November 20, 2024 • 56 mins
Ft. Wayne, Indiana's Vegan Restaurant Month shows how America is going vegan, town by town! Ft. Wayne, Indiana is America's 83rd largest city in terms of population. It's the heart of the heartland and a typical example of America's Midwest. And, it's leaning plant-based as evidenced by the success of its Vegan Restaurant Month celebration, which is taking place all this month, through the end of November. Heather and JR Dahman are the husband and wife team leading the charge to show city residents the joys and health benefits of plant-based living. Fittingly, they also run a company called The Herbivore Next Door. Now, let's get the skinny on how they are veganizing their friends, neighbors, restaurants and institutions by showing everyone in their community that going plant-based is no sacrifice. It's a joyous adventure towards better health, sustainability and compassion for all beings. Every city needs to copy this model. Visit: FortWayneVegan.com and https://theherbivorenextdoor.com for more.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
If you want to revolutionise your health, get
truly joyful and jump to the next phase
of human evolution, all it takes is one
simple choice.
Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell.
Welcome, we have an exciting show for you
today.
Check out these two mischief makers.
(00:20):
They have created Fort Wayne, Indiana Vegan Restaurant
Month and it is all the rage.
And we're looking at this to see if
other people can replicate this in their cities
and towns because it has really taken off
and exposed, that's not egg, that's not cheese,
(00:42):
that's not meat, that's vegan, that's 100%
vegan, okay?
All of the food that we are showcasing
today is 100% plant-based, but you've
got banana splits, you've got breakfast, all sorts
of delicious smoothies and milkshakes and pastries, and
(01:04):
it's all completely without any animal products whatsoever.
That means it's zero cholesterol.
And so this husband and wife team, the
Domins, whom you're about to meet, have really
opened this whole new world through Vegan Restaurant
Month in Fort Wayne.
And so I'd like to introduce you to
(01:27):
these change makers in the hopes that they
can teach us how to do the same
thing in other cities and towns.
Because I was thinking, if I was gonna
do this in my neighbourhood, I wouldn't have
a clue.
So Heather Domin, tell us, how did you
make this happen?
Right, hi Jane, thanks so much for having
us on.
(01:47):
So this started about six years ago.
We're in our sixth year.
Prior to this year, it's been a week
-long event.
And this year, because it's grown so much
and we've had such great feedback from our
restaurants and our community, we decided to make
it a month-long event.
So it's a month-long event of vegan
(02:08):
food, going out and dining at different restaurants,
the community gathering at different places and supporting
these businesses that are participating in Fort Wayne
Vegan Restaurant Month.
And look at your husband there, inviting us
into one of the participating restaurants.
So I wanna go to JR, your husband,
(02:30):
and ask, how did you get all these
restaurants to participate and what is in it
for them?
That's a great, that's a really good question
because it's really great for the vegan community,
but also it's really, really good for the
restaurants because they lose nothing by offering these
(02:50):
vegan options.
Their regular people are still gonna come in
or whatever, but they're gaining a whole new
market.
And I think for a lot of them,
they wouldn't just throw something on the menu
because they don't know if it's gonna work
or not.
And so this is a great opportunity for
them to try something out.
(03:11):
And then they realise, oh my God, this
vegan community came out in force.
And then a lot of this stuff winds
up staying on the menu.
And it's really cool because I think that
they enjoy it because they can get a
little creative, go a little off script.
And Heather and I, we travel a lot
and we eat the menu at all the
vegan restaurants we go to.
(03:32):
And some of these places have come up
with concoctions.
Like there's this place, Three Fires, that has
a vegan Thai pizza.
And it has gotta be the best thing
that I've ever had.
It is so unique.
I've never had it anywhere else.
It's only here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
And it's only there because they tried it
out for Vegan Restaurant Month.
(03:53):
And then they said, oh, it's so good.
Let's keep it on the menu.
Let's keep it going.
Well, the theme of this show is every
city and every town should have a vegan
restaurant week.
And I wanna know how you put this
together.
And in fact, you need to have a
vegan restaurant month.
But as you said, Heather, you started out
(04:15):
with a vegan restaurant week.
So tell people, for those who say this
is a fantastic idea, I would love to
do this in my community.
Let's start with the week.
How did you first create the vegan restaurant
week, which has now become Vegan Restaurant Month?
Tell us.
Right.
So what I did is I just went
(04:37):
to different restaurants.
I already had a relationship with some other
restaurants locally because we go out to eat
so much and they know us.
So reaching out to them and just asking
them, hey, would you participate?
We have Savour Fort Wayne in town, which
is something similar.
It's just not vegan.
So I just explained it's similar to Savour
(04:57):
Fort Wayne, but the menu is completely vegan.
So just reaching out to different restaurants, letting
them know what we're doing, what we wanna
do and how it could benefit them.
I think the first- How could it
benefit them?
A lot more business.
Restaurants who participate have seen such an uptick
in their business, especially during the week or
(05:18):
the month that they're participating in.
Sometimes it's a little bit too busy where
there's like, oh, wait, hold on a second.
That's why we extended it for a month.
But just reaching out to them and letting
them know, you can see increased business.
We have a large community that's ready to
support you.
We just need you to create some more
(05:39):
vegan options.
So that's where it started, just reaching out
from there.
I created a website, I created the logos.
And actually I've talked to other people about
implementing these vegan weeks or vegan months into
their own cities, because it is such an
easy thing to do.
(05:59):
If you have restaurants that are already serving
vegan options or have options on their menu
that are customisable, have them participate.
The only rule to being a participating restaurant
is to offer at least two vegan options
on a separate menu and to post about
it during the month.
So we're trying to normalise these vegan options
(06:21):
and normalise people having vegan options and normalise
people going out to these restaurants to support
these businesses that are supporting our vegan community.
Like Mocha Lounge, that's just one of the
participating restaurants.
Did they see an uptick in business in
your opinion?
I haven't talked to everybody yet just because
we're right in the middle of the month.
(06:43):
At the end of the month, I'll put
out a survey and talk to the restaurants
and find out.
But I do know I've been seeing a
lot of posts about people going to Mocha
Lounge, people that didn't know that they had
vegan options.
They have vegan options on their menu.
They have a chorizo burrito on their menu.
I've never had any idea that they had
it.
So now people are finding out about them.
(07:03):
They're posting.
They're posting about all the restaurants they're going
to.
They're posting pictures on social media and saying,
hey, I just went to this place and
had this.
They're getting groups together and going out to
eat.
So I know that they're all seeing an
uptick in business just because I've seen it
online so far.
Go ahead.
And when we go out to these places,
(07:24):
I mean, they'll tell us right out.
They're just like, oh my God, thank you.
We have gotten so much more business.
And it's good for the restaurants.
It's good for the vegan community.
But yeah, every one of them will report
back to us that they've had an uptick
in the business.
And also vegan clients are very loyal clients.
(07:46):
I mean, if you keep the vegan food
flowing, we'll keep coming to you.
And do you see people going vegan as
a result of this, JR?
Well, I think that there's definitely, there's a
couple of things that happen, I think.
Number one, maybe you have a vegan in
the family and then they want to take
(08:07):
the rest of the family out to show
them, here, look, you guys have been razzing
me saying that there's no such thing as
good vegan food.
Come with me.
They take them to this restaurant and the
family tries it out.
And I think that that changes a lot
of minds in the families.
But also I think then there's a lot
of people that are going into these restaurants
(08:28):
like that vegan Thai pizza that I was
talking about before.
They're going to these restaurants and they're handing
them menus and they're saying, I'm talking about
people that are not vegan.
They're going to the restaurants.
The people are handing them the menu.
They're saying, hey, we've got these specials for
vegan restaurant month.
And then they look at something like the
vegan Thai pizza and they're like, well, that's
(08:48):
interesting.
They'll look at what it's made of and
this is really unique.
Let me try this.
And generally, I don't think that they would
normally try something like that, but it being
presented to them.
And I do, I do think that a
lot of those people leave going, hey, this
vegan food, maybe there is some good vegan
(09:09):
food.
And then they, I think Heather's dad was
the same way where he was like, well,
if I could eat like this all the
time, I'd go vegan in a second.
So yeah, they have an idea of what
the vegan food is.
And I think this is changing minds when
they're going out there.
And I think also the restaurants might want
to top each other and come up with
something special.
It's just not another day in the office.
(09:30):
It's, hey, look at us.
You bring a little bit of that competition.
And I was compiling footage of the dishes
and I was getting so hungry.
I mean, it was like, oh my gosh,
these dishes are absolutely incredible.
But others might be saying, Fort Wayne, Indiana
(09:52):
is going to the dogs.
Because your dog is just loving it so
much.
And actually I think it creates community because
a lot of vegans feel isolated in places
like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it may not
be as big of a vegan meetup group
(10:13):
as New York City or LA.
So then it creates community for them.
And honestly, I would love to see this
where I live because you mentioned family.
One of our biggest disagreements is I'm vegan,
my nephew's vegan, his daughter's vegan, but others
in the family are not vegan.
Where are we going to go to dinner?
(10:34):
Okay, and so sometimes I'll take them all
to a vegan restaurant where I think the
food's great.
But sometimes they were like, well, it can't
always be you making the decision.
So this is a great way.
I'm not the only one having these problems.
Everybody who's vegan has this issue with their
family members, for the most part.
(10:54):
I mean, I don't want to say that,
but that seems to be the case anyway.
And this is a great way to overcome
that.
So I want to ask you, if somebody
were to say in their town, okay, I
want to do this, I'm inspired.
And look at these incredible dishes.
If you're listening, you're going to have to
take our word for it.
It's sinfully delicious, but you have to know
(11:16):
that none of this has dairy and none
of this has any animal products.
So therefore it's completely cholesterol free and absolutely
good for you.
So it's healthier for you.
It's obviously better for the animals.
It's better for the planet because animal agriculture
is a leading cause of climate change.
And it also brings in business for the
(11:38):
restaurants and gives people who are plant-based
an opportunity to sort of enjoy being, just
normalise it, bring your family in.
It doesn't have to be this three-act
play where there's negotiations.
You know, I've had negotiations with people on
where we're going to eat.
(11:58):
And it's so silly.
It's so unnecessary.
So what would you say, Heather?
Not just go to the website, which is
great.
We're going to put the website up, but
what would you say to somebody who says,
I'm going to do this in my town.
Take them through it.
Right, so actually I have had people reach
out to me.
And anytime I talk to like Victoria Moran's
(12:22):
Main Street Vegan Academy, I've been on there
a couple of times because I'm a graduate
from there.
And I tell her students that are graduating
what I do.
And I tell them, reach out to me.
Let's chat.
I will help you.
I will give you all of the tools
that you need.
I will give you the logos.
I'll help you create your website.
