Ep. 165 - Vedge of Glory: How Two Plant-Based Restaurateurs Have Survived for Decades

Food & Beverage
Written By Paul Shapiro

SHOW NOTES

In the restaurant world, infant mortality is the norm. Nearly two-thirds of new eateries shut down in their first year. Only one in five lives to see its fifth birthday. So when a restaurant—not just any restaurant, but a plant-based fine-dining spot—thrives for decades, it’s not just impressive. It’s almost mythic.

Enter Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby, the married duo behind Vedge, the acclaimed Philadelphia restaurant that’s helped redefine what plant-based food can be. With nods from Bon Appétit, GQ, Food & Wine, and the James Beard Foundation, Rich and Kate have built more than a restaurant—they’ve built a movement. One that proves vegetables don’t need to play second fiddle—they can own the stage.

Now, I don’t know how these two do it. My wife and I love each other, but even the suggestion of collaborating on a work project sends us both reaching for diplomatic escape routes. Yet somehow, Rich and Kate not only run a business together—they do it with passion, purpose, and of course, with pastry.

Rich got his start in the ’90s with Horizons, a bold bet on vegetable-forward cuisine back when people didn’t even know how to pronounce “vegan,” let alone what it meant. Kate joined with a background in hospitality, bringing a refined palate and a pastry chef’s touch.

But this episode isn’t just about food. It’s about values. About running toward the hard stuff. About how two people built something meaningful—together—and stuck with it through all the chaos the restaurant industry throws your way.

If you're a foodie, an entrepreneur, or just a fan of staying married while doing the impossible—this one’s for you.

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

MORE ABOUT Rich Landau & Kate Jacoby

Husband/Wife team Richard Landau and Kate Jacoby are the Chefs/Owners of Philadelphia's renowned vegetable restaurant, Vedge.  

Chef Rich Landau, a pioneer of the modern, plant based dining experience, opened his first restaurant, Horizons, in 1994. His mission: to demonstrate the creativity and satisfaction of vegetable cuisine. Through his 3+ decades in the restaurant industry, teaching, consulting and in media appearances including winning Food Network’s Chopped, Landau has used the carnivore’s palate he grew up with to translate his vision for vegan cuisine to a broader audience.  Cooking Light Magazine said “Landau takes a guns-a-blazing approach to flavor”.  Chef Landau is a 6-time finalist for the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef Mid Atlantic as well as twice being named “Best chef in Philadelphia” by Philadelphia Magazine.

Chef Kate Jacoby studied French and Sociology at Georgetown. In 2001, she switched gears to join Landau at Horizons, the restaurant she had already grown to know and love as a customer. Her work in the kitchen beside Landau helped hone her pastry skills and shaped her approach to desserts. A James Beard Nationally Nominated Pastry Chef and a Certified Sommelier, her recent focus also includes overseeing the Wine Program and working the couples small vegetable farm in Chester County. 

Landau and Jacoby met in 2001 and began to grow the business together.   In 2009 The couple and their team cooked the first Vegan meal ever served at the James Beard House in Manhattan. In 2011 they opened “Vedge” in an elegant Center city Philadelphia brownstone to national acclaim. Landau and Jacoby have authored five cookbooks, including “Vedge: 100 Plates Large and Small that Redefine Vegetable Cooking” and the newly released released Vedge Cocktail Book.

Landau and Jacoby are both native Philadelphians who take pride in helping shape the culinary landscape in their region and who are committed to further raising the bar for vegetable cuisine across the country.  When not in the kitchen, they love to travel with their son Rio, always on the hunt for their next great food experience.

TRANSCRIPT

Paul Shapiro: Hello, friend. Welcome to episode 165 of the Business for Good Podcast. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback on the last episode with venture capitalist and author Nick Cooney. I'm glad that so many people got a lot out of it. I certainly enjoyed reading Nick's latest book and I was pleased to talk with him about it.

Now, speaking of authors from Philadelphia like Nick. It appears that we've got a bit of a theme right now on this show as this episode is with even more authors from the City of Brother. We love these folks, however, are not venture capitalists like Nick. Instead, they are entrepreneurs themselves and successful ones at that in the restaurant world, infant mortality is the norm.

Nearly two thirds of new eateries shut down in their first year. Only one in five lives to see its fifth birthday. So when a restaurant, and not just any restaurant, but a plant-based fine dining spot thrives for decades, it's not just impressive, it's almost mythic. Enter Rich Landau and Kate Jacobi, the married duo behind Veg, V-E-D-G-E.

The a acquainted Philadelphia restaurant that has helped redefine what plant-based food can be with nods from Bon Appetit, GQ Food and Wine, and the James Beard Foundation. Rich and Kate have built more than a restaurant, they have built a movement, one that proves that vegetables don't need to play second fiddle, that they can actually own the stage themselves.

Now, I don't know how these two do it. My wife and I love each other, but even the suggestion of collaborating on a work project sends us both reaching for diplomatic escape routes yet somehow. Rich and Kate not only run a business together, they do it with passion, purpose, and of course with pastry. Rich got a start in the nineties with Horizons, which I was very proud to have been a customer of.

It was a bold bet on vegetable forward cuisine back when people didn't even know how to pronounce vegan, let alone what it meant. And Kate joined with a background in hospitality, bring a refined palette and a pastry chef's touch. But this episode isn't just about food. It's about values, about running toward the hard of things, about how two people built something meaningful together and stuck with it through all the chaos.

The restaurant industry throws one's way. If you're a foodie, an entrepreneur, just a fan of staying married while doing the impossible, this episode is going to be for you.

Paul Shapiro: Kate and Rich, welcome to the Business for Good Podcast.

