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Starting a Vegan Restaurant Week, by JL Fields, VLCE, and Carmella Lanni, VLCE

Nearly 30 years ago the first Restaurant Week launched in New York. Since then, cities around the U.S. host a week of special prices and prix fixe meals to promote restaurants and dining out.

For vegans, Restaurant Week isn’t always the place to be.

Baltimore hosted a Vegan Restaurant Week two years ago and that inspired two Main Street Vegan Academy alumni to create their own version.

 JL Fields, Colorado Springs

Two years ago I got a Google news alert about Baltimore’s Vegan Restaurant Week. I thought it was inspired! I immediately wrote to four restaurant owners inviting them to join in on a vegan restaurant week in Colorado Springs with the caveat that I would only do it if all four of them participated. Within an hour they all replied, “YES!” and I built a no frills website within an hour to outline what vegan means, describe the options available to restaurants (a special or a prix fixe menu), and offer an online application. First year results:

  • The only paid promotion was on Facebook and within about a month we had eight participating restaurants. (For a city of just over 450,000 and only three vegan restaurants – at the time – this was a huge success).
  • Our restaurant week launched on November 1 – World Vegan Day – and ran for five days.
  • Every single participating restaurant said it was one of the best weeks they had ever had in November.
  • The vegans (and veg-curious) really showed up!
  • And so did the chefs.
  • There was no fee for the restaurants to participate.

Word of mouth rocked the first event and in 2018, 24 restaurants participated.

I continue to coordinate the Colorado Springs Vegan Restaurant Week as a volunteer because I think it’s an incredible way to encourage all restaurants to think about vegan and plant-based diners and it’s a great way to show vegans, vegetarians, and veg-forward diners that we have really talented chefs in town who know how to throw down the vegan food

Carmella Lanni, Philadelphia

Philly Vegan Restaurant Week, aka PVRW, launched in September 2018. The idea came from Nicole Koedyker, as local area restaurant weeks weren’t inclusive of vegan diners. She brought together our team of 6 to organize a vegan week.

While Philadelphia has a vibrant vegan scene, the week also recognized non-vegan businesses serving vegan options. We would have been happy if just 10 places participated. We were surprised that 30+ restaurants signed up, donating a portion of sales to a local vegan non-profit

Our approach involved:

  • Not limiting participation to fixed price menus; allowing single exclusive menu items.
  • Hosting special events (e.g. launch party and bake sale).
  • Building relationships between customers, businesses and a local non-profit.

Our first week was successful. We raised money. Restaurants were eager to continue their vegan offerings. We did it with little to no budget.

Key takeaways that first time were:

  • Customers expect full restaurant details on our website
  • Tracking donations is hard work. We had businesses send donations directly to the non-profit, which made accounting at our end more difficult.
  • It’s important to support restaurants before, during and after the week. Businesses want to meet expectations of vegan diners.

September’s results led to TWO PVRWs in 2019. In April, we saw participation grow to 45+ businesses. We received great feedback from non-vegan restaurants, expanding or keeping vegan items on their menus.

What we did differently the second year:

  • Included a map on phillyvrw.com with business/event locations.
  • Included suburban businesses. For example, we hosted a “Breakfast for Dinner” event at a restaurant in Woodlyn, PA, a restaurant about 18 miles outside Philly, for those who couldn’t make it into the city during PVRW.
  • Each organizer ran our Instagram to show how we were celebrating PVRW.
  • Included caterers to participate in special events.
  • Oversaw donation collections to ensure accountability & manage accounting.

We’re evaluating results from April but are already planning for our October week. We have participants re-upping, and new businesses excited to join. I cannot wait to see the city support it!

 

JL Fields is a vegan chef, coach, and consultant. She is the founder and culinary director of the Colorado Springs Vegan Cooking Academy and a Master Vegan Lifestyle Coach and Educator. JL is the author of several cookbooks, including Vegan Meal Prep, Vegan Pressure Cooking and The Vegan Air Fryer and co-author of The Main Street Vegan Academy Cookbook with Victoria Moran.

Carmella Lanni is an NYC native turned South Philly vegepreneur. She is the co-owner of Philadelphia’s first all-vegan convenience store, V Marks the Shop. In 2016, she founded Philly Vegan Pop Flea, a vegan pop-up marketplace, supporting local & vegan business.