Actually, I'm working on a website that I
can post everybody's vegan weeks on.
(12:47):
So that way it's not a barrier for
them.
Well, I don't know how to build a
website.
I have a website for you.
I have logos for you.
I have everything that you need to get
this started.
All you have to do is step one,
create a list of restaurants that are in
your city that you think would be good
to participate.
That's the first thing you need to do.
Once you have your list, start reaching out
(13:08):
to the owners, the managers, the decision makers
about what you wanna do.
And then from there, just do it.
It's super easy.
Reach out to me if you have any
questions.
If you need help, I'm always happy to
help people create this.
Actually, we're getting ready to possibly next spring
(13:29):
move into Indianapolis and do Indianapolis Vegan Restaurant
Week.
And then from there, I wanna move into
some other towns as well, unless somebody else
starts to do it there.
Once I create it in the town, if
they wanna take it over, great.
I just really want to see this going
in to more cities.
And Jane, let's do one in Marina Del
(13:51):
Rey.
Like, let's do it.
I would like it because I'm in the
Venice area and you'd think, oh, hipsterville, right?
Everybody's vegan.
No, there's not that many vegan restaurants here.
We have a fabulous Planta Casino.
And by the way, you're looking at some
of the restaurants that participated.
And I wanna give them a big shout
(14:12):
out for participating because it does take a
certain amount of throwing your hat over the
fence, taking a wee bit of a risk
because anything new involves a little bit of
a risk.
But I just wanna applaud these restaurants for
doing it.
And of course, the other thing that we
(14:32):
could do is have testimonials from the restaurants
that participated to encourage other restaurants in other
towns.
That's something, essentially what I see you doing,
Heather and JR, is sort of creating a
franchise.
I was just in Las Vegas to do
(14:54):
a whole half hour special, which we're gonna
put on Unchained TV about vegan restaurants in
Las Vegas.
On the way back, we stopped at Veganburg,
which is a new franchise.
It's on the way back.
So it's almost back here, but it's not
quite.
Near Victorville, Hesperia is where it was.
(15:17):
And it's a franchise, it's a vegan franchise.
So it's the first in the United States.
It's a Singapore company, Turnkey, the best food,
the best, it's a burger place, but the
most extraordinary burgers.
And it really got me thinking about franchises.
Like I fantasise, oh, I wish I could
(15:40):
have a vegan franchise.
That would be wonderful.
Of course, I'm a person who burns toast
and can't eat with coffee and toast together
at the same time.
So maybe it shouldn't be for me.
I know you can make green smoothies.
That's true.
But the whole concept of a franchise just
really struck me.
And what I see you guys doing is
(16:01):
actually franchising this concept all around the United
States so that it's Turnkey.
So that it's not like everybody has to
reinvent the wheel if they want to have
a vegan restaurant week or a vegan restaurant
month in their area.
Now, when you say you have a website,
do you have one like start your own
vegan restaurant week or is it simply you're
(16:25):
showing an example?
It's just my website that I use for
our vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
But it's something that I want to create
that anybody can log in and use for
theirs as well.
Or we can somehow, I haven't quite figured
out how I want to do it, but
it's something that I've been thinking about is
(16:46):
putting together a package, like you said, like
a franchise.
So I can hand it over to somebody
and say, here you go, or I can
take my website, duplicate it and give that
to somebody else so they can start off
without having to start from scratch because I've
built it in six years.
There's no reason to start from scratch.
I want to make it really easy for
(17:07):
people to do this in their cities.
I mean, even down to where the letter
that you write that you send to restaurants.
Right.
I would think cold calling a restaurant would
be kind of scary.
And saying, hey, how would you like to
do this?
(17:27):
I mean, I certainly think there are some
very meat centric restaurants in my neighbourhood that
might be like buzz off.
Although I have convinced restaurants that restaurateurs, local
mom and pop restaurants I know in my
area, I've convinced them to add tofu dishes.
I've convinced them to add the word vegan
options.
(17:49):
So I've done that sort of just off
the cuff over the years, being sort of
friendly with those people.
But how would you approach?
When you go in there to approach these
restaurants, what would you say in terms of,
it seems like kind of scary.
It's like you're cold calling.
Yeah, actually I started out with an email.
(18:11):
I have an email script and I keep
all of my emails that I send out.
So that way, when I put together this
package or if somebody else wants to do
it, I have everything ready to go.
This is year one, this is year two,
year three, and so on.
So I have all of those.
And I even have a phone script because
my sister has helped me out the past
couple of years because I don't have time
(18:32):
to be contacting every restaurant and saying, hey,
did you get my email?
This is what's going on.
So I have a phone script as well
that my sister uses to contact the restaurants,
to ask them about participating and making sure
that they receive all the information that they
need.
I mean, we have everything down to phone
scripts for this to make it really easy.
(18:55):
Well, I think this is also a form
of activism.
When you think of animal activism, vegan activism,
you think of protests.
I'll give you an example of one that
we were at very recently.
Dairy and milk means stomach pain.
Starbucks coffee is to blame.
Plant-based milk should not cost more.
Starbucks green, we do have more.
(19:16):
The intention of this campaign is to get
them to finally drop the plant-based milk
upcharge, what they have already done in the
United Kingdom, France, Chile, Germany, Japan, and other
major world countries.
They have resisted here in the US so
far.
This is their biggest market.
They make over, we've estimated they make over.
That protest and others like it were ultimately
(19:39):
successful.
Recently, Starbucks announced they are dropping the vegan
surcharge for plant-based milks.
In Las Vegas, I went into a Starbucks
for the first time in years and no
surcharge.
And their coffee's good.
So that was a huge victory.
But when you look at activism, the reason
I bring that up is that you think
(20:00):
of things like that, protest marches.
But what you're doing, and JR, maybe you
can address this, is also activism.
But it's activism without any of the controversy.
Nobody can fault you.
Nobody can say, why are you doing this?
It's a win-win.
It's like stealth activism.
(20:21):
Yeah, I mean, that's always been kind of
our whole idea is like, you know, finding
the soft sell.
Finding the soft sell, you know, the easy
way.
I mean, you know, it doesn't have to
be a struggle.
Heather and I, I mean, we've been vegan
for 16 years, and we've been really active
in our community since the beginning.
Step number one, you know, before you do
(20:43):
any of this, you know, you have to
build a community, right?
If there's no community to go to the
restaurants, there's not gonna, so step number one,
16 plus years ago, Heather had to make
a Facebook group, brought people together.
Those people kind of fed in on each
other.
They were saying, hey, here's some recipe ideas.
Here's a restaurant that has this, whatever.
(21:03):
They're helping each other out.
But, you know, we're constantly out there doing
tabling events at Earth Day, explaining how the
best way to be green is to be
vegan.
We're doing, you know, circus protests.
We're out doing tabling events at concerts.
Like, you know, we did tabling for Paul
McCartney.
(21:24):
Heather's getting ready to do one for Morrissey
coming up here this weekend.
So we're constantly engaged in trying to reach
people where they live.
And so, yeah, this is just kind of
an extension of that.
But yeah, number one thing, you have to
kind of build a network to grow that
out of.
So do you have, Heather, a vegan community
(21:45):
in Fort Wayne?
We have a large vegan community in Fort
Wayne.
I'm very surprised how large it is and
how much it continues to grow.
I think we have about 3,000 people
alone just on our Facebook group, which is
the majority of them are in the Fort
Wayne area because I've met everybody that sends
(22:06):
a join request to our group because I
do wanna keep it as local as possible
to kind of fight some of the infighting
that you have on Facebook.
And then also because I wanna keep it
local to our community.
I want people to share where they're going
out to eat locally or share things that
they found out at our local stores.
So we have about 3,000 people and
(22:27):
we grew that from zero to almost 3
,000.
Of course, not everybody participates, but it's funny
when I go out to restaurants and people
come up to me and they say, oh,
hey, I'm in your group.
And I love being able to meet new
people because we have such an amazing community.
(22:48):
And a lot of our friends are from
this group.
And I know a lot of people in
the group, they've made a lot of friendships
out of it.
So it's very supportive to have.
And so it's surprising to have that here
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in such a small
community.
And it's hugely important.
(23:08):
It's hugely important because when we went vegan
16 years ago, we had no idea.
What do you even eat?
Before it was steak, potatoes, and like corn.
And now, okay, now is it just potatoes
and corn?
So when we first went vegan, the first
place we had tofu was at the place
(23:30):
that I worked at.
They had a little cafe and the guy
served us a piece of tofu that was
like a gelatinous piece of wedge, like a
piece of pie, wobble, wobble, and put some
barbecue sauce on it.
And we're like, oh my God, this is
tofu.
If it was just that time, we would
have never eaten tofu again.
But luckily, right when we went vegan, that
(23:52):
loving cafe opened up and we got to
try tofu there.
But that's where this is, the whole networking
community is great because you can share these
things and get ideas.
Well, I think what I'm hearing is that
you want to start maybe, because people are,
(24:14):
we have people watching on our streaming network,
which is behind me.
We have people watching and listening on social
media as well as various platforms.
But some people are saying, I don't have
any vegans here.
I don't know any vegan restaurants.
They're feeling isolated, but it doesn't have to
be that way.
(24:35):
The first step I think would be to
create the group.
If you're in a small town or a
small city, and by the way, I looked
it up, Fort Wayne is the 83rd most
populous city in the United States.
Now that's not a very big city.
It's well under half a million people.
It's under, I think 300,000 people, but
(24:57):
you know what?
In 300,000 people, you're going to find
some vegans.
And it's the same thing in whatever town
you're in.
So if you feel, we can't just have
vegans clustered in New York and Los Angeles.
Okay?
They're everywhere.
And one of the first things that I
do, because we do travel a lot, one
of the first things that I do is
(25:18):
I go on Facebook and I look for
a vegan community in the town that we're
going to.
And I can always find a vegan community.
And some of them might be small, but
they're going to grow.
If you get those clusters of vegans together,
they're going to grow and they're going to
let other people know that they're there.
(25:38):
So that's one of the first things I
do.
Anytime I'm going to a new city, I
join their Facebook group so I can see
what they have going on and get ideas
of where we want to go out to
eat and try new things.
And I like meeting other vegans.
It's a fun thing for me to do
when we're out.
(25:58):
So- Let me jump in and say,
Harolyn Sampson is saying, I'm in a small
town, closer to nature, not enough vegan restaurants
within walking distance.
So I'm pretty much on my own.
What advice would you give her if she
wanted to create a vegan community in her
small town and then ultimately grow it into
a vegan restaurant week?
(26:19):
Or when we say vegan restaurant week, we
don't mean vegan restaurants.
There may be some vegan restaurants, but what
we're talking about is restaurants offering vegan options
during this week or this month.