Kate Jacoby: Thank you so much for having us.

Paul Shapiro: Great to be here. Thanks. Hey, it's my pleasure. You know, I, I ate, I've eaten not only at Veg, but I've, I'm so old school that I've eaten at Horizons. Woohoo. Wow.

Rich Landau: Before the internet, man, I mean.

Paul Shapiro: You know, it's actually funny when when I first stopped eating animals in 1993.

My parents were quite concerned and they wanted me to see a nutritionist. And so I did not even know what a nutritionist was, but they got out the yellow pages, there was no Google, and they they got out the yellow pages to look up a nutritionist, and they brought me to one in Rockville, Maryland, who unbelievably in 1993, like by the grace of God, happened to be vegan herself.

Wow. Yeah, I, I mean, it must have been such a needle in a haystack, of course. But no, I, I love horizons and I love veg, and so I'm really glad to be talking with you. But let me ask you, you guys have, have withstood the test of time in the restaurant world. You have been [00:01:00] at this now for decades. Your plant-based diet makes you look much younger than you are, but you've been at this for decades.

But not everybody's been so fortunate. There's been headline after headline of plant-based restaurants going under some, call it an extinction level event. It's everything from fast food to fine dining. You see a lot of plant-based restaurants adding meat to their menus to try to stay in business.

You all though have survived the test of time. What's going on? I wanna know, like, what do you think is the problem that is causing this? And what have you done that has made you immune from these Ws?

Rich Landau: You know, that's a great question. I, I'll say first though, when I told my parents I was going vegetarian, they sent me to a psychiatrist.

So, you know, the fact that sent you to a nutritionist is some, some degree of acceptance. So you're, that's why you turned out so good, man. You're, you're, you know, that's really good. Good. Really lost your mind. Yeah, no, but you know, hey, eventually on the nights I cooked, no one seemed to complain. So yeah, that's [00:02:00] how it all started really, when I was about 15.

Yeah. So in, in all seriousness, you know, we are witnessing this, we've actually gotten calls from several colleagues, you know, old friends you know, and some other people around the country. I, I, you know, I can't, I'm not liberty to mention who they are, but you know, asking for help. And we see their books and you know, you basically see a slide in sales and when it comes down to business, you know, and restaurants are business.

I learned this the hard way I. I was the, I was the artist in the beginning. I just wanted people to try my art. It was all about the art. I didn't care about the money. And then I basically, you know, my dad took me to his accountant and he just beat the crap outta me. And he just shook my hippie self and said, dude, you gotta wake up.

You gotta get real about business. This is a business, you know, great that you have art, great that you're cooking. But if you don't know how to run a business, you're done. You know, you might as well just pack it up now and get yourself a real job. So when you see this slide in, in [00:03:00] sales and revenue, and it, I don't know if it's so much just a plant-based thing, it's all over the restaurant industry.

So I, I don't know if it's exclusive to what we do. You have to manage what you have. You read all about these airlines. They've taken billions in revenue, yet they declare bankruptcy. Well, you know, isn't that a matter of like just managing what you're taking in? You could take in a hundred dollars a week in sales if you manage it well, you might be able to walk with 30 and, and be able to, you know, eat for another week.

So I, I think we're seeing the big test of, you know, can, you know, listen, most people who open up a vegan restaurant, there's a, it's a mission based. Venture. We believe in something. Anyone who gets into vegan food just for the money, I mean, come on. There's very, very few of them out there. And you know, if you got into a vegan restaurant just for the money, you're not that smart.

You deserve to go out of business. But most of us got into it 'cause we believe in it. We believe in it deeply. Whether it's for the environment, for the animals, for our personal health, we believe [00:04:00] in this. And therefore we're not really, we're not really tuned into the business side of it. And you have to really watch it, and you've gotta watch it all the time.

They're like weeds in your garden. If you don't get ahead of it, it will get outta control, and it is very, very, very hard to fix once it's gotten bad,

Kate Jacoby: but. Five, six years ago, seven years ago, when maybe some people were interested in like taking advantage of what was becoming so trendy with vegan and plant-based.

I mean when, when Rich started out in 94, I joined up with him in 2001 and we were always kind of walking on eggshells talking about what we did. We talked about the food, you know, we never really wanted to put the V in front of anything. Like we just, you know, kind of wanted to say this is all about delicious food cast the widest net possible.

And when we branded as veg back in 2011, that was exactly the mission. It was to open a vegetable restaurant because everybody eats vegetables. You know, not everybody is vegetarian or vegan every day, [00:05:00] but everyone eats vegetables. So that was the idea to reach a broad audience. And I think at some point, again, like late teens there, I, I think some people are like, Hey, wait a second, this is catching on.

And I, we have a, a, a friend, colleague. I, I literally, I saw him transform, you know, and he was like bragging to us about all the plant-based milk that he has in his fridge at home. Whereas he used to make fun of us. So I, I think there was a moment where people started to say, Hey, we can, we can capitalize on this.

But I think at this moment, what we're talking about, it has been a little bit of a shift that all the folks in plant-based circles have acknowledged that it's sort of like. Where, where did the momentum go? And you know, our, our son is 17 and he tells us like the sort of different interpretations you can find online about vegan diets and plant-based diets and things.

So it's interesting to think about how the narrative has been explored in different circles and I guess it kind of depends who you follow, who you listen to, and what kind of support you [00:06:00] get.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I mean, you're, you're making an an excellent point. I think about how, let's say six years ago or five years ago, the plant-based space was on fire.

You had celebrities opening up plant-based restaurants, you had literally billions of dollars flowing into startups that were trying to replace meat. You had valuations that were sky high, including pre-revenue startups with literally $1 billion valuations. That's how competitive it was to get into these financing rounds for some of the plant-based companies.