 

20 thoughts on “Starting a Vegan Restaurant Week, by JL Fields, VLCE, and Carmella Lanni, VLCE”

  1. Natalie Forman

    Reading about these successes inspires me! It makes me think that maybe I, along with some equally motivated individuals, could start something like this in my own city! Time to start thinking…

    Thank you for sharing your stories, Carmella and J.L.! Congrats on starting such great events in your communities!

  2. Hi JL – this was absolutely the right information at the right time for me! I was looking for ways to take the vegan scene up a notch here in Kalamazoo, MI, and I think you’ve provided the answer. 😀 Thanks!

  3. Victoria Palmenberg

    JL and Carmella,

    Thank you so much for providing thorough information on starting and running vegan restaurant weeks! I would love to do that in Phoenix! You have inspired me to get it started!

  4. This is so awesome! I have always skipped on restaurant weeks because there’s never really anything vegan/vegetarian outside of a salad. I would love to run one in my home city of Birmingham. I would love some pointers to get started to hopefully start one this November.

    1. Sandra, I’m happy to help! Hopefully, this post is a good start. And feel free to take any language off this restaurant week website: http://cosveganrestaurantweek.com! My personal suggestion is that you think of two, three, or four places that offer vegan options right now and ask them if they will participate. Having participants is motivating and it’s usually the reason other restaurants will say yes. I also suggest making it easy on everyone (you AND the restaurant). Ask them to just create one NEW vegan special and/or come up with a three or four-course tasting menu. (Most of my restaurants create just one special dish.) The only promotion I did was send out a press release to the local media and I invested in a few $20 geo-targeted ads on Facebook. It really worked! Hope this is helpful!

    2. Hi Sandra!

      I hear you about other restaurant weeks. I’ve rarely participated in any myself because I didn’t want to bother scouring menus in hope for one unimaginative option.

      One of the things that I think has lent to the success of PVRW is encouraging the non-vegan businesses to get creative with vegan options. A number of them have already been doing specials or had solid options, but PVRW gave them a chance to do something out of the box. When speaking with restaurants, that’s something very key to bring about. The other thing is to give them options, because let’s face it, sometimes it comes down to $$$ for them. Whether it’s fixed price vs. single item or the amount of their donation, the flexibility gives the business to ability to make decisions that best fit them.

      If I can be of any support in your efforts, please feel free to reach out!

  5. Both of these vegan restaurant week successes are so inspiring! What I loved was that non-vegan restaurants kept vegan items on the menu after vegan week concluded. And the increase in restaurants wanting to participate!! Brava!!

  6. Living in the Lehigh Valley we frequent Philly often for vegan eats.. We even made it down the last day of PVRW. My 2cents, it would be great if you list the hours the restaurants offer their PVRW menu. We went to one restaurant at 3am only to find out they wouldn’t serve the menu until 5pm..

    1. Hi JJ,

      Thanks for that feedback & being a part of PVRW. We’re always open to that. In fact, the hours are something we are working on, as some of the businesses didn’t tell us they weren’t limiting the timing of their menus. We are also working on getting businesses willing to do breakfast and lunch. Hopefully, we’ll have that in time for October!

      If you have any other questions or suggestions, please feel free to email the team at [email protected] or submit feedback via our Contact Form at phillyvrw.com

  7. I would love to do something similar in my own home town and call it Vegan Day Out. Can you explain how you got to the name Vegan Restaurant Week. Does that confuse anyone?

    1. Vegan Day Out sounds fun! Restaurant Week is a term that’s been used for a very long by traditional restaurant association chapters around the country. So adding the word “Vegan” makes sense (with all credit going to Baltimore, the city who I first heard of hosting a Vegan Restaurant Week). I’m not sure what people would find confusing?

    2. Hi Natalie!

      There’s some history behind the concept behind a restaurant week. They’re meant to show support for local businesses in celebrating the culinary scene in their respective cities. Doing a week versus a single day doesn’t limit folks from participating, especially when the event is benefitting a local non-profit. Not to mention, it also helps encourage business on slower days during the week.

      We didn’t coin the name “Vegan Restaurant Week.” Since there are so many “Restaurant Weeks” around, it was just a matter of putting “Vegan” in front of ours. I don’t think the name confuses folks. If anything, it spring interest from non-vegans who now have an opportunity to try vegan dishes and see that it’s not so “weird.”

      Hope that clears up any confusion.

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