Yeah, I'd say, Harolyn, go on Facebook and
create a Facebook group if there isn't already
(26:40):
one.
Search for it first.
And if there isn't, create it.
So it's My Town Vegan Group or like
ours is Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group.
Create that.
And you'll be surprised.
You may start seeing people because they're searching
for one.
You may start seeing people popping up.
(27:01):
Or what I did because I wanted to
grow it faster, I threw a few dollars
at it and advertised my group because I
wanted to find where are those vegans?
Like we did, we felt alone.
We didn't know how to vegan.
So I wanted to find other people.
And so I threw a few dollars here
and there at the group to promote it
(27:22):
on Facebook and Facebook started sharing it with
other people who were interested in veganism around
my city.
And we started finding other people and then
getting together and going out to eat together
at different restaurants.
I would call up different restaurants and say,
hey, we have a group coming.
Would you make us something vegan?
If they didn't already have anything on the
(27:43):
menu, we would do vegan dinner clubs.
We would get together and have meetups.
We've done vegan restaurant clubs where we, or
I'm sorry, vegan cookbook clubs where we picked
one vegan cookbook and everybody made a different
dish and we got together and ate them.
So just kind of slowly building that community.
And when we first started, it was me
(28:04):
and my husband and I think we had
another couple and then it grew to another
person, another person.
And now when we have get togethers, they're
pretty nice.
Yeah, so Amy Jean Davis, who's a wonderful
activist here in Los Angeles says, I am
from Northwest Indiana.
The vegan options slash restaurants have been progressing
(28:24):
really well in that area.
Talk about that because I think there is
a sense that people who are not vegan
like to portray us as some sort of
elitist hipsters only living in Brooklyn or Venice.
And that's not the case.
In fact, just having come back from Las
Vegas where there's an extraordinary array of incredible
(28:48):
vegan restaurants, it blew my mind.
I started to say to myself, you know
what?
Maybe what's happening is America's going vegan town
by town.
Would you like to address that, Heather?
Yeah, I think people are creating these little
(29:11):
pockets of veganism in their communities.
And when we travel, it's fun to be
able to go out and see what communities
people are building.
We go to a lot of veg fests
with one of our jobs that we do.
And it's just kind of nice to see
these little pockets of veganism popping up here
(29:32):
and there.
And when I go to LA or when
I go to New York, it's fun to
go out to all of those vegan restaurants.
You have a lot of choices, but in
these smaller towns, you don't have as many
choices as you do in the bigger cities.
I mean, we're three hours from Chicago.
And Northwest Indiana, I'm in your Facebook group,
(29:52):
so hello to you.
And they do, I've watched their vegan community
growing as well.
I mean, I think- And it didn't
just- Go ahead.
And it didn't just start, and we didn't
just magically get there.
Yeah, at the beginning, it really was just
getting together and having meetups and sharing, doing
(30:13):
potlucks, and getting together.
I mean, you got to start somewhere.
And I think that that was so key
here, is just those getting together, especially if
you're from a very small town that doesn't
have very many restaurants at all.
You really got to lean into each other
and you have to share recipes and you
have to get together and you have to
support each other.
(30:33):
Because yeah, you do feel isolated, and especially
anymore with the whole world.
And everybody kind of feels like they're in
their own little corner.
And this is where Facebook can really help
out in that you can build that community
there.
I mean, I think this is super important
because it's a way to weave veganism across
(30:55):
the United States and make an entire web.
Look, I am a huge fan of the
Happy Cow app.
I urge everyone to get it.
I have used it from Texas to Vienna
and all points in between.
And it shows wherever you are, you go
in and it shows you a vegan restaurant
closest to you or vegan restaurants.
(31:16):
It also shows you non-vegan restaurants with
vegan options.
And that has been an incredibly powerful app
that has been a game changer.
I almost see this as an app that
could be developed to connect people.
I actually tried to start something like this,
(31:36):
but it didn't quite take off.
The reason being it was the idea was
to create like vegans next door, just like
you have next door that I go on
all the time, trying to tell people coyotes
aren't the enemy, and helping people when their
dogs are lost in the neighbourhood.
It's a neighbourhood thing.
So it's either zip code or maybe even
(31:57):
smaller than zip code, but I don't know
where anybody lives as a result of that.
But wouldn't it be great to have an
app where we could identify how many vegans
we have in either our zip code or
in a sub-zip code, and then bring
them together.
Personally, I have found half a dozen vegans
that live right in my neighbourhood that I
(32:17):
never knew were there.
And it was just accidental.
It shouldn't have to be accidental, Heather.
There should be a mechanism to allow vegans
in their community to connect.
Right.
I love the idea.
And I remember when you were talking about
the idea of that app, and I always
(32:38):
love the idea of getting other vegans together
in one giant community.
But the problem with that is we're segregating
ourselves from the rest of the world.
And we want to normalise veganism.
And if we're over here on this other
app, we're not over here on Facebook or
(33:00):
Instagram or Blue Sky or wherever sharing veganism.
We're kind of hiding ourselves away from them.
Now, on the other hand, it would be
nice to not see all the meat images
and images of people hunting or fishing.
That's always hard as a vegan.
So, you know, both ways.
(33:21):
But I think the problem with creating an
app is it starts out so small that
people are like, well, there's not enough people
on here.
And I have all of my community over
there, but I think we'll eventually have to
figure out some way.
And I think Facebook groups is a great
way because we have here locally, we have
(33:42):
Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group, but then
we have Vegan Indiana, which brings our whole
state together.
And that's one of my next ones as
well, is I want to do a Vegan
Indiana Restaurant Week, where it's all of Indiana
that's coming together and doing this, not just
Fort Wayne.
(34:02):
Well, I'll be honest.
I'll be honest, like this is all blue
sky.
I think this is all brand new thinking
for me because really, and we did this
because we wanted to have great food, you
know, here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
So this was a little bit of a
selfish enterprise for us to first get in
there, get the restaurants to be okay with
(34:23):
making, you know, vegan food, putting it on
their menus on the regular.
Yeah, I think we should branch out.
I think it seems like a logical conclusion.
I've never thought about it before.
Well, I just think what you've created with
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vegan Restaurant, first week, and
then you graduated to month, is really a
(34:47):
template for what could happen across the United
States in many different towns.
And I think that's super exciting.
And the whole idea is to present what
you've done and then have other people get
it in their mind, like, ooh, I'd love
to do it.
I would love to do it in Marina
(35:09):
Del Ray, absolutely.
And I've had problems with, there's a hotel,
shall go unnamed, that had just opened and
had no vegan options.
And then to make it worse, they were
serving octopus.
And what I did was, I did a
petition to say, you need to have vegan
(35:30):
options because it happens to be on land
owned by the county.
There's a lot of land owned by the
county in Marina Del Ray.
And I said, you have an obligation.
But see, that was the activist in me
immediately with the petitions and the thinking about
protests, whereas perhaps your approach of creating a
(35:51):
vegan restaurant week and a vegan restaurant month
and showing them that it can be good
business is the answer.
Now, let me ask you this question, because
I think we've all had the experience of
being at either a hotel or a restaurant
that's not vegan.
And then the entree that they put together
that's vegan is, I don't wanna use curse
(36:12):
words, but not good, not good.
I've had situations where it was drenched in
you could tell some kind of a lard
that they didn't realise they were cooking and
it was inedible to me.
So how do you train the non-vegan
restaurants to create vegan food that A, is
vegan?
Do you have to educate them?
Because sometimes people don't know honey isn't vegan.
(36:35):
There's certain things that they don't realise are,
I mean, it's a process, not an event.
What do you do to educate them?
Right, and a lot of times people think,
oh, it's gluten free.
You can eat that, it's gluten free.
Or I've had family members when we first
went vegan, oh, it's organic, you can eat
that.
And we're like, no, it's still eggs, even
(36:56):
if they're organic, they're still coming out of
a chicken.
So we're not going to eat it.
But I mean, just letting people know, going
into a restaurant and saying, hey, do you
have any vegan options?
Or looking at their menu and creating your
own options out of it.
You can always go in and get baked
potato is just leave off the butter, get
(37:18):
vegetables, ask if they're cooked in butter.
So just starting to educate your restaurants that
way and the servers.
And it is kind of like hard sometimes
because not everybody is interested in feeding vegans.
But I mean, it's almost 2025.
Like if you don't have a vegan option
(37:38):
on your menu currently, you're behind the time.
You're not, let me ask you, what were
some of the objections for those who, because
we have to be prepared if we do
this for some pushback, not everybody's going to
say, yes, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to devote, they may feel they
have to go out and buy different products
(37:59):
that they might have to spend some time
and money educating their chefs.
What were some of the pushbacks you got
from the restaurants?
And again, I want to applaud all the
restaurants that took part in this, but what
was some of the pushbacks?
How many restaurants said no?
And how did you respond to that?
Well, we have a lot of restaurants in
Fort Wayne and we have 15 of them
(38:20):
that participated this year.
So not everybody's going to participate and that's
fine.
Even the, like our all vegan restaurant doesn't
participate and that's fine.
It's not for everybody.
Some places don't have the manpower to get
as busy as the restaurants do, but just
educating them on what vegan is and looking
(38:41):
at their current menu and helping them create
vegan options out of that.
Or if they're wanting to try something new,
just letting them know what's vegan, what they
can't have in that.
So- But I mean, what did they
say to you when you approached them?
(39:01):
Did everybody just say, yeah, absolutely.
Or what was the dialogue so people could
be prepared?
Yeah, so we live in the Midwest.
So there's such a thing as Midwest nice,
where even if people don't like you, they're
going to be friendly.
And so sometimes they would just simply say,
no, we're not going to participate.
Some people would just not return phone calls
or emails or talk to me.
(39:25):
But for the most part, I think a
lot of restaurants that I reached out to
were excited to participate and they would ask
me questions about it.
Otherwise they would just say, no, we're not
interested in doing it at this time.
Most people are going to at least be
nice to your face.
They're not going to yell at you when
you go into the restaurant.
(39:47):
I feel like approach is everything, because we're
not going and demanding anything from anybody.
Heather, I mean, before Vegan Restaurant Week was
even a thing, we were engaging with these
restaurants on a very nice way saying, hey,
you could get more people coming in if
(40:08):
you did this.
And Heather was consulting with restaurants years ago
before we ever started doing it.
But it was always out of an engagement
of, hey, here's something that might be good
for you.
You have to kind of position the whole
thing, what's in it for them.
So instead of being like, we demand that
(40:29):
you do this for us.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely, it makes perfect sense.
Yeah, I had restaurants reach out to me
who we had gone to their restaurants before
and they wanted to know, okay, what can
I label vegan on my menu?
And they brought out their book of recipes
and I would go through their book of
(40:49):
recipes and mark it if it was vegan,
if it was vegetarian or nothing at all,
or to let them know, if you just
switch this one little ingredient, it would be
vegan.
