DETROIT: Every Vegan Restaurant Reviewed (in-depth discussion of vegan food services in 2018)

there's one thing I can tell you this
video is not any way going to replace the service already provided to you by happy cow or other vegan restaurant review websites so this is the funny thing about the Internet certain types of information become meaningless to share or rotate because I already know in weight less time it takes to watch this video you can click on somebody else's website and get an overview of photographs the list of menu items normally from the restaurants own website you can get you know the list of what's in their menu the prices and all those kinds of details so there's no point in us presenting that to you I also think there's no point in us just going through this list and giving a thumbs up thumbs down or 1 to 10 rating for each these restaurants but I do think there's a point in some kind of broader and deeper reflections and what we've learned in several months of I don't know exhausting and yet self-indulgent you know travel as we went from northern Thailand to Detroit then from Detroit to Vancouver then from Vancouver to Seattle with Nanaimo in between we've been eating at a lot of vegan restaurants in all these places and we've also been meeting with and talking to vegan chefs partly for reasons that are outside of this this video but vegan chefs and chefs and cooking instructors in a couple different universities people living and working in the food sector and getting their perspectives on what's going on in veganism from that more commercial food services side okay so the list of restaurants we're gonna cover in this video number one green space number two detroit vegan soul on the cafe tribe kitchen chive cake that's what she's there for Savea and then in the season all of those are in detroit michigan USA and i think we have a legitimate claim to reviewing every single vegan restaurant in detroit USA in this video just in covering those six locations and then we have two other restaurants that are in Ann Arbor next door one is just called the lunchroom and one a new one is called veg cafe that may or may not be every single option and in our brain Harper it's not that big a city but our former video started with a clarification we did a video where viewing almost every restaurant in Chiang Mai Thailand but this one I think we really are legitimately covering just about every single restaurant in Detroit okay Melissa you're on deck take it away what what do you want to say under this heading well I know you didn't want to do just the thumbs-up or thumbs-down but the restaurant that I was most impressed with and that if you're in Detroit for a short period of time and you want to check out just one vegan restaurant or you know devote your time to see anyone would be Detroit being a soul I felt like their staff was was pretty great the the food was excellent and the location not so great to get to in Detroit nothing has a good location every location of choice yeah joking of laughing but I'm not joking you know right next to it is actually a pretty nice neighborhood of Detroit which is unlike the rest of us right what Detroit vegan soul one of the things I remember with the location is that right across the street there's a meat-based salt restaurant that's empty and looks like it's going on a business there's another one just down the way that already went out of business so that may be gone by the time you get there yeah but the vitality of the one vegan restaurant is actually a real contrast to one of the restaurants that that's surrounded on the same block there was a bookstore that was happy okay look I was self-critical about this kind of thing do we eat there twice or three times twice a night we went there twice okay once we went for brunch well let me just say as a reviewer some of these restaurants who went you twice and then we really change their opinions you know the second time we went there um Detroit vegan so we do have a really positive freshman we literally bought the t-shirt so we both own a t-shirt for this restaurant Detroit vegan soul but you know they actually did a lot wrong they did screw up a bunch of things that order and they're a bunch of dishes that didn't work and I think well let me just say I think you can be over the threshold where you feel positively about something and then you're ignoring all the negative information about it that can happen and the opposite can happen to where you have a negative impression of something then it doesn't matter how much they get right you know what I mean and you're disregarding some bad information what do you say well I know you've hated the okra soup yeah right so you told you told the waiter as much and you weren't charged yeah yeah they took at the end they allegedly took it off the bill right right right um I thought that was I thought there was something wrong with that soup I know where it was and it wasn't merely that I thought this was not to my taste I thought it was the net of others yeah I guess okay yeah the downsides which is pretty unprofessional that vegan restaurants get away with that I think other restaurants wouldn't is that yeah you know when you would go to order something they would say oh we're out of this for that you know we were there on a Saturday at like 2:00 p.m. yes this is like you need to have everything on the menu if you're offering it on the menu you need to have it stuff like I mean it was like it was like I wanted to order the the breakfast sandwich and they didn't have the veggie sausage oh we don't have veggie sausage and then my mom wanted to order something else yeah that's right oh we're out of that so what so what's your second choice and what's your third choice that's what we do something so it's funny it's coming up under this headache because this is maybe the most positive review like we were both very positive about Detroit big and so we both bought the t-shirt etc yeah but one of the things I kept saying to you as we went from restaurant to restaurant in Detroit was you know like none of these places live up to the standards you take