Today, the venture capital has largely dried up. Not entirely, but largely dried up for a lot of the plant-based food tech startups. The restaurants are, you know, going under, not all of them, but many of them are. It does feel like it, it may not just be poor management of money. Maybe it is, maybe you have a lot of people who don't know anything about business who just, you know, care about animals and environment or whatever and they want to start a a [00:07:00] restaurant.

But it does seem like there is something different, right? I mean, it does, you know, we see even in meat demand, right? Per capita meat demand has gone up not down. Right? Per capita meat demand in America is higher now than it was five years ago. And so I, I wonder is there something culturally that is happening that is providing headwinds for the plant-based space?

I don't know if you have thoughts on this, but it, it feels like it's a different market. Oh yeah, for

Rich Landau: sure. I, I think, you know, I, I kind of saw this whole storyline play out when beyond an impossible hit the market. I, I think, I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. I think it was kind of an obvious thing to see.

I was a huge supporter of these products when they first came out, and we still eat them every now and then. I think they're delicious and they remind me it's the first product that came out that, you know, kind of mimic that big, thick burger You might remember from having, you know, as a kid or the ones you see on TV that you can't have.

They did an amazing job with these products and what I love them, not just because I love to indulge in them every now and then, but I love that they show people in a very, [00:08:00] very easy kind of, you know, quick, quick trick way, what we've been trying to do for years, that people love good food. They love flavor, they love, you know, it's not really meat that tastes good.

It's, you know, what the chefs do to it. And if you can synthesize that flavor of meat and put it in something that. Resembles meat. Well, you know, the, you know, the, what do you say? The curtains pulled back and you can now see that it was never really about meat in the first place 'cause you can actually mimic it.

So I felt it was a great transitional product. It actually led more people to us. It showed people in places you would never see a vegan cafe out in the middle of the country that, wait a second, I don't have to eat meat, I don't have to put any cholesterol in my body and I can get the same satisfaction.

I thought it was wonderful. But I also, and I said this to Seth, the, the owner of or creator of Toki, he came to visit us one time at Veg and I said, man, you know, I, I love where this is right now. This is about six years ago or so, but [00:09:00] I, I am worried about where it's going. Once the people who love meat start saying what's in that stuff, and that's exactly what's happened.

They, you know, they, they've kind of like. Said it's ultra processed, it's not that good for you. It's loaded in sodium. I mean, I think that's all kind of bullshit because all, all foods can be bad for you if they're done improperly. So we, our cat is terrorizing us right now. You're gonna hear a few bumps.

It's either him, me, the door,

Paul Shapiro: I will say like it, it makes me wonder, right? So maybe the so-called ultra processing claim is sticking, but you know, when somebody goes to Burger King. They have their choice between a regular whopper and an impossible whopper. Are they really not buying the impossible whopper because it contains Methylcellulose?

Like, I mean, I wonder like, is that really the thing that's holding them back? Like, part of me just thinks, well, you know, in an inflationary environment where people have less money, are they willing to spend more for these products? [00:10:00] Maybe they would if they felt they were really much better for them, but maybe not.

I mean, you know, I, I really think that if, if you track. How the economy is doing, it generally tracks with per capita meat demand. And so anyway, I have, I've wondered like if you look at the last time per capita meat demand dipped in the United States was after the Great Recession and it's been on a steady march ever since.

And then once you had an inflationary environment coming in and people having less money, they were spending less on foods that cost more and beyond an impossible, no matter how good they taste, are not slightly more than meat, they're dramatically more than meat. Yes. Even before, even before Beyond raise their prices, which they have done recently, but even before then, you know, two Beyond Burgers were like 6 99 with, for in their quarter pounders.

So, you know, it's like $14 a pound retail, right? $14 a pound retail that, that's not 30 or 40% more expensive than conventional hamburgers at the supermarket. That's like three or 400%.

Rich Landau: So, I mean, that's a great point though, but you know, who are they catering to really is what it comes down to. You're, you're not really catering to the [00:11:00] Burger King and McDonald's crowd.

They say that, you know time is the new currency as we get older. Well, what can you do to get more time? You can prolong your life by, you know, taking care of your health. By not consuming cholesterol. It's kind of proven that you're probably gonna do better in the long run, and therefore, if you do have money, you have the ability to shop at Whole Foods all the time.

You know, not just for the the luxury items. You can shop at Whole Foods, you can dine it, fine dining. Vegan restaurants, you could do vegan tasting menus and you can, without blinking, get the Beyond Burger over a beef burger. So maybe the mistake, the miscalculation is that they've, they've said, well, let's, let's go for the Burger King crowd because they'll, they'll want this.

Listen, burger King's the number one litter I see in our area. Maybe it's a crowd that just isn't ready to embrace it.

Paul Shapiro: It's funny you mention that, rich. 'cause I, I walk my dog along the Sacramento River pretty often and I see a lot of litter and I was [00:12:00] thinking, I, I know that plant-based has arrived when I start seeing.

Like plant-based milk cartons. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. Well, you know, I'm not glad there's litter, but it shows like at least we've gone mainstream. Let's get back to the origin. I wanna back, yeah, I wanna get back to plant-based meat a little bit because I know that you all don't. We serve it at the restaurant and we won't get into that.

But let me ask just about the origin. So Kate, you mentioned that you joined up in 2001. I know that you all were working at the restaurant. This site presume was like a, an office place connection that you guys made, but what, what was the genesis for you that led you to be interested in this in the first place?