And everybody can eat it.
You'll get more business that way.
So I did start there with restaurants and
just kind of building those relationships.
(41:10):
Being nice is free and it goes a
long way when you're talking to these restaurants
who you want to go and dine at
and you want to participate in things.
Starting to build a community of restaurants as
well as your community of vegans is I
guess your first step.
Wow, well, I think this is so exciting
(41:30):
and I really hope that it inspires others.
It's inspired me, but I'll tell you, it's
a little scary because I don't like rejection
and the idea that I'm gonna go into
some of these places and get rejected, but
I like your approach.
Your approach is, hey, this is, oh, first
of all, it just occurred to me, once
(41:50):
do you say, hey, this one signed up,
this one signed up, this one signed up,
you should sign up because if not, you're
gonna be kind of out of it.
Is there that competition that- You know,
there really hasn't been.
I'm trying to think back of when we
did our first one six years ago, I
(42:11):
think it was just kind of, we had
another all-vegan restaurant at the time that
participated in a few small places and then
from there, people heard about it on the
news or different things and they said, oh,
hey, I wanna be a part of that
and we just started looking at the different
restaurants that we thought would be a good
fit for Vegan Month that would do something
(42:32):
really, really good, especially local restaurants.
If you reach out to local restaurants, they're
able to do a lot more than if
it's a national chain.
National chains have to go through corporate, they're
not going to be interested in trying to
change things for us, but the local restaurants
want the business and they want to keep
(42:53):
their community happy.
So a lot of times they'll go out
of the way, even when we go into
dine, we'll ask for, hey, you don't have
really anything on the menu, would you mind
making us this using the ingredients that you
have that are actually vegan?
And they're always, a lot of them are
always happy to do that.
So starting with those restaurants that are local
(43:15):
and that can do scratch foods is going
to be the ones to focus on first.
I absolutely agree with you.
Mom and pop, smaller restaurants that are not
part of big chains, forget the big chains,
like that hotel that was serving octopus, that's
a major brand, one of the biggest in
the world.
That's going to be very hard to get
(43:36):
in there with corporate and make that change.
We've got a lot of comments coming in.
Amy Jean Davis says, we're doing the same
menu adjustment campaign with Plant Based Treaty.
Paige Parsons, Roach and I were out yesterday
going to cafes and everyone we spoke to
was very nice.
So yes, menu adjustment.
I like that phrase.
(43:57):
I think that there's a tendency and I
suffer from it of all of nothingness.
Like I want everybody to go vegan tomorrow.
The idea of adding a vegan option may
seem like a small thing, but if all
of that put together is cumulative and I
(44:19):
really have a new attitude toward what's happening
with veganism in the United States, I think
that it's morphing.
I think it did start out where it
was kind of like this Californication type, you
know, hipster thing.
And then we realised, well, a lot of
people are alienated by that.
They think it's expensive.
(44:41):
They try to make this, the meat industry
tries to make that veganism is more expensive.
When we all know it's cheaper.
You could buy a sack of brown rice,
a sack of dried beans and a sack
of potatoes and live for two months.
And so we all know it's cheaper, but
the word out there that the advertiser based
(45:03):
media tries to push is that it's vegan
and elitist.
Now I see a change happening.
I see that it's going mainstream in these
smaller towns.
And I was again, blown away by the
vegan options in Las Vegas.
Not that that's such a small town, but
it was just, it was shocking.
(45:26):
I mean, we talked to a couple who
came all the way from Florida, who run
a sanctuary, who fly all the way to
Las Vegas, not to gamble, but to go
to this vegan Asian restaurant that makes vegan
sushi, vegan dim sum and traditional Chinese dishes.
And the food was so good.
I brought the leftovers home and had it
(45:48):
for lunch yesterday because it was absolutely delicious.
And I'm thinking we need something, we need
you to open a restaurant in LA like
that.
I was trying to convince all these people,
but it made me think that, when you
try to push something down and you try
to suppress something, which let's face it, the
meat industry is, there's an article in the
Guardian that says basically they have a war
(46:10):
room in Colorado where they send out all
this negative stuff about ultra processed and never
mentioning that processed meat is officially cancer causing
according to the World Health Organisation.
So we have to push back.
And so I see that it's coming, the
vegan movement is sort of like, okay, you're
(46:32):
gonna try to push it down here, it's
gonna pop up here.
What's your thought on that, JR?
Well, I think, yeah, I think it's all
about normalising the whole thing.
Heather and I have been involved with that
for years, whether it's, Heather gives cooking demos,
Heather does tabling events.
And I wanna also stress, one of the
cool things that these restaurants get is publicity
(46:56):
out the wazoo.
I mean, like Heather is doing, she's done
like maybe three TV interviews.
She's done, you've got a newspaper and whatever.
So, that's huge for them.
So they're getting their name out there and
people are curious.
(47:17):
So yeah, I think it's all about-
This is a list of, we're putting up
a list of all the restaurants that participated
and kudos to you.
You're right.
So that's the other piece of the puzzle
that we have to explain to people, Heather.
It's not just, oh, you go up to
these restaurants, you've issued a news release, which
I've read, which names all these restaurants, they're
(47:38):
named on the website.
And you're also doing TV interviews where you're
saying, hey, look at these great restaurants that
are participating.
So you're providing them free advertising.
Right.
Well, the restaurants do pay a little bit
of money to be in this, because we
do have a lot going on behind the
(47:59):
scenes that we have to pay for.
So the restaurants do pay, but they don't
pay a lot to be included.
They pay enough to help pay the bills.
So it's not quite free, but they're getting
publicity all month.
I mean, I own a marketing agency.
You can't get the type of publicity that
these restaurants are getting for even one day
(48:22):
on what they pay to be included in
this.
So yeah, veganism is popping up.
To go back to what you said, I
mean, veganism, I see it popping up in
different cities.
I mean, we go up to Michigan and
small towns there, there's Detroit, there's Ann Arbour,
Traverse City, have all these little pockets of
veganism around there.
(48:43):
We go to upstate New York and Rochester
and different places, and there's little pockets of
veganism.
And it's so fun to know that we're
out there.
We're not just in the big cities.
Anywhere you go in the U.S. or
even outside of the U.S., there's vegans
everywhere, and you just are hiding.
(49:05):
We're hiding everywhere.
You just don't know it.
So it's a lot of work.
Don't let me lie and say it's not
a lot of work.
I put a lot of work into this
leading up to it, but I think the
benefits for the vegan community and the benefits
for the restaurant and the benefits for the
(49:27):
animals outweigh like all of the work that's
put into it.
And it is kind of a streamlined process
that I've done the past six years.
That makes it a lot easier.
And it's a labour of love.
I do love it.
It's a labour of love.
I do love it.
And there's no doubt that, I mean, the
other restaurants that don't participate, the first year,
maybe it's a little harder, but they see
(49:49):
that.
The other restaurants that don't participate, they see
that coverage and they're like, ooh, I kind
of missed the boat on this one.
And I'll tell you what, if they see
it two years and they weren't participating and
they see that coverage, they're like, man, I
am rich.
So number three, they're definitely on board.
So yeah, it's a labour of love.
I know Heather puts in a lot of
time into this.
(50:10):
I just get my picture taken, so.
Well, speaking of that, this conversation has been
so much fun and it's gone by so
quickly.
I forgot to play, but I'm gonna play
it right now.
What you do when you're not doing vegan
restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
Oh, right, right.
Long live the king.
But what if, say, Jailhouse Rock had been
(50:31):
written by a vegan instead?
When a vegan throws a party, you can
bet your tail All the chips on the
plate will all be made of kale The
salad and the smoothie will be kale as
well Cause every single vegan loves the kale,
kale, kale That's right With the lettuce, let's
rock Every vegan living on your block Will
(50:52):
be munching on the kale nonstop I'm
Calvus, Calvus Parsley.
Thank you very much.
This is ridiculous.
(51:12):
I love it.
And I will say you have a whole
bunch of others, but I did check and
Jailhouse Rock is public domain.
That's why I played that one.
Oh, is that right?
Okay, okay.
You've got plenty of others.
Super fun.
Another example of how veganism is a joyous,
fun, very fun adventure, no sacrifice involved.
(51:36):
And that's what I think is the final
thing.
We've only got a couple of minutes left
is that this whole vegan restaurant month, vegan
restaurant week shows that it's fun, that our
lifestyle is a blast.
And frankly, I have to control myself not
to just make it a social club because
(51:57):
I could go somewhere every night to a
different potluck or a different restaurant or a
different meetup or a different party or a
different veg fest.
Your programme of vegan restaurant month needs to
go coast to coast.
I personally wanna get involved to help this.
I think it should maybe become a 5013
(52:21):
nonprofit project where you get funding to do
all this.
And so that we enable people all around
the United States and beyond, Canada, Europe, Latin
America, everywhere, the entire world could be creating
their vegan restaurant weeks and months in their
(52:44):
towns because you've provided a very specific template,
almost like a franchise.
So final thoughts, Heather, what do you think
of that?
Yep, I think Jane, you're definitely right.
And I've procrastinated long enough.
And I think you've just kind of given
me the push that I need to put
together my package of everything that we do
(53:06):
for vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
I mean, I don't think many places can
jump straight to a vegan month starting at
a vegan restaurant week, even with two restaurants
is good.
So yeah, I think that's kind of given
me the push that I need to put
everything together and touch base with other vegan
communities and other towns to say, hey, let's
(53:27):
get this started in your town.
And a final thought from JR. You said
something really interesting.
You said, you feel like you should make
it a social club.
And I think that that's where it's gotta
start, right?
It's gotta start as a social club and
it's gotta start as a network and people
(53:47):
leaning into one another.
I mean, the things that we do, everything
that we do, whether it's the tabling, whether
it's the vegan restaurant month, whether it's Heather's
doing the cooking classes, we do all of
these things out of love and because it's
a fun thing to do.
And we wouldn't do any of this if
it wasn't fun.
I mean, it's great to be there fighting
(54:09):
for the animals, but I wanna be a
happy warrior.
So that's where it's gotta start, I think.
Wow, well, please reach out to Plant-Based
Treaty for possible collaboration, says Amy Jean Davis,
who's a very well-known activist and who
does so much for animals, people and the
planet.
So yes, I think that Plant-Based Treaty,
(54:32):
which tries to turn institutions, cities and restaurants,
plant-based and individuals would be a great
collaborator.
And somebody else said, put them on the
team.
Well, guess what?
Full disclosure, they're already on the team.
Heather Dahman is on our board on the
Unchained TV, Jane Unchained News Network, 501C3 nonprofit
board.
(54:52):
And she is also our technical director and
a lot of what happens on our streaming
network would not be able to happen without
Heather.
