And perhaps by reporting this news spliced with commentary on their shitty marketing, I might get BrewDog to take a little bit of notice. Perhaps it will encourage other vegan consumers to say ‘thanks for the vegan wings from a legendary vegan company but please be better people as well’.
If you are a BrewDog customer and are excited to dine with Temple of Seitan while in one of the bars, perhaps you can also take the time to voice your opinions to the company whenever they do something shitty.
Patrick from Temple of Seitan said they were sold on the deal due to BrewDog paying Living Wage to their employees.
BrewDog is launching this partnership with Temple of Seitan in their UK bars before expanding the supply to their European locations soon.
Temple of Seitan has been featured in ‘best of’ lists across numerous publications – from Time Out to Easyjet Traveller. In 2017 Temple of Hackney won the best UK restaurant in the public voted VegFestUK Awards and in 2019 the ‘Nashville Hot’ burger was the number one selling vegan item on Uber Eats, London.