for granted with big mainstream brands like the Olive Garden or a roll Red Lobster well I don't know subway is saying them are pretty low you know I mean like is this vegan restaurant up to the level so but if you think about the mid-range American chain restaurants I don't even know sir I'm not American out of live in the states I don't I don't know this kind of stuff and I only me I've been vegan for a million years or forgotten but you know I think it is interesting just what you said is very very true vegan restaurants seem to get away with a lot of really unprofessional stuff and they charge more okay charge more than surcharge charge more than Albuquerque and what their and what they're delivering in terms of even the place you said and a lot of things with experience it's not at the level of an Olive Garden or some other you know mainstream brand like that now whether or not it's at the level of a Chipotle or a subway I think is is separately kind of debatable but yeah I mean I think we're kind of doing this video it really like the right time because we did these restaurant reviews or served went to these restaurants and we're really reviewing them and pay attention um and taking photographs and looking at the menu when we're applying for college to go into a college to go into food services ourselves we're specifically interested in baking but you know this is both the ugliness and the beauty of capitalism what is the value of a bottle of champagne it's whatever people say it is right a bottle of champagne can be worth a hundred dollars in a bottle champagne can worth a thousand dollars and bottles you mean can be worth ten dollars you know and there may not necessarily be a standard or reference in terms of quality or how much you enjoy it or anything else to separate these things but yes sadly on the issue of price alone a lot of these vegan restaurants have a very fundamental lack of humility about what they're selling what's worth so let's let's jump ahead we can come back to praising Detroit vegan soul maybe we should wrap up by doing that saying at the end what is to do it right I mean that's where the end the video come back to share a few and so on green space was a huge disappointment and among the things just job ed we ordered I forget what it costs for was eight dollars or something we ordered you know a potato dish and it was potatoes on a dish that's all it was you know if your grandma served its you you wouldn't complain but it was just not restaurant food it was not up to the standard of an Olive Garden or a Chipotle or a-- or a mcdonald's even you know it was not at the standard of adequacy level of excellence and it was a lot of money i mean that date that meal and total cost a lot but i got a side of one type of vegetable and of end of potatoes and it was just laughable everything about it the appearance the presentation we had we even had a French I'm sorry french onion soup they're terrible worse than amateurish and you gotta ask yourself again if my cousin made this for me I wouldn't even lie to my cousin's face and be like yeah that's a good French onion soup I would say you know look Larry my cousin Larry let's say have you really read about what French onion soup is have you thought about how it's supposed to taste this doesn't taste like French onion soup you know something you're doing wrong I might try to talk about it with him in a constructive way but all that stuff was not not up to standard and the prices of the prices are unforgivable so yeah look I mean it's the best of times and the worst of times for veganism in 2018 and keeping it all the way real we just saw some counter examples we have seen some very modestly priced vegan places wouldn't you say veggie grill the chain veggie grow as a contrast no okay that's for a different occasion here no that's that's really over smear cuz look I was just gonna ask the question I mean alright sorry we're jumping around but I think this is the more philosophical way to talk about this instead of just giving you a score at a 10 for each restaurant but like we look at baked goods as vegans and it's like well this place is selling a vegan doughnut for three dollars and fifty cents Tim Hortons is selling a normal lawn vegan doughnut for 99 cents what explains the gap you like this is a big gap and that's not the worst offender we just had a vegan cake cake about smaller than a doughnut for 12 US dollars we've seen others for what we saw ice cream and you know wait but I mean this is a what is a bottle of champagne worth you know we could a cake can be worth $15 at this size we saw a non-vegan example of that it can be $2.99 and guys the ingredients here as a vegan the there is no way the cake should be more expensive you've eliminated eggs and dairy it's not like you replace them with saffron so it's a funny you know it's not in the ingredients cost it's not in the labor cost so it's the best of times the worst times for veganism I guess it fundamentally is a positive thing that vegan food businesses can get away with this and get away with charging an arm and a leg for something or fly something positive but how asthma's perceived or even what meat-eaters are going to pay for ate for a vegan doughnut or a vegan meal but at the end of the day looks re green space in in Detroit I give you a zero out of ten I give you zero you know and again the French onion soup is part of it everything else but I don't know how any restaurants are I don't know any professional in the industry or even uh even the waiter can look at that plate of potatoes and think yeah this is where I'm proud to serve that I think I mean you know if this was a dollar ninety-nine donor was actually there that day right you walked by our table you didn't know that he was the owner but you know he was walking up to people at the tables and you know so he was there supervising he was there working and watching what was being served you know this is what he endorses and it's you know green space I was really excited about it opened up after I went vegan and it was known it was supposed to be like a 100 percent heart-healthy place because