So with that, I am going to urge
everybody, yes, make a vegan restaurant week in
your town.
(55:13):
And also, I think you should download Unchained
TV.
So it's a vegan Netflix.
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained, Unchained TV.
Your life will change, it's just that easy.
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
everybody.
Unchained TV changed my life.
Unchained TV is crushing it.
(55:35):
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained TV is my go-to.
Unchained TV.
Who knew?
Unchained, baby, yes.
If you want to revolutionise your health, get
truly joyful and jump to the next phase
of human evolution, all it takes is one
simple choice.
Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell.
Welcome, we have an exciting show for you
today.
Check out these two mischief makers.
(00:20):
They have created Fort Wayne, Indiana Vegan Restaurant
Month and it is all the rage.
And we're looking at this to see if
other people can replicate this in their cities
and towns because it has really taken off
and exposed, that's not egg, that's not cheese,
(00:42):
that's not meat, that's vegan, that's 100%
vegan, okay?
All of the food that we are showcasing
today is 100% plant-based, but you've
got banana splits, you've got breakfast, all sorts
of delicious smoothies and milkshakes and pastries, and
(01:04):
it's all completely without any animal products whatsoever.
That means it's zero cholesterol.
And so this husband and wife team, the
Domins, whom you're about to meet, have really
opened this whole new world through Vegan Restaurant
Month in Fort Wayne.
And so I'd like to introduce you to
(01:27):
these change makers in the hopes that they
can teach us how to do the same
thing in other cities and towns.
Because I was thinking, if I was gonna
do this in my neighbourhood, I wouldn't have
a clue.
So Heather Domin, tell us, how did you
make this happen?
Right, hi Jane, thanks so much for having
us on.
(01:47):
So this started about six years ago.
We're in our sixth year.
Prior to this year, it's been a week
-long event.
And this year, because it's grown so much
and we've had such great feedback from our
restaurants and our community, we decided to make
it a month-long event.
So it's a month-long event of vegan
(02:08):
food, going out and dining at different restaurants,
the community gathering at different places and supporting
these businesses that are participating in Fort Wayne
Vegan Restaurant Month.
And look at your husband there, inviting us
into one of the participating restaurants.
So I wanna go to JR, your husband,
(02:30):
and ask, how did you get all these
restaurants to participate and what is in it
for them?
That's a great, that's a really good question
because it's really great for the vegan community,
but also it's really, really good for the
restaurants because they lose nothing by offering these
(02:50):
vegan options.
Their regular people are still gonna come in
or whatever, but they're gaining a whole new
market.
And I think for a lot of them,
they wouldn't just throw something on the menu
because they don't know if it's gonna work
or not.
And so this is a great opportunity for
them to try something out.
(03:11):
And then they realise, oh my God, this
vegan community came out in force.
And then a lot of this stuff winds
up staying on the menu.
And it's really cool because I think that
they enjoy it because they can get a
little creative, go a little off script.
And Heather and I, we travel a lot
and we eat the menu at all the
vegan restaurants we go to.
(03:32):
And some of these places have come up
with concoctions.
Like there's this place, Three Fires, that has
a vegan Thai pizza.
And it has gotta be the best thing
that I've ever had.
It is so unique.
I've never had it anywhere else.
It's only here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
And it's only there because they tried it
out for Vegan Restaurant Month.
(03:53):
And then they said, oh, it's so good.
Let's keep it on the menu.
Let's keep it going.
Well, the theme of this show is every
city and every town should have a vegan
restaurant week.
And I wanna know how you put this
together.
And in fact, you need to have a
vegan restaurant month.
But as you said, Heather, you started out
(04:15):
with a vegan restaurant week.
So tell people, for those who say this
is a fantastic idea, I would love to
do this in my community.
Let's start with the week.
How did you first create the vegan restaurant
week, which has now become Vegan Restaurant Month?
Tell us.
Right.
So what I did is I just went
(04:37):
to different restaurants.
I already had a relationship with some other
restaurants locally because we go out to eat
so much and they know us.
So reaching out to them and just asking
them, hey, would you participate?
We have Savour Fort Wayne in town, which
is something similar.
It's just not vegan.
So I just explained it's similar to Savour
(04:57):
Fort Wayne, but the menu is completely vegan.
So just reaching out to different restaurants, letting
them know what we're doing, what we wanna
do and how it could benefit them.
I think the first- How could it
benefit them?
A lot more business.
Restaurants who participate have seen such an uptick
in their business, especially during the week or
(05:18):
the month that they're participating in.
Sometimes it's a little bit too busy where
there's like, oh, wait, hold on a second.
That's why we extended it for a month.
But just reaching out to them and letting
them know, you can see increased business.
We have a large community that's ready to
support you.
We just need you to create some more
(05:39):
vegan options.
So that's where it started, just reaching out
from there.
I created a website, I created the logos.
And actually I've talked to other people about
implementing these vegan weeks or vegan months into
their own cities, because it is such an
easy thing to do.
(05:59):
If you have restaurants that are already serving
vegan options or have options on their menu
that are customisable, have them participate.
The only rule to being a participating restaurant
is to offer at least two vegan options
on a separate menu and to post about
it during the month.
So we're trying to normalise these vegan options
(06:21):
and normalise people having vegan options and normalise
people going out to these restaurants to support
these businesses that are supporting our vegan community.
Like Mocha Lounge, that's just one of the
participating restaurants.
Did they see an uptick in business in
your opinion?
I haven't talked to everybody yet just because
we're right in the middle of the month.
(06:43):
At the end of the month, I'll put
out a survey and talk to the restaurants
and find out.
But I do know I've been seeing a
lot of posts about people going to Mocha
Lounge, people that didn't know that they had
vegan options.
They have vegan options on their menu.
They have a chorizo burrito on their menu.
I've never had any idea that they had
it.
So now people are finding out about them.
(07:03):
They're posting.
They're posting about all the restaurants they're going
to.
They're posting pictures on social media and saying,
hey, I just went to this place and
had this.
They're getting groups together and going out to
eat.
So I know that they're all seeing an
uptick in business just because I've seen it
online so far.
Go ahead.
And when we go out to these places,
(07:24):
I mean, they'll tell us right out.
They're just like, oh my God, thank you.
We have gotten so much more business.
And it's good for the restaurants.
It's good for the vegan community.
But yeah, every one of them will report
back to us that they've had an uptick
in the business.
And also vegan clients are very loyal clients.
(07:46):
I mean, if you keep the vegan food
flowing, we'll keep coming to you.
And do you see people going vegan as
a result of this, JR?
Well, I think that there's definitely, there's a
couple of things that happen, I think.
Number one, maybe you have a vegan in
the family and then they want to take
(08:07):
the rest of the family out to show
them, here, look, you guys have been razzing
me saying that there's no such thing as
good vegan food.
Come with me.
They take them to this restaurant and the
family tries it out.
And I think that that changes a lot
of minds in the families.
But also I think then there's a lot
of people that are going into these restaurants
(08:28):
like that vegan Thai pizza that I was
talking about before.
They're going to these restaurants and they're handing
them menus and they're saying, I'm talking about
people that are not vegan.
They're going to the restaurants.
The people are handing them the menu.
They're saying, hey, we've got these specials for
vegan restaurant month.
And then they look at something like the
vegan Thai pizza and they're like, well, that's
(08:48):
interesting.
They'll look at what it's made of and
this is really unique.
Let me try this.
And generally, I don't think that they would
normally try something like that, but it being
presented to them.
And I do, I do think that a
lot of those people leave going, hey, this
vegan food, maybe there is some good vegan
(09:09):
food.
And then they, I think Heather's dad was
the same way where he was like, well,
if I could eat like this all the
time, I'd go vegan in a second.
So yeah, they have an idea of what
the vegan food is.
And I think this is changing minds when
they're going out there.
And I think also the restaurants might want
to top each other and come up with
something special.
It's just not another day in the office.
(09:30):
It's, hey, look at us.
You bring a little bit of that competition.
And I was compiling footage of the dishes
and I was getting so hungry.
I mean, it was like, oh my gosh,
these dishes are absolutely incredible.
But others might be saying, Fort Wayne, Indiana
(09:52):
is going to the dogs.
Because your dog is just loving it so
much.
And actually I think it creates community because
a lot of vegans feel isolated in places
like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it may not
be as big of a vegan meetup group
(10:13):
as New York City or LA.
So then it creates community for them.
And honestly, I would love to see this
where I live because you mentioned family.
One of our biggest disagreements is I'm vegan,
my nephew's vegan, his daughter's vegan, but others
in the family are not vegan.
Where are we going to go to dinner?
(10:34):
Okay, and so sometimes I'll take them all
to a vegan restaurant where I think the
food's great.
But sometimes they were like, well, it can't
always be you making the decision.
So this is a great way.
I'm not the only one having these problems.
Everybody who's vegan has this issue with their
family members, for the most part.
(10:54):
I mean, I don't want to say that,
but that seems to be the case anyway.
And this is a great way to overcome
that.
So I want to ask you, if somebody
were to say in their town, okay, I
want to do this, I'm inspired.
And look at these incredible dishes.
If you're listening, you're going to have to
take our word for it.
It's sinfully delicious, but you have to know
(11:16):
that none of this has dairy and none
of this has any animal products.
So therefore it's completely cholesterol free and absolutely
good for you.
So it's healthier for you.
It's obviously better for the animals.
It's better for the planet because animal agriculture
is a leading cause of climate change.
And it also brings in business for the
(11:38):
restaurants and gives people who are plant-based
an opportunity to sort of enjoy being, just
normalise it, bring your family in.
It doesn't have to be this three-act
play where there's negotiations.
You know, I've had negotiations with people on
where we're going to eat.
(11:58):
And it's so silly.
It's so unnecessary.
So what would you say, Heather?
Not just go to the website, which is
great.
We're going to put the website up, but
what would you say to somebody who says,
I'm going to do this in my town.
Take them through it.
Right, so actually I have had people reach
out to me.
And anytime I talk to like Victoria Moran's
(12:22):
Main Street Vegan Academy, I've been on there
a couple of times because I'm a graduate
from there.
And I tell her students that are graduating
what I do.
And I tell them, reach out to me.
Let's chat.
I will help you.
I will give you all of the tools
that you need.
I will give you the logos.
I'll help you create your website.
Actually, I'm working on a website that I
can post everybody's vegan weeks on.
(12:47):
So that way it's not a barrier for
them.
Well, I don't know how to build a
website.
I have a website for you.
I have logos for you.
I have everything that you need to get
this started.
All you have to do is step one,
create a list of restaurants that are in
your city that you think would be good
to participate.
That's the first thing you need to do.
Once you have your list, start reaching out
(13:08):
to the owners, the managers, the decision makers
about what you wanna do.
