Speaker 1: Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. You
Speaker 1: want to go vegan because you want at least await Great,
Speaker 1: you want to go vegan because you love the animals. Great.
Speaker 1: You want to go vegan because you want to lower
Speaker 1: your calessar, or even better, save the planet. If you
Speaker 1: want to save the planet, whatever your reason is, we
Speaker 1: don't put labels on it. We're not pushing the agenda
Speaker 1: my audience. Percent of the people who come to Sledty
Speaker 1: vegan are not even vegan. If I can get you
Speaker 1: to at least consider replacing one meal a day, then
Speaker 1: I know I've done my job, and I know I've
Speaker 1: done something right. Hey, I'm Tom Collikio and you're with
Speaker 1: Sneak to Citizen Chef. Say we're talking to Pinky Call.
Speaker 1: Pinky is recognized locally and by her fans and celebrities
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to deliver a sloppy toppy
Speaker 1: across the country. You know, she's not a chef, but
Speaker 1: she really is an amazing restaurantur. I first met Pinky
Speaker 1: when I was asked to mentor a few restaurant tours
Speaker 1: through a program that Forbes was doing, and I was
Speaker 1: absolutely blown away. Just the the handle that she has
Speaker 1: had on the restaurant industry and the question that she
Speaker 1: was asking you was much much deeper than what I
Speaker 1: expected a freshman restaurant tour to ask. She went from
Speaker 1: her share kitchen to two food trucks to now multiple
Speaker 1: locations a spinoff concept. I'm sure there's going to be
Speaker 1: a movie about her life one day. While we saw
Speaker 1: many of my peers shutter the restaurants during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: she has just grown. So it's just my my absolute
Speaker 1: pleasure to introduce Pinky Cole to the Citizenship Podcast. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm excited, so let's just jump right in. People have
Speaker 1: said it was overnight success, but but nothing happens overnight,
Speaker 1: and you had a long career. You were kind of
Speaker 1: hustling as a kid. Yeah, I want to ask you first,
Speaker 1: where where does the entrepreneurial drive come from? That entrepreneuri drive?
Speaker 1: So the day that I was born, my father was
Speaker 1: being sentenced to life in prison. Right. He was a businessman.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a legal businessman, but he was a businessman
Speaker 1: and the US right. So I grew up watching my mother,
Speaker 1: who fifty percent of her time was spent at a
Speaker 1: company which she's been at the same company now for
Speaker 1: over thirty years. Right when she loves and appreciates, and
Speaker 1: then the other fifty percent of her time she spent
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur, lead singer of a reggae band, radio personality,
Speaker 1: just still getting her hands wet and really trying to
Speaker 1: fulfill her dreams as much as possible as a single
Speaker 1: mother while my father was in prison. So what I
Speaker 1: learned from my father being in prison and my mother
Speaker 1: being a part time entrepreneur is that the hustle never stops. Right.
Speaker 1: So I've seen two examples of individuals who really just
Speaker 1: wanted a better life. Even my father, from behind bars,
Speaker 1: he would send me rich Dad, Poor Dad. He would
Speaker 1: teach me about stocks, he would tell me about business.
Speaker 1: So I got all of the business acumen from him,
Speaker 1: but I did it the legal way. So growing up,
Speaker 1: I used to throw parties and I used to make
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars every every week. Read about that. I
Speaker 1: read about this. You used to throw parties for kids
Speaker 1: and charge them. Yeah, like high school parties are in
Speaker 1: Baltimore and I was just doing a thing. You know,
Speaker 1: people knew my family. We were Jamaican. We were well
Speaker 1: known in the community. And I'm a talker. As you
Speaker 1: can see, I like to wear my mouth. So I
Speaker 1: started throwing these events. How how did you know these
Speaker 1: kids would pay to come to a party. I mean
Speaker 1: I thre parties when I was a kid, and I
Speaker 1: thought I could charge people. I just became a salesman
Speaker 1: at an early age, like I have mastered the art
Speaker 1: of bringing people together, and now it's coming full circle. Um.