it was opened by dr. Joel Khan in this short mileages he's definitely a local celebrity I don't know if he's a coast-to-coast nationwide celebrity yeah he's published some books he's pieced to some extent famous yes sure yeah but you know going this time you know I did go when it first opened and I was brilliant I was fairly impressed yeah um it's but it was overpriced from the get from the get-go you know it was overpriced but I thought it was because it was you know superfoods like organic all local so I kind of justified the price and I didn't do that much but this time the you know what we ordered was not heart-healthy yeah and the French onion soup wasn't you know it wasn't healthy wasn't raw you know like you sure laughs it was just I was just in water yeah yeah black and tempeh was pretty good like yeah I mean I guess I guess it is a good sign for veganism as a movement a place like that that from my perspective is a failure like in terms of cuisine the only good thing I could say about that place be if you want a place to get drunk you know they're serving alcohol I'm sorry I don't drink alcohol at all yeah there were people using it as a bar in a social space that would be the only thing agreement it's okay what's a place rather than somewhere else to get drunk or to socialize with people you already know you're going to make any new friends that are gone knows you could choose that but in terms of cuisine the place is is to me obviously a failure and even obviously a disaster like they need to call in a chef to do an evaluation and consultation and figure out how to make but they're not family economically not only are they successful they're opening new branches they were expanding right yeah they were spending at least one new location and you know you could see there were they were busy at all hours and so on so you know again that's interesting as a vegan obviously I'm happy to see other vegans succeed yeah this is parallel though to my kind of anxiety about a lot of the new fecund products we saw in the grocery store obviously that could be another video what have you Detroit had so many vegan products on display in the case you know what the gross worth vegan on the label and so ok sometimes they said plant-based but very often marketed as vegan yeah but oh my god I mean a lot of it is awful a lot of it and it's not just like you taste it like oh this isn't to my taste or I'd like this if it were salty or something a lot of it is like I taste it and I said you I can't believe the investors ever sat there an investor meeting and said yeah we're gonna put a million dollars it just seems to me mine blowing inedibly awful and of course overpriced expensive as hell so you know shadow to cashew yogurt share it's a kite hill almond for four yeah yes very expensive and it's a false luxury I mean you know you're expecting something great for that price right we also see this in a funny comparative perspective I was just saying this to one professor Satine we talk to you we've been flying back and forth to Asia we've been flying back and forth to Europe so we see the stuff going on in America in a comparative light and I mean some of the things on the American scene are good or positive I mean you know um a lot of the heat and action in vegan restaurant the right being in restaurant business right now I'd say is he in soul food or comfort food yeah whatever you want to call it that's that's really an American thing that's not what's going on in Europe so you know if you want an okay vegan hamburger and french fries there's a lot of that going on that's that's more positive than it is negative I mean that's probably with a lot of these restaurants who haven't been there before that's maybe the only thing you can get that's reliably not gonna be awful right and some of it's based on the beyond burger or other recognized brands of a fake meat yeah that's the difference from your but on the other hand in Europe some things are being done I think technically correctly yeah you know like like soy yogurt and you just cannot be had in America at any price yeah well I will just say I the Whole Foods in the Detroit area we went to heads had like a jelly area in their deli case they had quite a few vegan options that were really good but we just went to the Whole Foods in Seattle and we did not see as many options yeah I was really surprised expected Seattle to be like more of a vegan Haven Detroit but apparently not it's a little bit weird but Detroit has appeared in a number of articles there was one article that was called the ten best cities to live in as a vegan yeah and Detroit was in that list but there are other articles that weren't a top ten list they're just talking about the the cities who are veganism is really happening and again this one restaurant Detroit begins Sol as part of the height for that so his green space but we did see that in the supermarkets of different went to many different supermarkets and we could see a lot of yes vegan action so another big thing oh sorry I know you got things I got thing to say to you can you can jump in after this but take an iteration we take of it I think it's interesting when you look at the generational change between the vegan restaurants like I mean something like green space detroit vegan soul those are really the new generation then the now 2018 generation the current approach to to being vegan restaurant terms we see this everywhere we go you see it also in the vegan bakeries like you know you go to a place that was started in the 1980s they have a different idea about vegetarianism or veganism differently about the diet of health and what the products are again how they're presented there are really different assumptions assumptions built into the business that are evident on the plate and even literally like they're evident in the arrangement to the table yes that'll sell physically but a 1980s vegan cafe that's downstairs from a yoga studio that's a real example is very different from a place that started up in 2015 hippie to hipster right yes yeah that is that is true well another thing is are you making food for hipsters