String of closures: Is the vegan eatery dead?

A string of top vegan eateries have closed across Queensland, while others have had to introduce meat to survive. So is the plant-based movement over?

The vegan dining bubble looks to have burst in Queensland, with many meat-free eateries forced to close or introduce animal products to survive.

This week beloved plant-based cafe Cinnamon and Co in Brisbane’s West End announced it would be closing on October 8 after less than two years, citing the current economic conditions for its abrupt end.

“The financial climate is crushing to small businesses,” said owner Tasia Amber.

Tasia Amber from Cinnamon and Co, West End.

While last month saw the closure of once hugely popular vegan burger bar Grass Fed in South Brisbane, which previously attracted queues out the door and customers from across the world.

The closures follow a string of other vegan eateries winding up including one of the original Queensland plant-based eateries, Cardamom Pod at Broadbeach, which blamed unmanageable rents, and rising food and staff costs for being forced to shut, Enoki Coffee & Co in Stafford Heights and Gopal’s Pure Vegetarian in Maroochydore.

Johnny Garrison of Grass Fed in South Brisbane at the eatery before it closed last month.

In August, vegan cafe Pancha in Hamilton made the difficult decision to introduce meat options to its vegetable-based menu in order to stay afloat.

“When people would see that we were vegan, they would just walk out – people are against vegan food,” co-owner Petch Berge said.

“It doesn’t matter how much you explain to them that it’s delicious and healthy, they just don’t want it.”

She said while the cafe still offers plenty of plant-based dishes, since introducing meat to the menu, business has improved 20 per cent.

“Since we changed to vegan-friendly, we can see our existing customers now come with their friends and family that eat meat,” Mrs Berge said.

Pancha Cafe in Hamilton has added meat to its vegan menu to survive. Picture: David Kelly

She said the vegan demographic was just too small in Brisbane to be sustainable for so many meat-free eateries, and that coupled with rising inflation and a tough economy made survival almost impossible.

“Looking at the economy I think I would have had to close if I just stayed vegan,” she said.

“The decision (to offer meat) is purely financial. The interest rate was rising and we could see customers stop spending as much, so we just tried to rescue the business.”

Meanwhile, former plant-based cafe Grown in West End closed earlier this year after struggling to remain viable, before new owner Stean Kelly took it over and introduced meat to the menu.

“People said they wouldn’t try the cafe because it was vegan – I think that was actually the problem with the business,” said Mr Kelly, who had turned the operation around, with it now “doing really well” and “growing week on week”.

His menu was originally 65 per cent vegan 35 per cent meat to try to cater to some of the original customers, but he said that had now flipped to 65 per cent meat dishes, 35 per cent vegan offerings.

“On those core vegan dishes we had to cut back because people were just ordering the meat dishes,” he said, revealing meat dishes outsold vegan dishes 10 to one.

“I think it (veganism) is still growing it’s just not sustainable to be wholly that category.”

Originally published as String of closures: Is the vegan eatery dead?