And then from there, just do it.
It's super easy.
Reach out to me if you have any
questions.
If you need help, I'm always happy to
help people create this.
Actually, we're getting ready to possibly next spring
(13:29):
move into Indianapolis and do Indianapolis Vegan Restaurant
Week.
And then from there, I wanna move into
some other towns as well, unless somebody else
starts to do it there.
Once I create it in the town, if
they wanna take it over, great.
I just really want to see this going
in to more cities.
And Jane, let's do one in Marina Del
(13:51):
Rey.
Like, let's do it.
I would like it because I'm in the
Venice area and you'd think, oh, hipsterville, right?
Everybody's vegan.
No, there's not that many vegan restaurants here.
We have a fabulous Planta Casino.
And by the way, you're looking at some
of the restaurants that participated.
And I wanna give them a big shout
(14:12):
out for participating because it does take a
certain amount of throwing your hat over the
fence, taking a wee bit of a risk
because anything new involves a little bit of
a risk.
But I just wanna applaud these restaurants for
doing it.
And of course, the other thing that we
(14:32):
could do is have testimonials from the restaurants
that participated to encourage other restaurants in other
towns.
That's something, essentially what I see you doing,
Heather and JR, is sort of creating a
franchise.
I was just in Las Vegas to do
(14:54):
a whole half hour special, which we're gonna
put on Unchained TV about vegan restaurants in
Las Vegas.
On the way back, we stopped at Veganburg,
which is a new franchise.
It's on the way back.
So it's almost back here, but it's not
quite.
Near Victorville, Hesperia is where it was.
(15:17):
And it's a franchise, it's a vegan franchise.
So it's the first in the United States.
It's a Singapore company, Turnkey, the best food,
the best, it's a burger place, but the
most extraordinary burgers.
And it really got me thinking about franchises.
Like I fantasise, oh, I wish I could
(15:40):
have a vegan franchise.
That would be wonderful.
Of course, I'm a person who burns toast
and can't eat with coffee and toast together
at the same time.
So maybe it shouldn't be for me.
I know you can make green smoothies.
That's true.
But the whole concept of a franchise just
really struck me.
And what I see you guys doing is
(16:01):
actually franchising this concept all around the United
States so that it's Turnkey.
So that it's not like everybody has to
reinvent the wheel if they want to have
a vegan restaurant week or a vegan restaurant
month in their area.
Now, when you say you have a website,
do you have one like start your own
vegan restaurant week or is it simply you're
(16:25):
showing an example?
It's just my website that I use for
our vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
But it's something that I want to create
that anybody can log in and use for
theirs as well.
Or we can somehow, I haven't quite figured
out how I want to do it, but
it's something that I've been thinking about is
(16:46):
putting together a package, like you said, like
a franchise.
So I can hand it over to somebody
and say, here you go, or I can
take my website, duplicate it and give that
to somebody else so they can start off
without having to start from scratch because I've
built it in six years.
There's no reason to start from scratch.
I want to make it really easy for
(17:07):
people to do this in their cities.
I mean, even down to where the letter
that you write that you send to restaurants.
Right.
I would think cold calling a restaurant would
be kind of scary.
And saying, hey, how would you like to
do this?
(17:27):
I mean, I certainly think there are some
very meat centric restaurants in my neighbourhood that
might be like buzz off.
Although I have convinced restaurants that restaurateurs, local
mom and pop restaurants I know in my
area, I've convinced them to add tofu dishes.
I've convinced them to add the word vegan
options.
(17:49):
So I've done that sort of just off
the cuff over the years, being sort of
friendly with those people.
But how would you approach?
When you go in there to approach these
restaurants, what would you say in terms of,
it seems like kind of scary.
It's like you're cold calling.
Yeah, actually I started out with an email.
(18:11):
I have an email script and I keep
all of my emails that I send out.
So that way, when I put together this
package or if somebody else wants to do
it, I have everything ready to go.
This is year one, this is year two,
year three, and so on.
So I have all of those.
And I even have a phone script because
my sister has helped me out the past
couple of years because I don't have time
(18:32):
to be contacting every restaurant and saying, hey,
did you get my email?
This is what's going on.
So I have a phone script as well
that my sister uses to contact the restaurants,
to ask them about participating and making sure
that they receive all the information that they
need.
I mean, we have everything down to phone
scripts for this to make it really easy.
(18:55):
Well, I think this is also a form
of activism.
When you think of animal activism, vegan activism,
you think of protests.
I'll give you an example of one that
we were at very recently.
Dairy and milk means stomach pain.
Starbucks coffee is to blame.
Plant-based milk should not cost more.
Starbucks green, we do have more.
(19:16):
The intention of this campaign is to get
them to finally drop the plant-based milk
upcharge, what they have already done in the
United Kingdom, France, Chile, Germany, Japan, and other
major world countries.
They have resisted here in the US so
far.
This is their biggest market.
They make over, we've estimated they make over.
That protest and others like it were ultimately
(19:39):
successful.
Recently, Starbucks announced they are dropping the vegan
surcharge for plant-based milks.
In Las Vegas, I went into a Starbucks
for the first time in years and no
surcharge.
And their coffee's good.
So that was a huge victory.
But when you look at activism, the reason
I bring that up is that you think
(20:00):
of things like that, protest marches.
But what you're doing, and JR, maybe you
can address this, is also activism.
But it's activism without any of the controversy.
Nobody can fault you.
Nobody can say, why are you doing this?
It's a win-win.
It's like stealth activism.
(20:21):
Yeah, I mean, that's always been kind of
our whole idea is like, you know, finding
the soft sell.
Finding the soft sell, you know, the easy
way.
I mean, you know, it doesn't have to
be a struggle.
Heather and I, I mean, we've been vegan
for 16 years, and we've been really active
in our community since the beginning.
Step number one, you know, before you do
(20:43):
any of this, you know, you have to
build a community, right?
If there's no community to go to the
restaurants, there's not gonna, so step number one,
16 plus years ago, Heather had to make
a Facebook group, brought people together.
Those people kind of fed in on each
other.
They were saying, hey, here's some recipe ideas.
Here's a restaurant that has this, whatever.
(21:03):
They're helping each other out.
But, you know, we're constantly out there doing
tabling events at Earth Day, explaining how the
best way to be green is to be
vegan.
We're doing, you know, circus protests.
We're out doing tabling events at concerts.
Like, you know, we did tabling for Paul
McCartney.
(21:24):
Heather's getting ready to do one for Morrissey
coming up here this weekend.
So we're constantly engaged in trying to reach
people where they live.
And so, yeah, this is just kind of
an extension of that.
But yeah, number one thing, you have to
kind of build a network to grow that
out of.
So do you have, Heather, a vegan community
(21:45):
in Fort Wayne?
We have a large vegan community in Fort
Wayne.
I'm very surprised how large it is and
how much it continues to grow.
I think we have about 3,000 people
alone just on our Facebook group, which is
the majority of them are in the Fort
Wayne area because I've met everybody that sends
(22:06):
a join request to our group because I
do wanna keep it as local as possible
to kind of fight some of the infighting
that you have on Facebook.
And then also because I wanna keep it
local to our community.
I want people to share where they're going
out to eat locally or share things that
they found out at our local stores.
So we have about 3,000 people and
(22:27):
we grew that from zero to almost 3
,000.
Of course, not everybody participates, but it's funny
when I go out to restaurants and people
come up to me and they say, oh,
hey, I'm in your group.
And I love being able to meet new
people because we have such an amazing community.
(22:48):
And a lot of our friends are from
this group.
And I know a lot of people in
the group, they've made a lot of friendships
out of it.
So it's very supportive to have.
And so it's surprising to have that here
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in such a small
community.
And it's hugely important.
(23:08):
It's hugely important because when we went vegan
16 years ago, we had no idea.
What do you even eat?
Before it was steak, potatoes, and like corn.
And now, okay, now is it just potatoes
and corn?
So when we first went vegan, the first
place we had tofu was at the place
(23:30):
that I worked at.
They had a little cafe and the guy
served us a piece of tofu that was
like a gelatinous piece of wedge, like a
piece of pie, wobble, wobble, and put some
barbecue sauce on it.
And we're like, oh my God, this is
tofu.
If it was just that time, we would
have never eaten tofu again.
But luckily, right when we went vegan, that
(23:52):
loving cafe opened up and we got to
try tofu there.
But that's where this is, the whole networking
community is great because you can share these
things and get ideas.
Well, I think what I'm hearing is that
you want to start maybe, because people are,
(24:14):
we have people watching on our streaming network,
which is behind me.
We have people watching and listening on social
media as well as various platforms.
But some people are saying, I don't have
any vegans here.
I don't know any vegan restaurants.
They're feeling isolated, but it doesn't have to
be that way.
(24:35):
The first step I think would be to
create the group.
If you're in a small town or a
small city, and by the way, I looked
it up, Fort Wayne is the 83rd most
populous city in the United States.
Now that's not a very big city.
It's well under half a million people.
It's under, I think 300,000 people, but
(24:57):
you know what?
In 300,000 people, you're going to find
some vegans.
And it's the same thing in whatever town
you're in.
So if you feel, we can't just have
vegans clustered in New York and Los Angeles.
Okay?
They're everywhere.
And one of the first things that I
do, because we do travel a lot, one
of the first things that I do is
(25:18):
I go on Facebook and I look for
a vegan community in the town that we're
going to.
And I can always find a vegan community.
And some of them might be small, but
they're going to grow.
If you get those clusters of vegans together,
they're going to grow and they're going to
let other people know that they're there.
(25:38):
So that's one of the first things I
do.
Anytime I'm going to a new city, I
join their Facebook group so I can see
what they have going on and get ideas
of where we want to go out to
eat and try new things.
And I like meeting other vegans.
It's a fun thing for me to do
when we're out.
(25:58):
So- Let me jump in and say,
Harolyn Sampson is saying, I'm in a small
town, closer to nature, not enough vegan restaurants
within walking distance.
So I'm pretty much on my own.
What advice would you give her if she
wanted to create a vegan community in her
small town and then ultimately grow it into
a vegan restaurant week?
(26:19):
Or when we say vegan restaurant week, we
don't mean vegan restaurants.
There may be some vegan restaurants, but what
we're talking about is restaurants offering vegan options
during this week or this month.
Yeah, I'd say, Harolyn, go on Facebook and
create a Facebook group if there isn't already
(26:40):
one.
Search for it first.
And if there isn't, create it.
So it's My Town Vegan Group or like
ours is Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group.
Create that.
And you'll be surprised.
You may start seeing people because they're searching
for one.
You may start seeing people popping up.
(27:01):
Or what I did because I wanted to
grow it faster, I threw a few dollars
at it and advertised my group because I
wanted to find where are those vegans?
Like we did, we felt alone.