are you making it for the whole family or any this place of those places where parents would take their kids that's kind of yeah gap in the market yeah yeah so in Detroit area I think it's probably in season yep was started late seventies ER so I think they hold the record as the oldest continuous vegetarian restaurant so in season was my favorite they're mostly vegan but they have a few vegetarian things which again reflects that generation I mean back then there was a time when the word vegan wasn't used we just talked about vegetarian and strictly vegetarian right right so I like in season because of the ho meanness of it there's soundproofing on the ceiling so it's it's we're able to have a conversation you know like we took my parents when we first met eyes'll and it was really when they first time with me she she told me for a while but when I went through their passion you have you know free refills on coffee and you know like pretty pretty affordable don't get in season it's just generally I like the staff too and yeah you always won't get too much of that coming around me like hey very much of the sure accurate waiter and customer but so yeah in season and also own cafe the road to their like old-school style restaurants that are work originally vegetarian and they are still vegetarian but offer mostly vegan on the majority of what they got in the menu is now is now vegan um so I have very different these two places in season and own cafe I was much more positive but the food at home cafe maybe I'm wrong with just my honest feeling with the end of season I liked a lot of things but I liked its place to have coffee linked to this place that desert LHS place type of conversation you said the desserts basically very positive both there and you know I like I mean it is it is this kind of out of date ambiance but that's cool it's it's a nice place to hang however I felt the food was painfully unsophisticated right yeah and like to me again I'm not as much of a snob as you might think from this comment but I just said green space you buy the French onion soup it does not taste like French onion soup alright there's there is a there is a textbook definition of what that dish is supposed to taste like right um you know at sorry in season they serve a minestrone soup it wasn't horrible but he was not a minestrone soup you know it was just a completely different it was just whatever vegetable soup they thought it was a miscellaneous you can sleep with a bunch of peas and carrots in it you know what I mean yes so yeah it was funny to see how my perception was different after having been around the world you know seeing like the employees in Chiang Mai and Pattaya Jonty an area in France in China - that's right so Beijing's a country I was thinking of the one vegan restaurant in Doha but anyway yeah who you also that's very well so the vegan restaurant tour you know I was a little I was a little like well I don't know you know what minestrone is not an English word that's a foreign word you know I think it is true anybody can do cake and coffee which is great and we need more or vegan places competing with Starbucks and doing cake and coffee but you are really delivering on some of those other things like minestrone soup is actually not that easy yeah and to do it day after day you know what a good level of quality because doesn't see it so much but it is good to think about these things as far as I don't think will be restaurant owners but just seeing about you can seem like your is the future of the places that were built in the 70s like how are they going to keep going with the new hips that are opening all right I mean I think I think there were a few things are one can you live up to the expectation in 2018 in terms of sophistication of food like what is minestrone soup or what is anything that you know what have you another question is can you keep up with the expectations terms of the healthiness of food because you and I both we do pretty much make an exception for any food if it's really healthy but the vast majority of what we've been eating in these restaurants and we both regret it - yeah it's not health it's vegan food but it's not L food like if what we were eating really consisted of salad and broccoli and I don't know like use or something you know I would feel much more plausible it's easy for me to give a positive you to some of the Mexican places you know Mexican restaurant because sometimes that is what you get you're getting a bunch of vegetables and beans and what-have-you um so can you really deliver on or can you meet a high enough standard for really legit healthy food but not many are and then you know finally beyond that when it's not health food are you making something that's you know a so-called peak experience or fabulous like you know okay ultimately you have to compete with the grocery store here in America here in United States you got Trader Joe's you can get prepared vegan desserts at Trader Joe's are you presenting food that that competes with that yeah yeah yeah I know we're not doing you know like thumbs up thumbs down but yeah what was the winner at in season you know I'm not getting too much of specifics was the stir-fry that just rules with rice it's you know what mystic ate it it was simplicity and genuinely healthy yeah and then both of us were just satisfied much more easily because of that because it's really healthy and you know for them they're not they're not attempting to do something that don't really know how to do or they can't pull off or not the kitchen so likewise own cafe which I won't see too much about what won my heart there was just straight-up brussel sprouts yeah you know green vegetables on a plate with a sauce and was like damn this is a of course it's actually healthy and actually I wish I could have that again tonight you know and I mean I thought they just did a really good plate of Brussels sprouts maybe everything else was not so great disappointment with macaroni and cheese and how is it possible to make vegan good like I see people lying vegan mac and cheese on like Facebook groups and it's like right no you