Speaker 1: In high school, I was selling the chickens um and
Speaker 1: reselling them for two dollars, selling candy for anything you
Speaker 1: can think of. I was just a natural born hustler,
Speaker 1: and I know that I got it from my parents.
Speaker 1: And when you asked me where that entrepreneur edge come from,
Speaker 1: that grit and that grind and that hustle, it really
Speaker 1: came from my mom and my dad. And I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for for the humble beginnings. I think we see
Speaker 1: that with so many immigrant families that come to this country,
Speaker 1: absolutely that that hustle is uh. You know it runs
Speaker 1: deep because you're right, you know, immigrants come to this
Speaker 1: because they want to make a better life for their things. Right.
Speaker 1: I just know what hard work is, Tom, You know,
Speaker 1: like nothing ever came easy for my family. I tell
Speaker 1: people all the time Christmas is I didn't get like
Speaker 1: Barbie and Ken. I didn't get dolls growing up. I
Speaker 1: didn't get toys. I didn't watch cartoons growing up. I
Speaker 1: was watching Lifetime with my grandmother, right like, I really
Speaker 1: saw examples of people that got up every single day,
Speaker 1: didn't ask for any handouts, went and worked. The lights
Speaker 1: were never cut off. We always had exactly what we needed.
Speaker 1: And I'm so grateful for those life lessons early on. Now,
Speaker 1: Sunny Vegan, wasn't your first restaurant. You opened up a
Speaker 1: Jamaican restaurant in Yeah, and it was successful. It was successful,
Speaker 1: but it started way before the restaurant. You know, my
Speaker 1: background is TV, Tom. Just like how you said you
Speaker 1: weren't prepared for that call, I wasn't prepared to work
Speaker 1: at TV like I was never prepared to either. In fact,
Speaker 1: I said no three times before I finally said yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me about that. You moved out to l A
Speaker 1: to act really yeah, I wanted to be an actress.
Speaker 1: And again another full circle moment. I just paid my
Speaker 1: SAG fee, so now I'm in the union, thank god.
Speaker 1: But I went out there and this is the piece
Speaker 1: of the story that I really never tell people. I
Speaker 1: moved to l A with two hundred fifty dollars a
Speaker 1: Duffel bag in a suitcase in the Bible. I was
Speaker 1: in a three bedroom house, but in one of those
Speaker 1: bedrooms there was four of us living in one of
Speaker 1: the bedrooms right and splitting the rent of the bedroom.
Speaker 1: So we were each paying three hundred dollars every single month.
Speaker 1: And during that time and humbled me number one. Number two,
Speaker 1: I got an opportunity to work in TV as a
Speaker 1: production assistant, and then I got a call from The
Speaker 1: Maury Show. And during my time at Maury, I saved
Speaker 1: up a lot of my money, got a loan from
Speaker 1: a family friend. And one of my friends said, you
Speaker 1: know what, there's a building that is looking to put
Speaker 1: a restaurant there. If you wanted the rent is only
Speaker 1: mind you. I didn't know anything about the restaurant industry nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm not a chef, yes, explain, explaining, So this is
Speaker 1: crazy right now, where so many chefs want to be
Speaker 1: and yet you open a restaurant with out the first
Speaker 1: restaurant zero experience, just because someone called you and said
Speaker 1: the rents cheap. Now, actually you got that you got
Speaker 1: that piece right, because that that is is probably one
Speaker 1: of the most important things you can do when you're
Speaker 1: a shepherd or anyone trying to run the business, to
Speaker 1: get a good rent deal. And so, I mean, my
Speaker 1: first restaurant was was Grammarcy Tyrant. I gotta say for
Speaker 1: the for that space in the Union Square area, the
Speaker 1: grammar Cy Park area, that was well well figured out.
Speaker 1: It was ten square feet in Union Square. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was actually a great rent you actually, you know,
Speaker 1: had that going for you. But what makes you think
Speaker 1: you can open a restaurant never having experience. Um, there's
Speaker 1: so so many things that I thought about in the past.
