Veganopolis: I Bid Thee Adieux

The people behind Veganopolis are calling it quits. After 3 years and 10 months they are packing it in, and heading back off to Chicagoland, where according to their website, they hope to "finally finish" the Veganopolis cookbook. Apparently the business model for success in Bush's Amrica is to:

A.) Close your doors.

B.) Move 1500 miles away from your customer base to a city known for slaughter houses, and cold-cuts.

They ain't fooling me. Veganopolis fell in to the all-to-common trap of form before function. Is it a grocery store? An art gallery? A deli? A buffet? A place to park fixed-gear bicycles? I'm not sure? But I am sure that they have way too much under utilized space, and spent a whole lot of money renovating it. These problems - compounded by their tendency to over-staff - has likely led them to be unprofitable. The last time I was in Veganopolis was about a month ago. They had two people behind the counter, two cooks, a buss boy and both owners were present. It took us ten minutes to get the banana split we were sharing, and we were the only customers in the building. It's as if the whole business started over a glass of shiraz, one friend telling another: "You should really start a restaurant! Your food is so good! 

But the reality of owning a restaurant is hard work, long hours, sacrifice, and then more hard work yet. You don't run a quick-service deli like the French Laundry, and the quickest way to erode your bottom line is to shun any hard work yourself, and instead hire a cadre of employees. With the five employees working as I described above, paying them only minimum wage, monthly labor costs for Veganopolis would have been to the tune of $10,000.00. I did some research, and according to Portland real estate group Norris & Beggs, a smiliar sized and zoned property just 4 blocks from Veganopolis leases for $10,180.00 a month. At ten dollars a meal, they would have to serve over 2,000 meals a month just to pay the rent and employees. I am not even factoring in food cost, insurance, utilities and so on. Also, all of this is before the owners can pay themselves a dime. 

According to Wikipedia, 1.4% of Americans identify themselves as vegans. According to a 2007 estimate, there are 568,380 souls in Portland. If %1.4 are vegans, that means there are less than 6,000 vegans in Portland, and Veganopolis would have to draw 1/3 of us to their restaurant a month just to pay rent and cut paychecks. Again, all of this does not factor in other costs, or how many vegans are geographically close enough to even consider eating there.

Further evidence of Veganopolis's financial insolvency is an apparent lack of effort to try an sell the property. Generally, if a restaurant is profitable (or even close to profitable) it is much wiser to sell the business. Also, the timing of the closure is suspect. Many banks offer small business loans with a clause that allows the borrower up to 4 years to bring the business 'out of the red' and make it profitable. At that point the loan must be repaid. As they stated on their website - they have been in business 'three years and ten months.' I offer as further evidence that they are moving to Chicago. What vegan do you know that wants to move to Chicago?

Veganopolis was an excellent idea, executed poorly. As is standard for most vegetarian/ vegan restaurants, the service was slow (unless you are eating buffet items), and the food was expensive for what it was. While admittedly their food is better than most, they simply had too much over-head to remain afloat and eventually succumbed to questionable business practices. Vegan operations play by the same rules as any other business, yet we still tend to approach everything like we are going to change the world, operate outside of accepted principles, and turn everything we do in to an arts and crafts project. Let Veganopolis's fate be a warning to all of those thinking of entering into business, vegan-centric or other wise; Business isn't a game. It is all too easy to lose all that you have in a poorly planned or managed venture, and if the folks at Veganopolis had sat down at the kitchen table and done some simple arithmetic, they might still have a pot to piss in.