know this is not that good yeah like the reviews for the mac and cheese at home cafe oh you gotta try it I got it I was just you know really disappointed right everywhere that I've tried it you know like I got vegan mac and cheese is greasy yellow pasta that's not gonna be our Forte like yeah I know what you're I don't you over there but something else that is easy and doesn't rely on cheat so much you know the two people sitting across the table from my sweet stabled for yeah they had vegan tacos yeah I mean there are so many things that easily and I thought I thought they were very good I know if it's excellent but you know I thought there were a lot of things all home Cafe is a small kitchen so okay one thing to mention here that struck me at home cafe because home cafe is just kind of marketed as a hippie place Detroit vegan soul is explicitly linked to african-american culture after my experience it's owned by yeah we we mentor yeah but you know um both of those places about 50% of the staff were black yeah we're african-american and depending on when you were there maybe 50% of the customers were too and you know obviously not going to be exactly so Detroit is one of the few places in the world where at least on the surface it does seem like a really large percentage of vegans and even full-time professional vegans in the food industry are black or african-american so yeah I mean that's a contrast I think you will not see that going to vegan cafes in California or many other places you know and also a lot of vegans I've known them on the internet too but you can read plenty of blogs with that about the feeling of being a minority within a minority as being an African of her community I mean anyway just being here in Seattle like I think most of the restaurants we've been to like the vegan places yes I don't like people I don't think we've seen a single that is true I think in Seattle we haven't seen a single african-american in a single vegan restaurant and whether or not we did in Vancouver is also debatable and we took we took one african-american with us look at Asia sorry Quest is Canadian but he's he's black so we would with them but no so that is a big contrast with Detroit and maybe that's part of why the Troy seems to have something special to offer or something something unique and interesting going on okay so some of these others what would you say about tribe kitchen because I think we've kind of already established all the different criteria we're thinking about here chef kitchen is like terribly unhealthy like that's there okay like there are no really chili cheese fries okay right so that's a given sandwiches like yeah and it's not great I'm sorry it's like you know it has to be worth the calories if you're gone yeah do it and I was disappointed with it I had it before I felt like this time that I went you know I went like two years before this and I feel like the portions have gotten smaller the quality of food had declined so no you've seen that with a few places too after they've been open for a while they start to start to wind down but it's not in Detroit you know it's a check you serve the suburbs yeah greater Detroit area whatever yeah every vegan restaurant the groups were there anyway you know I think that's the fundamental thing when what you're serving really is health food we have lower standards and when it's not well what what is this about anyway I don't know when we went to chaff kitchen again this is massively successful line up out the door yeah freezing cold freezing cold so people waiting huddled and doorway and in the sidewalk outside of the restaurant and we were there early - it wasn't even game time we first got there for that was one was four o'clock in the afternoon and you know places slammed and they they were only busy rose as the night went on and obviously a very small minority other customers are actually vegan so they're capturing something in the zeitgeist there's something going on there capturing in a bottle of some kind of public interest um I wouldn't say the food there was terrible but it's just you can't justify it in terms of the calories reading you can't justify it in terms of the price you're paying yeah and yeah I basically have nothing good to say but it's I mean anyway it's funny I mean you know some people talk about you know the function of a restaurant being a peak experience being part of the gift economy which it was for us cuz we took out your family yeah members of your extended family to check kitchenware it's about taking someone at showing them a special old time alright we're in this distance and this did not this did not raise that level this was not the same well this was not as good as taking them to a to an Olive Garden but just be one you know where any of those big big chains like that yeah that vegan places get away with having tiny areas for dining yes true not enough seating right yes that's what it's about if that's what though if that's we suppose is kind of the gift economy and a peak experience and a special night out if that's what you're providing that's one thing then the other hand I mean you can have vegan places that are more like Starbucks or more like McDonald's or more like Tim Hortons where it's not a special place it's just a place to get get fed and get back to work yeah obviously I totally appreciate that but not there has to be they have to be priced in a way that that's actually competitive with right okay yeah so hmm okay anyway I think chive kitchen I'm not gonna say anything else bad about it but that to me is an interesting example of a place that doesn't kind of win under : a it doesn't win under Conti probably also a good place to get drunk a lot of people were drinking alcohol there that is true and the other thing remembers they are massively successful so we can sit here and say their food is crap and it kind of is but people are lining up obviously they're gonna keep doing what they're doing and other new businesses are gonna open and copy it yeah so look I mean I don't know when do we hit peak veganism when does the bubble burst when my child did it happened with