Speaker 1: I thought that I wanted to be in the music
Speaker 1: industry and that was a fail. But I needed to
Speaker 1: do that. And you know, I wanted to do the
Speaker 1: TV thing on my own and that didn't work. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't supposed to work. I was supposed to get
Speaker 1: in a restaurant industry. And sometimes the universe puts things
Speaker 1: in your face that you least expect um, and that
Speaker 1: is when you're in alignment. When it when it works out.
Speaker 1: And it worked out for me because I didn't have
Speaker 1: experience and I opened this concept up and I had
Speaker 1: a line down the block and I was selling jerk chicken,
Speaker 1: not even eating jerk chicken. I haven't eaten meat since
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. And I opened up my restaurant in
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen, and and it was successful. How
Speaker 1: did you know how to put the pieces together? So
Speaker 1: I hired ad you make in chef. Some of the
Speaker 1: recipes were mine and and again, you know you had
Speaker 1: a restaurant before. I actually lived in my restaurants, like
Speaker 1: every day, all day. I sacrificed my early twenties to
Speaker 1: be in that restaurant. But when I look back at it,
Speaker 1: like I needed that training. I needed to go through
Speaker 1: what I went through, good, bad, and indifferent, because it
Speaker 1: really taught me how to be a better entrepreneur. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing so much so that
Speaker 1: I didn't even get fire insurance for my business. And
Speaker 1: you know me having a fire at my establishment. Right,
Speaker 1: So so let's talk about that. You you opened the restaurant,
Speaker 1: big success. I think you opened up a second juice bar,
Speaker 1: and so you're just you know, knocking out of the park.
Speaker 1: You got two restaurants. You get a phone call, there's
Speaker 1: a fire, go back to that that day. You know,
Speaker 1: your dreams come crashing down. It was hard, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest. I put my whole life savings,
Speaker 1: everything that I had, I did it by myself, and
Speaker 1: to work in a restaurant fourteen fifteen hours a day.
Speaker 1: And I can remember closing up my doors. It was
Speaker 1: the night that I closed myself, Um, and I closed
Speaker 1: the doors, and the fire department called me and they
Speaker 1: told me that the restaurant was on fire. So I
Speaker 1: live right down the street and I saw the restaurants
Speaker 1: smoky at this time that they put out the fire,
Speaker 1: but everything was smoky, everything was black, And I was
Speaker 1: just in disbelief because I'm like, every single thing that
Speaker 1: I built is in shambles. And when I tell you,
Speaker 1: that was actually the best thing that could have ever
Speaker 1: happened to me, because I probably would still be in
Speaker 1: that restaurant, clocking in every single day, physically being present
Speaker 1: and not being able to scale a grow, right, But
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it at the moment. That's why life
Speaker 1: is just so beautiful, right, Like life really teaches you
Speaker 1: about patients and resilience and just understanding that there's a
Speaker 1: reason for everything. How do you pick yourself up? And
Speaker 1: I don't know. When fire put out of fire they
Speaker 1: care to part. Yeah, do you find the fire and
Speaker 1: pull the water on it? They rip, rip the place apart.
Speaker 1: They do the job, and so how do you pick
Speaker 1: yourself up? The following day you go there and try
Speaker 1: to pick up the pieces. Already just kind of walking down.
Speaker 1: I was in disabilte. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I didn't have fire insurance, so I
Speaker 1: wasn't protected. I thought that I could try to salvage
Speaker 1: what was left. I couldn't. Everything was damaged. Um so
Speaker 1: I fell into a little depression. Well what I felt
Speaker 1: was a depression, right, I've never felt like that before,
Speaker 1: and I can remember. It happened so fast. I went
Speaker 1: from like, Okay, this fire happened, to my car getting repolled,
Speaker 1: to me getting evicted, to me losing everything, to me
Speaker 1: going flat broke, and I'm like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: Like it felt like a failure, and now that I
Speaker 1: look at it, it was never really a failure at all.