We didn't know how to vegan.
So I wanted to find other people.
And so I threw a few dollars here
and there at the group to promote it
(27:22):
on Facebook and Facebook started sharing it with
other people who were interested in veganism around
my city.
And we started finding other people and then
getting together and going out to eat together
at different restaurants.
I would call up different restaurants and say,
hey, we have a group coming.
Would you make us something vegan?
If they didn't already have anything on the
(27:43):
menu, we would do vegan dinner clubs.
We would get together and have meetups.
We've done vegan restaurant clubs where we, or
I'm sorry, vegan cookbook clubs where we picked
one vegan cookbook and everybody made a different
dish and we got together and ate them.
So just kind of slowly building that community.
And when we first started, it was me
(28:04):
and my husband and I think we had
another couple and then it grew to another
person, another person.
And now when we have get togethers, they're
pretty nice.
Yeah, so Amy Jean Davis, who's a wonderful
activist here in Los Angeles says, I am
from Northwest Indiana.
The vegan options slash restaurants have been progressing
(28:24):
really well in that area.
Talk about that because I think there is
a sense that people who are not vegan
like to portray us as some sort of
elitist hipsters only living in Brooklyn or Venice.
And that's not the case.
In fact, just having come back from Las
Vegas where there's an extraordinary array of incredible
(28:48):
vegan restaurants, it blew my mind.
I started to say to myself, you know
what?
Maybe what's happening is America's going vegan town
by town.
Would you like to address that, Heather?
Yeah, I think people are creating these little
(29:11):
pockets of veganism in their communities.
And when we travel, it's fun to be
able to go out and see what communities
people are building.
We go to a lot of veg fests
with one of our jobs that we do.
And it's just kind of nice to see
these little pockets of veganism popping up here
(29:32):
and there.
And when I go to LA or when
I go to New York, it's fun to
go out to all of those vegan restaurants.
You have a lot of choices, but in
these smaller towns, you don't have as many
choices as you do in the bigger cities.
I mean, we're three hours from Chicago.
And Northwest Indiana, I'm in your Facebook group,
(29:52):
so hello to you.
And they do, I've watched their vegan community
growing as well.
I mean, I think- And it didn't
just- Go ahead.
And it didn't just start, and we didn't
just magically get there.
Yeah, at the beginning, it really was just
getting together and having meetups and sharing, doing
(30:13):
potlucks, and getting together.
I mean, you got to start somewhere.
And I think that that was so key
here, is just those getting together, especially if
you're from a very small town that doesn't
have very many restaurants at all.
You really got to lean into each other
and you have to share recipes and you
have to get together and you have to
support each other.
(30:33):
Because yeah, you do feel isolated, and especially
anymore with the whole world.
And everybody kind of feels like they're in
their own little corner.
And this is where Facebook can really help
out in that you can build that community
there.
I mean, I think this is super important
because it's a way to weave veganism across
(30:55):
the United States and make an entire web.
Look, I am a huge fan of the
Happy Cow app.
I urge everyone to get it.
I have used it from Texas to Vienna
and all points in between.
And it shows wherever you are, you go
in and it shows you a vegan restaurant
closest to you or vegan restaurants.
(31:16):
It also shows you non-vegan restaurants with
vegan options.
And that has been an incredibly powerful app
that has been a game changer.
I almost see this as an app that
could be developed to connect people.
I actually tried to start something like this,
(31:36):
but it didn't quite take off.
The reason being it was the idea was
to create like vegans next door, just like
you have next door that I go on
all the time, trying to tell people coyotes
aren't the enemy, and helping people when their
dogs are lost in the neighbourhood.
It's a neighbourhood thing.
So it's either zip code or maybe even
(31:57):
smaller than zip code, but I don't know
where anybody lives as a result of that.
But wouldn't it be great to have an
app where we could identify how many vegans
we have in either our zip code or
in a sub-zip code, and then bring
them together.
Personally, I have found half a dozen vegans
that live right in my neighbourhood that I
(32:17):
never knew were there.
And it was just accidental.
It shouldn't have to be accidental, Heather.
There should be a mechanism to allow vegans
in their community to connect.
Right.
I love the idea.
And I remember when you were talking about
the idea of that app, and I always
(32:38):
love the idea of getting other vegans together
in one giant community.
But the problem with that is we're segregating
ourselves from the rest of the world.
And we want to normalise veganism.
And if we're over here on this other
app, we're not over here on Facebook or
(33:00):
Instagram or Blue Sky or wherever sharing veganism.
We're kind of hiding ourselves away from them.
Now, on the other hand, it would be
nice to not see all the meat images
and images of people hunting or fishing.
That's always hard as a vegan.
So, you know, both ways.
(33:21):
But I think the problem with creating an
app is it starts out so small that
people are like, well, there's not enough people
on here.
And I have all of my community over
there, but I think we'll eventually have to
figure out some way.
And I think Facebook groups is a great
way because we have here locally, we have
(33:42):
Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group, but then
we have Vegan Indiana, which brings our whole
state together.
And that's one of my next ones as
well, is I want to do a Vegan
Indiana Restaurant Week, where it's all of Indiana
that's coming together and doing this, not just
Fort Wayne.
(34:02):
Well, I'll be honest.
I'll be honest, like this is all blue
sky.
I think this is all brand new thinking
for me because really, and we did this
because we wanted to have great food, you
know, here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
So this was a little bit of a
selfish enterprise for us to first get in
there, get the restaurants to be okay with
(34:23):
making, you know, vegan food, putting it on
their menus on the regular.
Yeah, I think we should branch out.
I think it seems like a logical conclusion.
I've never thought about it before.
Well, I just think what you've created with
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vegan Restaurant, first week, and
then you graduated to month, is really a
(34:47):
template for what could happen across the United
States in many different towns.
And I think that's super exciting.
And the whole idea is to present what
you've done and then have other people get
it in their mind, like, ooh, I'd love
to do it.
I would love to do it in Marina
(35:09):
Del Ray, absolutely.
And I've had problems with, there's a hotel,
shall go unnamed, that had just opened and
had no vegan options.
And then to make it worse, they were
serving octopus.
And what I did was, I did a
petition to say, you need to have vegan
(35:30):
options because it happens to be on land
owned by the county.
There's a lot of land owned by the
county in Marina Del Ray.
And I said, you have an obligation.
But see, that was the activist in me
immediately with the petitions and the thinking about
protests, whereas perhaps your approach of creating a
(35:51):
vegan restaurant week and a vegan restaurant month
and showing them that it can be good
business is the answer.
Now, let me ask you this question, because
I think we've all had the experience of
being at either a hotel or a restaurant
that's not vegan.
And then the entree that they put together
that's vegan is, I don't wanna use curse
(36:12):
words, but not good, not good.
I've had situations where it was drenched in
you could tell some kind of a lard
that they didn't realise they were cooking and
it was inedible to me.
So how do you train the non-vegan
restaurants to create vegan food that A, is
vegan?
Do you have to educate them?
Because sometimes people don't know honey isn't vegan.
(36:35):
There's certain things that they don't realise are,
I mean, it's a process, not an event.
What do you do to educate them?
Right, and a lot of times people think,
oh, it's gluten free.
You can eat that, it's gluten free.
Or I've had family members when we first
went vegan, oh, it's organic, you can eat
that.
And we're like, no, it's still eggs, even
(36:56):
if they're organic, they're still coming out of
a chicken.
So we're not going to eat it.
But I mean, just letting people know, going
into a restaurant and saying, hey, do you
have any vegan options?
Or looking at their menu and creating your
own options out of it.
You can always go in and get baked
potato is just leave off the butter, get
(37:18):
vegetables, ask if they're cooked in butter.
So just starting to educate your restaurants that
way and the servers.
And it is kind of like hard sometimes
because not everybody is interested in feeding vegans.
But I mean, it's almost 2025.
Like if you don't have a vegan option
(37:38):
on your menu currently, you're behind the time.
You're not, let me ask you, what were
some of the objections for those who, because
we have to be prepared if we do
this for some pushback, not everybody's going to
say, yes, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to devote, they may feel they
have to go out and buy different products
(37:59):
that they might have to spend some time
and money educating their chefs.
What were some of the pushbacks you got
from the restaurants?
And again, I want to applaud all the
restaurants that took part in this, but what
was some of the pushbacks?
How many restaurants said no?
And how did you respond to that?
Well, we have a lot of restaurants in
Fort Wayne and we have 15 of them
(38:20):
that participated this year.
So not everybody's going to participate and that's
fine.
Even the, like our all vegan restaurant doesn't
participate and that's fine.
It's not for everybody.
Some places don't have the manpower to get
as busy as the restaurants do, but just
educating them on what vegan is and looking
(38:41):
at their current menu and helping them create
vegan options out of that.
Or if they're wanting to try something new,
just letting them know what's vegan, what they
can't have in that.
So- But I mean, what did they
say to you when you approached them?
(39:01):
Did everybody just say, yeah, absolutely.
Or what was the dialogue so people could
be prepared?
Yeah, so we live in the Midwest.
So there's such a thing as Midwest nice,
where even if people don't like you, they're
going to be friendly.
And so sometimes they would just simply say,
no, we're not going to participate.
Some people would just not return phone calls
or emails or talk to me.
(39:25):
But for the most part, I think a
lot of restaurants that I reached out to
were excited to participate and they would ask
me questions about it.
Otherwise they would just say, no, we're not
interested in doing it at this time.
Most people are going to at least be
nice to your face.
They're not going to yell at you when
you go into the restaurant.
(39:47):
I feel like approach is everything, because we're
not going and demanding anything from anybody.
Heather, I mean, before Vegan Restaurant Week was
even a thing, we were engaging with these
restaurants on a very nice way saying, hey,
you could get more people coming in if
(40:08):
you did this.
And Heather was consulting with restaurants years ago
before we ever started doing it.
But it was always out of an engagement
of, hey, here's something that might be good
for you.
You have to kind of position the whole
thing, what's in it for them.
So instead of being like, we demand that
(40:29):
you do this for us.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely, it makes perfect sense.
Yeah, I had restaurants reach out to me
who we had gone to their restaurants before
and they wanted to know, okay, what can
I label vegan on my menu?
And they brought out their book of recipes
and I would go through their book of
(40:49):
recipes and mark it if it was vegan,
if it was vegetarian or nothing at all,
or to let them know, if you just
switch this one little ingredient, it would be
vegan.
And everybody can eat it.
You'll get more business that way.
So I did start there with restaurants and
just kind of building those relationships.
(41:10):
Being nice is free and it goes a
long way when you're talking to these restaurants
who you want to go and dine at
and you want to participate in things.
Starting to build a community of restaurants as
well as your community of vegans is I
guess your first step.
Wow, well, I think this is so exciting
(41:30):
and I really hope that it inspires others.
