How one Ohio restaurant is embracing Veganuary
CLEVELAND — For many people, the new year means a fresh start.
“I can honestly eat either way. It doesn’t really matter to me, especially with the way that we do the food. There’s really no difference to me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love juicy chicken, but juicy, delicious vegetables are also a great thing,” said Kitchen Manager Nick Pejeau.
This is why Owner of Boss ChickNBeer Heather Doeberling, like many restaurant owners, wanted to offer their customers vegan options.
“We’ve got all different kinds of beans, three different beans. We’ve got all kinds of vegetables, tomatoes. We cook it down and we put some crispy tortilla strips and green onions on top,” she said. “With all of those different beans in there and all the different vegetables, you will not miss the meat at all, but it will definitely leave you feeling like you just had it.”
In 2018 when Doeberling opened the new restaurant, she decided to include a small vegan menu.
“We’ve always had vegan wings as an option. So, we started out as just a wing diner and we started out with vegan wings right away, as a vegetarian option for so we could just make everybody happy,” she said.
It was in 2020 when she began to see the impact of supply chain issues.
“We were having some trouble getting chicken and, as a lot of people were and at the same time, our produce vendors were coming to us and saying that they had so much produce that was just going to go to waste because it’s all perishable and all of the restaurants shut down,” she said.
She wanted to help out farmers and that’s where her goals collided with the British nonprofit called Veganuary. The nonprofit promotes protecting the environment, ending animal farming and health. The organization challenges people to eat only vegan foods for the entire first month of the year.
While a vegan diet is not for everyone, Doeberling said to start small and give foods you think you may not like a second chance.
“A local tofu maker is going to be much higher quality than anything that you’re going to get nationally sourced, and you would be amazed at what you can do with that,” she said. “You can make Asian with it. You can make comfort food with it. You can fry it. You can sauté it. You can grill it. So, I would say that if you’re going to start for January, those are two great places to start.”
Boss ChickNBeer has several locations and is open from Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information on the one-month challenge, click here.