Kate Jacoby: Well, if you remember, we bumped into each other at the DuPont Circle Metro. This is going way back. You were handing out flyers for COKI think it said like, why go vegan? And I looked at the flyer and I'm like, it's cool. And I think we were just like,

Paul Shapiro: yeah. So it's funny you mentioned this, so I do [00:13:00] remember that we talked about this, but that wasn't, was that, that wasn't necessarily the origin story for you.

Right? That was like a, an interesting connection that. I, it was sometime, I think in the, maybe like the, around 2000 or the late nineties, I think I was passing out brochures in Washington DC and I gave you a brochure, but I, I think that you were already interested in animals before that, or am I mistaken in that?

Kate Jacoby: Yeah, so in about, in I was about 16 years old and I. Was sort of introduced to the idea of being vegetarian. And I was doing a summer program that was five weeks, and I'm like, I'll try it for five weeks. Okay. And lo and behold, I didn't look back. I was like, this is easy. Oh, cool. And actually there was actually one thing, there was this weird like chicken salad on a croissant that I said, I'll always eat that.

And I went and I had it and I was like, oh God, how did I ever eat this stuff? It was really chewy, I remember. And I, so I guess after that one I never looked back. But then flash forward to college and I remember understanding then what vegan meant. Originally, kind of like [00:14:00] with your story, when I first told my mom that I was gonna go vegetarian, the first thing she did, she got me like a hummus bagel sandwich.

She's like, you're gonna need more protein. So I, there was always that idea, like, if you're gonna go vegetarian, you need to watch out for protein. And then into college it was sort of, if you go vegan, what about calcium and all these other things. So it was sort of a, a. I don't know if it was a challenge, I guess I was like, I'm gonna meet this challenge.

So originally if I approached vegetarianism for animal rights reasons, then I took it a step further knowing that my dad had tremendous heart health issues. I thought, human health wise, this is good. I'll go vegan. But then it was around the time, like prior to running into you that on this college campus.

Internet's all over the place, learning really about the environmental impact of the animal industry. So it was sort of a no-brainer. I mean, no, it wasn't sort of, it really was a no-brainer. It was like, why would I do this if I don't have to? And of course, this was a couple years after I had dined at Rich's Restaurant Horizons Cafe.

So I [00:15:00] knew that there was tremendous culinary. Amazement to be had, right? Like there was great food happening, you did not need to eat meat. So you know, I was kind of exploring it on my own. Cooking at home, like, you know, on my own. But then after I graduated, I went to get a summer job working with this guy.

And it was fantastic. I not only worked on the front of house, but got to prep a little bit in the back with him and started to learn a lot about how he was transforming food. And again, he was completely self-taught. There was nobody doing this. There were no YouTube videos showing you how to do it.

There was nothing. So everything that he did was just because he wanted to eat well, and I quickly became his sidekick and was like, well, I wanna bake well too. So, you know, it was just kind of like one thing after another. Not only learning the basics of what made us tick as foodies, who really wanted to eat just as well as anybody else in the world, but then paying attention to the culture of dining and the culture of the restaurant industry.

We knew very quickly that we needed a liquor license to be taken very, very seriously. So we went from suburban Philly down [00:16:00] to downtown Philly and you know, again, that origin story's becoming much longer. One thing leading to another, we just recognized. How important it was if we wanted to be taken as a legitimate culinary experience, that we would have to push ourselves not just with the food, but with the service and with the space.

Paul Shapiro: So what was the genesis of your thinking regarding how you wanted to make this a restaurant that did not focus necessarily on the protein, but on vegetables? Right? So you changed from horizons to veg, V-E-D-G-E in order to have this celebration of vegetables. But you know, you look at a lot of the restaurants, including the higher ends ones, like they would've like, you know, Satan roasts and other really pro tenacious products, whereas veg is really more vegetable centric.

Right. What was the thinking on this is, is were you trying to zig when others were zagging so to speak? Or did you just love [00:17:00] vegetables so much, or you just thought that people were going to want vegetables?

Rich Landau: No, the the, the former, I mean, we really, we didn't wanna follow any path that was already out there 'cause none of 'em were leading to, you know, where we wanted to be.

Most vegan restaurants back then, they were, they, they just weren't what we aspired to be, you know, no offense to any of 'em. 'cause I, I've eaten at many of them, and the food's wonderful. It's just not what we, how we wanted to be identified. I love vegetables, but even more so, I love. Protein. I love tofu.

I love Satan. I love the occasional Beyond Burger, and I love the occasional, you know, imitation poultry product. It's how I grew up. It's what I ate, and it literally speaks to me emotionally. It is my comfort food. So, but I also noticed that the biggest problem in our industry is that especially my original place was inside a health food store.

You know, you just, everyone coming in was just like you, it was, they're on [00:18:00] like caricatures of themselves. I mean, they were, you, you just saw it, you know, you know, there's the hippie do that and there's the, there's the lady with nothing to do this, and there's the dude who just smoked too much weed and here's the person who thinks they're dying but isn't and needs, you know, you just, they were just like this parade of characters.

And even as we expanded and got bigger and became like a legitimate restaurant, it was a very, very identifiable crowd that we had in there. And I'm like, you know what? We're not reaching the main mainstream, we're not reaching the peripheral crowd that goes out to Rittenhouse Square. Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia is like our central park.

You know, it's like our, our, our fancy area in town. We weren't reaching that crowd. You know, the, the older crowd, the baby boomers, the ones that go out for, you know, chicken cordon blue and, and prime rib and all that. We wanted them. I said, we are not legitimate until we have everyone eating in this restaurant.