the comic book industry there was a time when people were buying up comic books and the prices kept going up and people thought oh all these comic books are going to be worth you know $100 you know the race is gonna preview that people figure adult comic come on this is a worth what semester do start I don't know I mean at some point you know we talked about this a lot with baking how is it possible to charge $6.99 for a little loaf of bread how is it possible to charge you know seven and eight dollars for a vegan cupcake you know I don't know but at some point people have to recognize just like comic books ultimately the paper is not worth that much um you know sugar and wheat are just not worth that much all right Siva so you don't see them for a relatively long time Siva is vegetarian right it's vegetarian yeah and again about half the half the menu is they'll be you know yeah so we only went there for we had soup I think yeah oh and dessert right no and I had their famous dish I had there a cauliflower dish oh yes we had a few things right thing right fried cauliflower with spicy Asian sauce and yeah I think there were okay yeah what we had this time yeah I was impressed with them last summer I had it I guess last April I think it was before I moved to China yeah I don't know I think a lot of these places probably I mean I don't think this really impacts your bottom line but look ok I'm gonna do a comparison seva in Detroit as opposed to JJ beam in Vancouver so JJ beam is a very humble coffee shop they're in competition with you know Starbucks but just the fact that they give you a side salad and make a lot of it you know what I mean so some of these places also like like you say so we had the same experience with a vegan pizza place we went to an all vegan pizza place where it's like well you're getting you this one item on a dish you know could some effort be made to make a make a meal out of it and no I my overall impression with Sabo was was negative they're famous vegan dish is exactly which is much it's taking cauliflower putting in a deep fryer putting it on a plate and putting a sauce on it yep that's the whole thing there's nothing else to it so you know I don't know if there was a soup and a salad or something else involved if it was part of a meal and maybe I feel more positive about it but yeah that's kind of a read it's the same thing with the fake meat attraction within veganism when we move past this being a stunt like oh I can't believe this isn't real duck meat I can't believe this isn't real chicken I can't believe this isn't real beef then you know you start to look at well okay yep but am I actually having a meal you don't I mean is this is this just a stunt or is there more to it you know I felt I feel like it's overpriced for what you get to that is true I would give Siva the thumbs down but it does not get the kind of reasoning negative review for me that that green space does tbh yeah all right so the other two are in Ann Arbor right so this is a different tone to Ann Arbor is just down the street from Detroit they're like sister cities at this point because the university connection between them great so the restaurants we went to lunch room and these are at opposite extremes of the vegan experience because lunch room lunch room is high-end in terms of its prices I mean you you get to sit on also lined out the door it was lunch time on us absolutely successful they are absolutely at capacity and above capacity the seven days a week every meal they're open for really disappointed and their tiramisu it was way too sugary yes Tara meter BC was garbage you were disappointed with the mains to that you had doesn't matter of fact I mean you weren't weeping but you were just wanted no I mean I remember your your reaction at the time but mister that place is insanely successful there kind of I just feel they're kind of charging gourmet prices for non gourmet food which is a common thing and you're not you don't really even get to sit in a proper restaurant you know it is more like sitting in a Starbucks you don't really get waiter service or table service yeah okay you know that's an approach but again the prices there just to I but that is that is you're paying as if that were for my food whereas the contrast veg cafe is this totally unpretentious like fast food joint that I thought had really sophisticated food yeah we had a vegan chili feast a Philly cheesesteak yeah vegan Philly cheesesteak sandwich at veg cafe in Ann Arbor and you know I really thought that was a very sophisticated very well executed it's one of the best vegan dishes I've had in my life period I really thought it was done very well not health food but fabulous you know and it made me obviously they do shallots and some other stuff there that's that's how I was yeah that's true this movie was just so-so was just no but anyway but that that's a really cheap you know unpretentious kind of place and the lunchroom I don't know I mean you know it's a bit mysterious oh I have complained you repeatedly about so-called Mexican food places where nobody involved is is Mexican yeah you know I got into Mexican burrito right a lot of this of the many thought was is Mexican yeah some of its like Thai dishes too you know yes right you're taking a risk I mean you're taking a risk do you really know Mexican food if you're the restaurant turd you really know Thai food are you really gonna do this I mean again like you can ask is this as good as the Olive Garden but you know is this is this really competitive with is this comparable to what you'd get at a decent tire on tour a decent Mexican rose yeah for the corresponding you know types of dishes and if not you know what what are you doing here what are you yeah anyway yeah I will just say they're also massively successful watching they open insanely they opened a restaurant right down the street called Detroit filling station which we don't go to and then another location for that place which is a little bit further out of town so yeah they're doing very well we don't have much competition as far as vegan places games there was one place I went to when I