Speaker 1: So you have to back in Atlanta, put my stuff
Speaker 1: in storage that was in I came to Atlanta and
Speaker 1: it felt right and at the time when I moved
Speaker 1: to Atlanta, I was running five miles a day. People
Speaker 1: people thought I was crazy, five miles a day. I
Speaker 1: was reading every day, I was researching on YouTube, I
Speaker 1: was doing everything. Were running from her. I was running
Speaker 1: on the treadmill, running the house off. Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: conditioning my mind. Yeah, my mindset was shifting. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to go out. I didn't want to hang with people.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to like research. I was just in
Speaker 1: research mode. And I can remember I was in my
Speaker 1: bedroom one day and it hit me like a light ball,
Speaker 1: slutty Vegan out of nowhere. Literally, I'm just sitting there
Speaker 1: like slutty Vegan. And I didn't know what it meant.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm like, I'm like, what is slutty Vegan.
Speaker 1: Slutty Vegan is a restaurant. Slutty Vegan is And because
Speaker 1: I was hungry, I was in Atlanta and on a
Speaker 1: late night, everything was closed and I'm just like, wow,
Speaker 1: slutty Vegan. And when it hit me, I called my
Speaker 1: best friend. I'm like, what do you think about this now?
Speaker 1: She was like, I love it. Do something with it.
Speaker 1: And then I just got to work. Well, so you
Speaker 1: were you're work vegan at this point? Oh I was vegan. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So there's no place to go late night for vegan
Speaker 1: food in Atlanta. Now, um, and you had this epiphany,
Speaker 1: this slutty vegan. How long from that moment to getting
Speaker 1: the doors open? Take So I came up with the
Speaker 1: idea first week of July. I started August six. Everything
Speaker 1: this this was from the moment of conceptualizing the idea,
Speaker 1: to getting my permits and my paperwork, finding a shared kitchen,
Speaker 1: doing the research, creating a menu. So I moved really,
Speaker 1: really fast. I learned that in l A there were
Speaker 1: so many ghost kitchens where people could order food and deliver,
Speaker 1: so that's where I got the idea from. So when
Speaker 1: I got to Atlanta and did it, nobody else in
Speaker 1: Atlanta was doing it. And I found the shared kitchen
Speaker 1: and I said, listen, I got this crazy idea. Let
Speaker 1: me try it. And like, okay, we've never heard of it,
Speaker 1: but you could try it. And I did it, and
Speaker 1: the first week it was like four people there, and
Speaker 1: then a week after that it was like fifty, and
Speaker 1: then it just kept growing, growing so much that they
Speaker 1: kicked me out because they said I had too many
Speaker 1: people coming. Stick with us because when we come back,
Speaker 1: Pekicle will tell us about her plans for the future
Speaker 1: and how Slightly Vegan will one day be your household name.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. I'm Tom Collichio, and I'm speaking with Pinky Cole,
Speaker 1: owner of a Slutty Vegan. Right before the break, she
Speaker 1: told us about how she got kicked out of her
Speaker 1: shared kitchen. So you can get out, and so we
Speaker 1: came first. Was it the brick and water or future?
Speaker 1: It was the food truck. So you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I need to call him and say thank you because
Speaker 1: the owners were like, listen, I know you you got
Speaker 1: a good business, but the other tenants are complaining. You
Speaker 1: gotta figure something out. Maybe should go get a food truck.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did. Never ate from a food truck,
Speaker 1: never been on the food truck. Nothing. I just put
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars on a food truck. I got it
Speaker 1: wrapped and I parked it in the parking lot of
Speaker 1: the shared kitchen that I was at, and I just
Speaker 1: resumed business and it worked. And the next thing I know, Tom,
Speaker 1: I was on the east side. I was on the
Speaker 1: west side. And it grew from like a hundred people
Speaker 1: to like almost five hundred people standing outside every single
Speaker 1: day for me for my burgers, And I'm like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what is going on? So what is going on?