I don't care who they are, what they believe [00:19:00] in, if they never even another vegan meal, I want them in here to experience this just so they can see that what we do has legitimacy. And and that's what we, that's what we set out to do. And I, and I thought that this crowd does not wanna see tofu and Satan on a menu.

Because you know what? We've heard all the jokes, man. I mean, we've, I still hear them all the day. Satan, come on. What's, what the hell's a tofu? So. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: So speaking of jokes, speaking of jokes, your commentary about the crowd that was being attracted to at the health food stores reminds me of the old joke that, you know, what's the biggest impediment to widespread veganism?

It's vegans, obviously. So hundred percent. You know? Yeah. It's always like trying to have some, some self-deprecating humor a about ourselves here, but, you know, e even in addition to focusing on vegetables, you guys, as you alluded to earlier, and you kind of have been sort of famous for this is. Not even talking about vegan, right?

Like some places want to be, never say vegan, but you [00:20:00] know, the, the B word to you all is like a scarlet letter. And I've noticed this as well on there are some pro, some plant-based products that. Want to put vegan front and center. And there's others like beyond that would never do this. Right?

And the, the research is very clear on this. If, if you want to attract vegans, you might want to use the vegan word, but vegans are far less than 1%, right? If you wanna attract the mainstream audience. Using vegan on the front of pack is very clearly detrimental to to,

Rich Landau: well. I said this from day one. I said, the vegetarians and vegans will be at this restaurant no matter what they'll find.

We're all, we're all desperate, we're all starving for a great meal. For the next great experience, they'll be there no matter what. You gotta reach out to the mainstream, and that's why we never touched the V word.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, there, you know what I've written about this, so I'll include a link in the show notes for this episode at Business for good podcast.com.

But. The study after study shows that if you want to reduce demand for a product, label it vegan like that is, it's just so clear [00:21:00] and and, and it, even on restaurant menus, studies show that if a, if you have a separate vegetarian or vegan section on the menu, you will reduce demand for the items in that section than if you just intersperse them throughout the rest of the menu.

Like in a conventional restaurant. Absolutely. It's just, I, I

Kate Jacoby: totally, yeah, I, I, I, I agree with that entirely. It's the whole reason, you know, getting back to opening veg, why did we rebrand from Horizons to Veg? We chose the name because obviously we wanted to kind of hint at what we do. So veg pretty much says it right.

We chose that spelling because we didn't want it to be that stereotypical veg thing. So the spelling was, was fun. But I, again, it comes back to this idea of like, cast the broadest net. That same idea, like we are talking about food here and not a lifestyle. And if you make the food really delicious, people will want it and they can feel included.

If you label it, you automatically set up some kind of boundary and then people have to jump that hurdle or not, and. The [00:22:00] idea was just set a good example, make it just so delicious that everybody's gonna wanna try it. And you know, it, it wasn't feeling like any kind of sacrifice, like you weren't having, you could participate without feeling like you were saying something about your identity, you know?

Oh, sure. I

Rich Landau: mean, vegetables are food. Vegans a lifestyle comes all back to that. So it was a very, very conscious decision. And we really you know, we've still got plenty of vegans and vegetarians. They're all there. It's just, and we'll talk to them secretly

Kate Jacoby: about it. No, well that's the other thing. It's sort of like, we just don't want people to tell us how to live our life or what to do.

Mm-hmm. So we wouldn't wanna do that to anybody else. And I feel like I've shared that advice sometimes with some customers. And I have one in mind who's had been like, hardcore, strict, strict vegan, and, you know, I, I kind of told her that our approach was really just to, to not make anybody feel put off.

But to welcome everybody and you didn't have to be vegan to eat here. And I think that having that approach helped her. She said, you know what, when I would go to family dinners and I was so strict and I couldn't participate and I had to bring my own [00:23:00] food, it made everybody feel uncomfortable. She's like, but I loosened up just the slightest bit and.

Now it's like so much better. People are way more welcoming to her and she feels more comfortable. So I, I think in the long run you talk about sustainability, the sustainability of veganism or plant-based. You have to just exist and coexist and you know, there's gonna be rollercoasters in everything.

And restaurant profitability and dining trends even in a individual's own choices and, and what they're eating throughout points in their life. And I think the idea is like. Always just try to chip away and continue to to strive for that goal.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, so you, you have mentioned the longevity. The sustainability veg has existed for a long time.

It's a profitable restaurant. You guys actually make a living from doing this, but so many others have not been able to do that. Rich earlier in the. Conversation. You said you just think that you all have managed your money well, right? That you've been, let's say, more frugal than [00:24:00] others might have been with their capital, so they couldn't take them 30 out of that a hundred.

Is there any other secret to your success that you think that if somebody else is either running a restaurant or thinking about running a restaurant that you would offer for them? Like anything that you would recommend that have, that you all think that you've done well, aside from just you know, being frugal with your money.

Rich Landau: Oh, I mean, sure. I mean, I, I don't even know if we are, we're being frugal. I think it's just a matter of, being intelligent and knowing, you know, when to spend and where to spend when the sales get a little lean I mean, I guess you could call that frugal to me it's just, it's just like the smart allocation of funds, you know, where, where do you want to focus?

You know, do you, do you buy things you don't really need at times when the sales aren't rolling in and when the sales are rolling in, do you spend recklessly. On things that, you know, are you, we always use the term gathering nuts. You know, May's a very busy month for us. The first week of June is not, so, you know, you, you save, you save when it's busy.

So that first week of June, that payroll run isn't as [00:25:00] painful. I. But you know, to me, I think that it's a work ethic when it comes down to it. You cannot have a restaurant without a work ethic. A very, very strong work ethic and involvement. Now, we're not present every day at veg anymore. We've, we've moved out to the country.