first want begin I guess two and a half years ago now and we walked by the location and it's now totally closed and I think because it was like a mostly raw food place where it didn't last just how it goes right and we look I don't know like I guess the real question the real area of market research to understand this is to look at who are the meat eaters who eat at vegan restaurants because they're obviously the ones driving success you know what are they wanting what are they finding in these places and you know okay look detroit vegan soul one said let's end with it you know what is so positive what does it detroit vegan soul is getting right why don't you say from your perspective cuz i I think I do have a perspective on this yeah I think people are proud to see a new hip restaurant run by black people in the middle of Detroit be successful I think you know people are proud to see place doing well like this yeah you say that we walked by a restaurant tonight a meat a meat based restaurant and it had written on the front door we make people feel good about their bad habits yeah I think that's a bit of a hook for a lot of this vegan soul food vegan comfort food is we make you feel good about your betters we're selling you something that's probably objective yeah but it's vegan you know it's vegan and it's organic and we're offering to kind of make you feel good a bunch of it well you know whatever it's a vegan roast beef or it's you know it's it's something like this you know what where it's not health food within an calm but because it's vegan you're getting interest from from outside me yeah we'll just say Detroit has gone through a terrible economic I mean it's been yeah it's been in dire straits for years and years so you know recently there's been resurgence of hope in about the city of Detroit so I think this is kind of adding to the hype that there's something vegan for something new right something that is claiming to be healthy so it's part of a narrative about soul food in african-american culture it's part of a narrative about Detroit and Detroit emerging from the ashes and revival of a unique Detroit culture I think it's also part of a narrative about making people feel good about their their bad habits you know which again that's something I think many vegan categories in cash you know like oh hey don't eat a cupcake eat a vegan cupcake no I mean like honestly how healthy is okay it's true it doesn't have eggs in it doesn't have dairy in it there is a difference between on being coke but still a lot of this stuff is is really no but I think the other thing lurking in the background here is could I make this better at home or could I make this just as well home yeah and a lot of the places we've eaten I'm not even thinking about Detroit sort of been going to a lot of restaurants that we've and well this was okay I've heard you say that even like but you could actually make the specific dish better it helped me vegan pizza when you really think about it pizza is the worst of course you can make it better vegan pizza or do you want to know lazier you know if we think about the ingredients like okay yeah you know red sauce you know vegan cheese whatever you know there's not that much to it I think you know what makes Detroit vegan solo stand out above all else there's a lot of food there I cannot yep make it home and the last time I went in the second time I did order an actually healthy meal one of their options is just to get three different types of greens three different types of grilled vegetables basically and I did that as the bank move fabulous so I had something like yeah yeah broccoli but something like fiddleheads collard greens yeah stuff like that you know so I had a whole plate of a bitter green visuals which I love for me that's a fabulous meal I mean that alone again what was over a certain threshold where I regarded the whole restaurant really positively even though they did actually do some things wrong and screw some things up you know but yeah even that even my my greens the same poor thing or that's not something I could or would you know make it home and I mean I could make broccoli but you know did you say the actual details of yeah I would not be able to make a second time or the first time because if it was a breakfast sandwich with like this veggie sausage I don't know how they did it the second time something with like coconut bacon and like chicken pho chicken you know like I I don't know and I'm not willing to put in the effort yeah yeah so yeah I mean I think that's the other thing working in the back corner are you offering people whether they're vegans or meteors whether or not it's fabulous within us but something really different from what they can what thing you know and yeah what can I tell you the future is not going to be vegan restaurants that fail to live up to the standards set by Olive Garden I just gotta say I think you know in terms of front of house service and in so many fundamental things we've got to start you know meeting those standards you remember we went to one restaurant in Thailand where they actually said if anything isn't good enough you get a refund you know say that's one attitude that's interesting there's another restaurant here in Seattle that says anything on your plate that you don't finish we charge you double for so if you're deciding you didn't like it you're guilty of wasting food and you're you're punished for it there are a lot of different kind of cultural responses to this yeah but I think also you know I mean I guess one attitude I bring to this that's maybe a little bit alien to a lot of other people in the game just when I say look there's a way minestrone soup it's supposed to taste this is not Minister there's a way French I mean su is supposed ate most of these vegan foods and dishes they're in this totally new territory where neither the people making them nor the audience have a preconceived set of expectations well this is supposed to yeah tastes like right so it's it's a new enough dish or it's a new enough category of dishes that you were stumbling water just don't you don't have those