It's inspired me, but I'll tell you, it's
a little scary because I don't like rejection
and the idea that I'm gonna go into
some of these places and get rejected, but
I like your approach.
Your approach is, hey, this is, oh, first
of all, it just occurred to me, once
(41:50):
do you say, hey, this one signed up,
this one signed up, this one signed up,
you should sign up because if not, you're
gonna be kind of out of it.
Is there that competition that- You know,
there really hasn't been.
I'm trying to think back of when we
did our first one six years ago, I
(42:11):
think it was just kind of, we had
another all-vegan restaurant at the time that
participated in a few small places and then
from there, people heard about it on the
news or different things and they said, oh,
hey, I wanna be a part of that
and we just started looking at the different
restaurants that we thought would be a good
fit for Vegan Month that would do something
(42:32):
really, really good, especially local restaurants.
If you reach out to local restaurants, they're
able to do a lot more than if
it's a national chain.
National chains have to go through corporate, they're
not going to be interested in trying to
change things for us, but the local restaurants
want the business and they want to keep
(42:53):
their community happy.
So a lot of times they'll go out
of the way, even when we go into
dine, we'll ask for, hey, you don't have
really anything on the menu, would you mind
making us this using the ingredients that you
have that are actually vegan?
And they're always, a lot of them are
always happy to do that.
So starting with those restaurants that are local
(43:15):
and that can do scratch foods is going
to be the ones to focus on first.
I absolutely agree with you.
Mom and pop, smaller restaurants that are not
part of big chains, forget the big chains,
like that hotel that was serving octopus, that's
a major brand, one of the biggest in
the world.
That's going to be very hard to get
(43:36):
in there with corporate and make that change.
We've got a lot of comments coming in.
Amy Jean Davis says, we're doing the same
menu adjustment campaign with Plant Based Treaty.
Paige Parsons, Roach and I were out yesterday
going to cafes and everyone we spoke to
was very nice.
So yes, menu adjustment.
I like that phrase.
(43:57):
I think that there's a tendency and I
suffer from it of all of nothingness.
Like I want everybody to go vegan tomorrow.
The idea of adding a vegan option may
seem like a small thing, but if all
of that put together is cumulative and I
(44:19):
really have a new attitude toward what's happening
with veganism in the United States, I think
that it's morphing.
I think it did start out where it
was kind of like this Californication type, you
know, hipster thing.
And then we realised, well, a lot of
people are alienated by that.
They think it's expensive.
(44:41):
They try to make this, the meat industry
tries to make that veganism is more expensive.
When we all know it's cheaper.
You could buy a sack of brown rice,
a sack of dried beans and a sack
of potatoes and live for two months.
And so we all know it's cheaper, but
the word out there that the advertiser based
(45:03):
media tries to push is that it's vegan
and elitist.
Now I see a change happening.
I see that it's going mainstream in these
smaller towns.
And I was again, blown away by the
vegan options in Las Vegas.
Not that that's such a small town, but
it was just, it was shocking.
(45:26):
I mean, we talked to a couple who
came all the way from Florida, who run
a sanctuary, who fly all the way to
Las Vegas, not to gamble, but to go
to this vegan Asian restaurant that makes vegan
sushi, vegan dim sum and traditional Chinese dishes.
And the food was so good.
I brought the leftovers home and had it
(45:48):
for lunch yesterday because it was absolutely delicious.
And I'm thinking we need something, we need
you to open a restaurant in LA like
that.
I was trying to convince all these people,
but it made me think that, when you
try to push something down and you try
to suppress something, which let's face it, the
meat industry is, there's an article in the
Guardian that says basically they have a war
(46:10):
room in Colorado where they send out all
this negative stuff about ultra processed and never
mentioning that processed meat is officially cancer causing
according to the World Health Organisation.
So we have to push back.
And so I see that it's coming, the
vegan movement is sort of like, okay, you're
(46:32):
gonna try to push it down here, it's
gonna pop up here.
What's your thought on that, JR?
Well, I think, yeah, I think it's all
about normalising the whole thing.
Heather and I have been involved with that
for years, whether it's, Heather gives cooking demos,
Heather does tabling events.
And I wanna also stress, one of the
cool things that these restaurants get is publicity
(46:56):
out the wazoo.
I mean, like Heather is doing, she's done
like maybe three TV interviews.
She's done, you've got a newspaper and whatever.
So, that's huge for them.
So they're getting their name out there and
people are curious.
(47:17):
So yeah, I think it's all about-
This is a list of, we're putting up
a list of all the restaurants that participated
and kudos to you.
You're right.
So that's the other piece of the puzzle
that we have to explain to people, Heather.
It's not just, oh, you go up to
these restaurants, you've issued a news release, which
I've read, which names all these restaurants, they're
(47:38):
named on the website.
And you're also doing TV interviews where you're
saying, hey, look at these great restaurants that
are participating.
So you're providing them free advertising.
Right.
Well, the restaurants do pay a little bit
of money to be in this, because we
do have a lot going on behind the
(47:59):
scenes that we have to pay for.
So the restaurants do pay, but they don't
pay a lot to be included.
They pay enough to help pay the bills.
So it's not quite free, but they're getting
publicity all month.
I mean, I own a marketing agency.
You can't get the type of publicity that
these restaurants are getting for even one day
(48:22):
on what they pay to be included in
this.
So yeah, veganism is popping up.
To go back to what you said, I
mean, veganism, I see it popping up in
different cities.
I mean, we go up to Michigan and
small towns there, there's Detroit, there's Ann Arbour,
Traverse City, have all these little pockets of
veganism around there.
(48:43):
We go to upstate New York and Rochester
and different places, and there's little pockets of
veganism.
And it's so fun to know that we're
out there.
We're not just in the big cities.
Anywhere you go in the U.S. or
even outside of the U.S., there's vegans
everywhere, and you just are hiding.
(49:05):
We're hiding everywhere.
You just don't know it.
So it's a lot of work.
Don't let me lie and say it's not
a lot of work.
I put a lot of work into this
leading up to it, but I think the
benefits for the vegan community and the benefits
for the restaurant and the benefits for the
(49:27):
animals outweigh like all of the work that's
put into it.
And it is kind of a streamlined process
that I've done the past six years.
That makes it a lot easier.
And it's a labour of love.
I do love it.
It's a labour of love.
I do love it.
And there's no doubt that, I mean, the
other restaurants that don't participate, the first year,
maybe it's a little harder, but they see
(49:49):
that.
The other restaurants that don't participate, they see
that coverage and they're like, ooh, I kind
of missed the boat on this one.
And I'll tell you what, if they see
it two years and they weren't participating and
they see that coverage, they're like, man, I
am rich.
So number three, they're definitely on board.
So yeah, it's a labour of love.
I know Heather puts in a lot of
time into this.
(50:10):
I just get my picture taken, so.
Well, speaking of that, this conversation has been
so much fun and it's gone by so
quickly.
I forgot to play, but I'm gonna play
it right now.
What you do when you're not doing vegan
restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
Oh, right, right.
Long live the king.
But what if, say, Jailhouse Rock had been
(50:31):
written by a vegan instead?
When a vegan throws a party, you can
bet your tail All the chips on the
plate will all be made of kale The
salad and the smoothie will be kale as
well Cause every single vegan loves the kale,
kale, kale That's right With the lettuce, let's
rock Every vegan living on your block Will
(50:52):
be munching on the kale nonstop I'm
Calvus, Calvus Parsley.
Thank you very much.
This is ridiculous.
(51:12):
I love it.
And I will say you have a whole
bunch of others, but I did check and
Jailhouse Rock is public domain.
That's why I played that one.
Oh, is that right?
Okay, okay.
You've got plenty of others.
Super fun.
Another example of how veganism is a joyous,
fun, very fun adventure, no sacrifice involved.
(51:36):
And that's what I think is the final
thing.
We've only got a couple of minutes left
is that this whole vegan restaurant month, vegan
restaurant week shows that it's fun, that our
lifestyle is a blast.
And frankly, I have to control myself not
to just make it a social club because
(51:57):
I could go somewhere every night to a
different potluck or a different restaurant or a
different meetup or a different party or a
different veg fest.
Your programme of vegan restaurant month needs to
go coast to coast.
I personally wanna get involved to help this.
I think it should maybe become a 5013
(52:21):
nonprofit project where you get funding to do
all this.
And so that we enable people all around
the United States and beyond, Canada, Europe, Latin
America, everywhere, the entire world could be creating
their vegan restaurant weeks and months in their
(52:44):
towns because you've provided a very specific template,
almost like a franchise.
So final thoughts, Heather, what do you think
of that?
Yep, I think Jane, you're definitely right.
And I've procrastinated long enough.
And I think you've just kind of given
me the push that I need to put
together my package of everything that we do
(53:06):
for vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
I mean, I don't think many places can
jump straight to a vegan month starting at
a vegan restaurant week, even with two restaurants
is good.
So yeah, I think that's kind of given
me the push that I need to put
everything together and touch base with other vegan
communities and other towns to say, hey, let's
(53:27):
get this started in your town.
And a final thought from JR. You said
something really interesting.
You said, you feel like you should make
it a social club.
And I think that that's where it's gotta
start, right?
It's gotta start as a social club and
it's gotta start as a network and people
(53:47):
leaning into one another.
I mean, the things that we do, everything
that we do, whether it's the tabling, whether
it's the vegan restaurant month, whether it's Heather's
doing the cooking classes, we do all of
these things out of love and because it's
a fun thing to do.
And we wouldn't do any of this if
it wasn't fun.
I mean, it's great to be there fighting
(54:09):
for the animals, but I wanna be a
happy warrior.
So that's where it's gotta start, I think.
Wow, well, please reach out to Plant-Based
Treaty for possible collaboration, says Amy Jean Davis,
who's a very well-known activist and who
does so much for animals, people and the
planet.
So yes, I think that Plant-Based Treaty,
(54:32):
which tries to turn institutions, cities and restaurants,
plant-based and individuals would be a great
collaborator.
And somebody else said, put them on the
team.
Well, guess what?
Full disclosure, they're already on the team.
Heather Dahman is on our board on the
Unchained TV, Jane Unchained News Network, 501C3 nonprofit
board.
(54:52):
And she is also our technical director and
a lot of what happens on our streaming
network would not be able to happen without
Heather.
So with that, I am going to urge
everybody, yes, make a vegan restaurant week in
your town.
(55:13):
And also, I think you should download Unchained
TV.
So it's a vegan Netflix.
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained, Unchained TV.
Your life will change, it's just that easy.
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
everybody.
Unchained TV changed my life.
Unchained TV is crushing it.
(55:35):
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained TV is my go-to.
Unchained TV.
Who knew?
Unchained, baby, yes.
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