We live about 40 minutes away, so we're not there every single day anymore. But we're in touch constantly. We are in touch with the numbers. We're in touch with our staff. We, we watch the reservations. We watch how their, the flow. You, we just, we never checked out from it. And I think the kiss of death in the restaurant business is if you just say, well, I'm a fully staffed, let me just let it run.

Absolutely impossible. It's the kiss of death. So we stay very involved and, and very aware of what's happening there. You know, you gotta have your finger on the pulse. And you, we also know having done this for. So many years now. We know so many of our guests so very well, and we, when they talk to us about their experience there, we listen not directly to what they're saying, but what they're kind of saying, you know, what they're [00:26:00] saying underneath of it.

You've gotta learn to read the actual language that people are talking to you. And so I, I, beyond that, I just don't know. I mean, you just gotta make sure your product is something people really want that, you know, give up the artist and start. For cooking for them. You know, remember the movie The Big Night where the, the saying was the first year you cook for them and then after that you cook what you wanna cook for them.

I dunno if that's really true. You gotta really cook for your audience. If you want them in there, you've gotta give them food they want to eat.

Paul Shapiro: Speaking of your guests, are there any particular guests who you've had, who you were, who were either well-known folks or folks who you were really psyched to have in there when you saw 'em walk in?

Rich Landau: Oh, tons of, yeah, sure. Tons. Yeah.

Kate Jacoby: We try to just let them dine though and, you know, make sure that they had a great time. The biggest one is when they come back, you know, and you're like, oh, great. Yeah. If they're in town for

Rich Landau: a shoot and they come back the next night, no, they're, they're just guests to us.

They're just diners. You know, we charge 'em double, but you know, they're, they're just our diners, [00:27:00] you know. I'm just kidding.

Paul Shapiro: It reminds me of one time I was at Crossroads in Los Angeles and which is a another very nice, right. Absolutely happiest restaurant. And I was there and, and Al Pacino and Robert De Niro walked in together and they were like quickly ushered to a back room and they just walked in.

Like it was just like normal that they were going to a restaurant. And I remember like, it was like time stopped as they walked by and I was watching them go, go by this goodbye. Oh, that's so cool.

Rich Landau: Yeah, it's easy to get starstruck, I think. But you know, at the end, they're just two dudes who are there for dinner.

You know,

Kate Jacoby: we, we do have a back entrance and there was one night there was a party that came in. There were about eight of them, maybe 10. And, you know, it was very quiet. Nobody was saying anything. And our staff was super cool, but somehow somebody must have leaked it because there was like a local paparazzi person who was camped out in the back and got pictures.

I was like, what? That's crazy. So yeah, Philly doesn't maybe get. All of the stars, but we get our share and it's nice that they come to bitch. So,

Rich Landau: yeah. And some of them are friends of ours, you [00:28:00] know, who who we keep in touch with. So but you know, at the end of the day it, it's just dinner. To me, my philosophy has always been, this is one thing we have in common with.

Every human being on the planet, you know, all the great cuisines of the world. Whatever country you live in, whatever religious belief you may have, whoever you are, wherever, we all have to eat dinner and so do the celebrities. And at that moment when we're lifting that fork to our mouths, we, we are just all one.

We are just this the same person. Getting that meal. So we try not to make a big deal about it, you know?

Paul Shapiro: Very nice. All right. Well I, I, when I come there, I hope you don't make a big deal. I know there'll probably be paparazzi in the back. Yeah,

Kate Jacoby: we, we'll be very chill.

Rich Landau: Yeah. I will tell you one quick, funny story though.

And, and I don't mind mentioning their names because I've told this so many times before, but I was a huge Star Trek, the next generation geek. Forever. I thought it was one of the greatest shows on TV right there. Yeah. So they touched on subjects in the nineties that no one, I mean third rail subjects that just [00:29:00] are, you know, hot button topics today that they were kind of exploring, you know, indirectly through their storytelling back then.

And I, I just love the show. I was never an original Star Trek fan and I didn't like anything that came after it, but the next generation was something special. Anyway, I'm walking through the Bard Veg one day and this lady calls me over and she's like, are you the chef? I said, yeah. She's like, oh my God, I love this food.

She's like, I'm Gates McFadden. And this is Michael Dorn from Star Trek, the Next Generation. And I said, oh my God. And she went, oh my God. And I said, oh my God. And this lasted for what seemed like 10 minutes. But they're both vegan. Michael Dorn, who plays wharf is vegan and they've been back several times with different members of the cast.

That, that was a, a starfucker moment for me.

Paul Shapiro: Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a fun fact about Star Trek. So Leonard Nemoy, who of course plays Spock. Is was, he's now dead, but was a vegetarian. Mm-hmm. And made his character Spock a vegetarian as well. [00:30:00] So both the actor and the character are both vegetarian because you know, Vulcans are supposed to be hyper logical.

Being vegetarian is a logical thing to do. And so that was all part of like his creation of this, of this character, and also another fun. In fact about it is the the the Vulcan salute, right? Like I'm, I, I'm showing you the Vulcan salute Live long and prosper, that Leonard Nemo himself added that to the character.

So he had seen as a young boy in synagogue, he had. Seen his rabbi doing this. If you ever look at like rabbis who are doing blessings, they'll often do what we now know as the Vulcan salute. But for centuries they've been doing that, and so he thought that was like a cool way to make a salute, and then he added that to the character.

So anyway, I I'm a,

yeah. Yeah,

Rich Landau: that would be a very interesting story. If wharf ever became vegan on

Paul Shapiro: star Rek a

Rich Landau: cling on becoming vegan, that would be an awesome story.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, that really would be. But anyway, if you, if, if you are [00:31:00] interested, there's a a really good documentary called For the Love of Spock, which is about Leonard Nemo's life.