kinds of standards you need to temper ensure a traditional dish fruits Indonesia that's right sure sure sure but a lot of right just going vegan or so yeah they don't know what to expect I mean these are easy problems so everything everyone in cuisine has to do this tempeh is a great ingredient now how do you sell me a whole meal that involves tempeh that really works you know what I mean it can't be I think we had this at a green space this was just the white plate and again talked about I could make it better at home it was just tempeh taken out of a plastic packet cut and put on that white plate Thanks you know this is not yeah what's that bad again green space gets a zero out of ten from me but yeah that's uh you know that's a creative challenge for the people restaurant and the pricing and the costing and the the total the total package of the experience you're getting okay guys so that is it that is a review of every single restaurant in both vegan restaurant in both Detroit and Ann Arbor with what I hope are some useful reflections on I don't know past present and future of what's going on in bean cuisine we definitely see again and again and he said he would go to this big gulf between vegan restaurants and bakeries started in the 1980s in the 1990s in the 2000 just in the last couple of years and we also see warning signs for survive oh you know all right here you know youyou see something online and be like okay where is that located already right right you know so that's I mean in business school that's the most importantly deficits people when you're walking on the street you think you're seeing both success and failure in terms of the restaurants or whatever businesses you're talking about no you're only seeing success even the places that look like failure if they're still in bed yes they're still there to be seen right yeah you're not seeing all the ones that closed down so no and that would be interesting to know more about the the broken hearts and the the businesses that didn't make it whether in whether in Detroit or elsewhere yeah but sure be right now it seems you the high-tide for the vegan diet and it's dead list partly because the mainstream media is people like Oprah herself Oprah did a thing where her whole office became vegan for a month or something you know so mainstream TV like Oprah Winfrey has has has pushed this idea and in the same sense that look when I first met my girlfriend she'd never had Indian food you know I think most people are aware if they never had any food at some point in their life they should try it and show some interest in Indian cuisine vegan is emerging as a category of cuisine like Indian food in that sense the problem is veganism is an ethical and political and ecological movement and it's not a cuisine it's not one you know I even just contrasted you know green space Detroit vegan soul these don't represent us or we just recently that of course there's Chinese vegan food and Indian vegan food and so on and so forth so nobody quite knows what to expect nobody knows what the finish line is or nobody horse knows where the goal posts are and you know as shallow and stupid as it may be one of the lessons I'm trying to put in here is guys if you're vegan beyond still go to an Olive Garden or even cook is some successful mainstream restaurant and to really break it down what are the expectations that customers are bringing to your restaurant which can include even just the fact of getting a complete meal because a lot of the time you've got to offer enough protein you've got to offer enough greens you've got to offer enough of it next there yeah you know and if it's about social space you've got to offer enough social space there are all these different yes and you mentioned earlier in this video that you know none of these places seem to be fit for bringing your kids so I mean if you're yes marketing hipsters you know how much money are you actually going to make right right right or are you are you just feeding hipsters are you just feeding people who are so wealthy that they don't know the difference between $6 for a chocolate cake and $12 for one serving not for okay for one little cup of chocolate cake because that exists there are people that wealthy and there are you know there are hipsters there are vegan hipsters will come and hang out but yeah it made me wonder I said you won't point I wonder when we're gonna see the first vegan restaurant with a children's play area like a McDonald's play area first of all there are all these other categories you know are you actually making a place where these other people can get fed yeah like I just remember sorry I don't like I just remember at the lunchroom we sat next a person set next to us a woman with two kids and I just saw her kind of struggling with the seating and we're trying to feed yes right like you know these dinners like a plain sausage available on the kids menu vegan sausage of course but yeah just seeing that I just kind of was like oh this is not good friendly you know who's gonna do the vegan happy meal many I know it's a question you know yeah so there there are a lot of challenges out there but I mean probably the fatal flaw here what's really amateurish is that most of these dishes are beginning from a concept you know that's always a sign of an amateur oh I'm gonna take I'm gonna take cauliflower and make it taste like buffalo chicken wings okay but you're not thinking about from the customers perspective I'm here I want to get a full meal and I wanted to cost less than $30 you know yeah you know you're not looking at the other the other the phase of the process you just got this concept and it's a stunt oh wow this this tastes almost like real me this tastes almost like that okay fine well the novelty has worn off in terms of what's really gonna be durable what's really and nutritious right right right these the other questions going in ok guys I'm on patreon just Google my name and find I can give you the link below whatever if you guys want to talk to me if you want to carry this conversation forward we do live streaming we do you too we do it all hit me up