It's pretty awesome. Oh, cool. But yeah, yeah. I, I am, I, I too am a TNG fan for sure. But anyway, I, I want to ask you, you know. You both are self-taught. You've come at this and created a successful, not just one restaurant, but constellation of restaurants that you're op, that you're, that you own or operate.

And I imagine that there are many people who look at your success and think, I want to do something like them. How did they do it? Right? You know, you didn't go to the ccia a. You didn't have the formal training, you self-taught for the culinary arts and baking arts, are there resources that you would recommend?

Anything that was actually helpful for you? I'm, I'm sure that the experience in and of itself was the most helpful, but was there anything that was useful for you, either from a culinary perspective or from a business perspective that you would recommend for people to check out?

Kate Jacoby: Well, I, I think honestly just the idea of starting really small within your [00:32:00] means and working your ass off.

And then once you, you know, it's almost like gambling, like you put in a little bit and once you start to have winnings you only play with that. So, not that I gamble, but I. That would be my, my suggestion is like, you know, do your research. Get in there with a little bit of seed money that you earned.

Right? And like, it's your own money, you're gonna really take care of it. That's another thing, like, we've only ever worked with our own funds. So when we do something, we really wanna do it well and we're gonna manage it very cautiously because it's our own. So I would say only then grow when it really makes sense.

You know, people come to us and say. You know, should I go to culinary school? I, I wanna have a, a restaurant. And we're like, listen, only do this industry, only open restaurant. Only do this if you can't not do it. Because it is not for the faint of heart. It is a lot of work, especially early on. If you're in it, you are going to miss all kinds of family gatherings.

You are gonna miss holidays. I mean, it's, it's really, really challenging. And I, I think nowadays with the, the [00:33:00] sort of focus on a work-life balance, restaurants seem even wackier, you know, why would you wanna do this? Because you're working at night and you're working on holidays and you know, I mean.

Valentine's Day is not something that we care about as first, you know, between the two of us. It's just like, what? So it's a lifestyle choice really. But if you can't not do it, do it. Do it modestly, work your butt off. And then I think once you have that real world experience, like then go ahead, get all the credentials you want, go and, you know, take this or that class.

I found it very helpful to get to become a certified sommelier because it's sort of. Entered me into a, a slightly different realm that I wasn't really getting with, you know, without that sort of direction. Once you have those chops, go and talk to people and try to do STAs. I think that's another thing that our kitchen is always like too small to accommodate a, a big range of interns or sts.

But I generally think kitchens seem to be pretty. Pretty excited to welcome people in if you're very enthusiastic about, you know ferments or you're very enthusiastic about a certain style of cuisine, [00:34:00] like asking for as stage I think is a great idea. People are very flattered to talk about their food, so I, I think making those kinds of connections are, you know, it's hit or miss sometimes people are too busy for you, but I think that you shouldn't be afraid to, to reach out and just connect on a, you know, a culinary level.

Rich Landau: I, I'll also add to that, you know, when you mention resources you know, we've tried to look at a few things. You know, you have to keep in mind that what we did and or have done did not exist anywhere. And we knew this. We wanted to, you know, it wasn't think outside the box, it was build the box. We really wanted to, we were doing something that no one had really ever pulled off.

And so we start to look at a few things. How, how do, how do you keep restaurant costs in check and. You know, I pull this up and they talk about food costs. I'm like, all right, food costs, we're doing great. And then they're like, labor costs. I'm like, oh man. Oh boy. Wow. It takes a lot of work to you know, get a carrot to taste like a steak.

So so there's really no great [00:35:00] model for a, a vegan restaurant on an upscale level that. That kind of was paving the way for us. There was no great, there was some common sense stuff, don't get me wrong, but when it came down to just numbers, you know, and it was a lot of learning the hard way. You know, I'll tell you that we used to be open six nights at veg and it, it takes a little while.

First year is brutal and any restaurant you open up first year is brutal. Second year, you start to get your ducks in a row and then you can get things together. But, you know, we were open six nights, but this was in like 2017 or so. Every restaurant in Philly, every, you know, big name restaurant was open six nights and they started to open the seventh night.

Philly was just on fire. Everybody wanted you all at the time. So we said, well, we're the only, you know, you know, bigger name restaurant in town that's not open seven nights, we gotta do this. We opened seven nights and the books went way outta whack. The labor skyrocketed. The only thing that got better was the rent percentage.

It came down by like a 2%. The labor skyrocketed and even the food costs, [00:36:00] because you don't have the right management structure there all the time to watch the food the way it was, you know? You know, being managed, you know, on a Saturday night when you're closed, on Sunday, you're watching what you're prepping.

When you're open seven nights, you just prep and prep and prep and prep and things get outta control. They get lost. So we actually, even though we increased our sales by opening seven nights, we lost some profit by doing that. And then all of a sudden, more is not more. And we kept trying to fix it until the pandemic fixed it for us, and now we're only open five nights.

It again, took us about a year and a half to figure out how to get veg profitable on a five night model. And we did. It's, it is not the same. It will never be the same as pre pandemic, but. We managed to get it rolling. And I, and I think that's one of the problems is that you, it's very rare to have a restaurant open, a fine dining restaurant that's open seven nights a week right now.

The staff doesn't want it. Nobody wants it. I don't want it. I mean, it's, it's a horrible amount of strain and stress and, and, and [00:37:00] lifestyle sacrifice who wants it? We all learn that during the pandemic. So how do you make it work? Well, a lot of people are, it's very, very challenging.

Paul Shapiro: Indeed. Yeah. It certainly is.

And Kate, your reference to work-life balance reminds me of something that I read recently where there was a successful founder of a company and he was asked about work-life balance and he said, you know, I think it sounds good, but I would hate to recommend something that's the exact opposite of what I did to succeed.

It should, you know.

Rich Landau: Oh, that's exactly it, man. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: So finally, let me ask you guys, are there any companies or products that you wish existed? Is there something that you wish that you could serve at the restaurant that you don't have access to, or some other company or restaurant that you hope somebody will listening will found themselves?

Kate Jacoby: Yeah, so I'm actually working with Rich to create an app that can transform any existing recipe into a veg recipe.

Paul Shapiro: Fun. Okay, cool. I haven't

Kate Jacoby: found one that exists, so

Paul Shapiro: yeah, I've not, I've not heard of that. That sounds fun. You would [00:38:00] know,

Kate Jacoby: wouldn't you?

Paul Shapiro: I think that I would, but I don't know. There's so much that happens in the world that I don't hear about, so I don't know.

But yeah, that sounds like a pretty interesting idea. Okay, cool. I, I feel like there's an AI component of that that would make it pretty easy, right? Yes. Like that, like that would inform what the app gives people.

Kate Jacoby: Yes, yes. But I don't know. Maybe the technology needs some help.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Okay. Cool. Alright.

Alright. Well that's a cool idea. Are there any other ideas of things that don't exist yet or that don't exist in the form that you wish it did that you hope will come into fruition?

Rich Landau: I, I think a lot of the things that I wanted about five or six years ago have actually really, they, they've come around you know, Oscar Meyer is making a vegan hot dog now.

That is very, very good. And you know, it's, this is funny 'cause it's psychological. There's a lot of great vegan hot dogs out there and I loved hot dogs when I was a kid, you know, and you gotta, you gotta try 'em on like, like one of those white squishy death buns. You can't use the whole wheat bun or anything.

You [00:39:00] just gotta go for it with yellow mustard. You just gotta like dive into that. So I've, I've loved most of the vegan hot dogs that are out there, but there's something psychological about walking down the aisle and seeing Oscar Meyer plant-based. Knowing that a company massive as massive as they are, that has been known for basically, you know, has identified with animal slaughter, mass animal slaughter, to get their products on there, is now making a vegan hotdog.

There's something so rewarding about that that I, I really have never been able to explain, but I, I, I love that the big, big, big companies are starting to embrace this. I don't think. I think you have to look at what's happening with vegan restaurants and vegan products as like the stock market.

You, we've gotta look at long game. I think we're in a little bit of a dip right now. I think there's perception out there that has been, I think it got too big and there's companies out there that are, you know, used to the way things were, want them to be back there and there's a [00:40:00] little threat going on and we, they're saying back off and they're, they're.

Great to make sure that people kind of change their minds, but we're only in a lull right now. It will be back. Listen, what we do at veg is just good food. That will never go away, you know? I don't think I. A fake hotdog or fake burger will ever go away. It just might not be as popular as it once was, but it's not gonna go away.

So what would I like people to invent? I, I like to keep, I'd like, I'd like really, really big companies. I salute all the upstarts, by the way, don't get me wrong, I like the really, really big companies to stop, you know, to, to just say, you know, listen, if I can't beat 'em, join 'em. And I'd like to see more companies like Oscar Meyer.

Doing something, you know plant-based like that.

Paul Shapiro: Rich, I couldn't possibly agree with you more. I think that if we're gonna win, it's gonna be by working with the big food companies, not trying to compete against them in a David and Goliath battle. Even though in that case David won, David usually does not win.

[00:41:00] So I I, I completely agree with you. And you know, interestingly, you know, a plant-based meat has existed for over a thousand years, right? Like ancient China had plant-based meat literally more than a thousand years ago. We're, it's gonna be people who wanna mimic meat in some way and some brands will do well.

There are some brands even today that seem to be doing fairly well, especially like in the plant-based dairy space. And others aren't. I saw sadly, even Tau, which has been around for decades just to declare bankruptcy. So it's, you know, it's, it's such a shame to see. But I feel like we're in a winter and just like there.

If you're in a winter, that means that there will be a spring, and I, I feel the same that there, that is coming a hundred

Rich Landau: percent. And also, listen, we have to I, I salute anyone who's gonna do this upstart, but you know, listen, if you ha, if you have a, an ice cream shop on the street and someone else opens up an ice cream shop on the same block, and then the third person opens up an ice cream shop on the same block, I don't know who really wins.

And it's really tricky. You don't ever want to discourage anyone from following their dreams or starting this wonderful [00:42:00] new, what could be the next Boca Burger Beyond Burger. But man, there's a, there's a lot of products out there right now.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. I, I still really like the Boca chicken patties actually.

I think they're quite good. Oh, they're great. Yeah. But as, as somebody who did decide to to do a startup to try to bring a new ingredient to the space, a, a mycelium based ingredient to try to make a, a whole food, non-processed protein tenacious ingredient, I, I definitely am rooting for the startups as well, just as you are.

I know. Oh, yeah. So listen, Kate Rich, I'm excited for the success that you've had. It sh it shows that. Plant-based can succeed in the restaurant world and can have real longevity, which you all have had. So my head is off to you and I'm grateful for all that you've done. It's done a world of good for animals.

And as somebody who has personally enjoyed not only food from your restaurants, but also from your cookbook, I've benefited myself. So I say thank you to both of you and made this blossom into something even bigger.

Rich Landau: Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for having us on.

Paul Shapiro
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Ep. 164 - The Venture Capitalist Who Wants You to Donate More to Charity