Speaker 1: So that's a great question, right. So obviously you know
Speaker 1: the majority of my consumers are African American. Right, So
Speaker 1: my mission is to have all people see veganism in
Speaker 1: a whole new way. Right, whether you're black, white, blue,
Speaker 1: I don't care who you are. All people are beginning
Speaker 1: to get a little more conscious when it comes to
Speaker 1: the food that they consume, especially Black people. Traditional soul
Speaker 1: food was accustomed. So to be able to put a
Speaker 1: vegan restaurant in the heart of the South and create
Speaker 1: an experience around it, and to have Black people be
Speaker 1: interested in it, that was something that you've never really
Speaker 1: seen before, especially because veganism, once upon a time was
Speaker 1: considered a rich white lifestyle. Right if you think, if
Speaker 1: you think about the communities in which a lot of
Speaker 1: black people lived in, we didn't have the access to resources,
Speaker 1: to access to food, food insecurities. We can go on
Speaker 1: and on and on about that. Right, once upon a time,
Speaker 1: veganism was like, oh, that's the Beverly Hills lifestyle, right,
Speaker 1: that that yoga. Yeah, in the early nineties and the
Speaker 1: early eighties. So now when you think about Beyonce advocating
Speaker 1: for veganism, when you think about the biggest artists advocating
Speaker 1: for veganis they've made it cool. And we are cool.
Speaker 1: I mean all people are cool. But you know what,
Speaker 1: like if you really want to give you an honest answer, right, So,
Speaker 1: so I've been able to create an experience for people
Speaker 1: where they come for that experience, but they leave with
Speaker 1: the food, all the while learning how to be more
Speaker 1: conscious about the food they consume, even if it starts
Speaker 1: with a burger and the fry. And the beautiful thing
Speaker 1: about study vegan is that it has translated from from
Speaker 1: being a black thing, right because I don't see color
Speaker 1: when it comes to food. And this is a form
Speaker 1: of silent protests. We're bringing people together in the name
Speaker 1: of food and love. It doesn't get more beautiful than that,
Speaker 1: right it doesn't. So do you come at a veganism
Speaker 1: from health carepoint? Are from not wanting sea animals killed
Speaker 1: or eagan animals? What are you see that we're working together?
Speaker 1: I am vegan for my health and I love animals
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Right. Um. I think so
Speaker 1: often people have put labels on veganism, which is why
Speaker 1: so many people shied away from it. So at this point,
Speaker 1: I don't care why you want to be. You want
Speaker 1: to go vegan because you want to least some weight. Great,
Speaker 1: you want to go vegan because you love the animals. Great,
Speaker 1: you want to go vegan because you want to lower
Speaker 1: your calesso or even better. But whatever the reason is,
Speaker 1: if you want to save the plan, whatever your reason is.
Speaker 1: What has made the business so successful is we don't
Speaker 1: put labels on it. We're not pushing the agenda my audience.
Speaker 1: Percent of the people who come to Slutty Vegan are
Speaker 1: not even vegan. These people are flexitarian vegetarian me eaters.
Speaker 1: Those are the people that I want because if I
Speaker 1: can get you to at least consider replacing one meal
Speaker 1: a day, then I know I've done my job and
Speaker 1: I know I've done something right. We are not going
Speaker 1: to judge you, and that is how we're changing and
Speaker 1: redefining the narrative of veganism because it's a safe space.
Speaker 1: You could be whoever you want to be. Coming in
Speaker 1: Disburg and Fry and I got you. You could be
Speaker 1: whatever you want to be. It sounds like you're servicing
Speaker 1: two communities. You're servicing your community in your neighborhood and
Speaker 1: you're serving the greater vegan community at large. Uh. Ninety
Speaker 1: five per cent of my locations are in food and
Speaker 1: secure areas, areas that are in the heart of gentrification,
Speaker 1: areas that developers don't find too attractive, because I want
Speaker 1: to create that space where people can see themselves. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a historic neighborhood. So if a black owned business
Speaker 1: can come into this neighborhood and help to revitalize the community,
Speaker 1: help to raise the property value, then we've done something right. Right.
Speaker 1: It will make more people want to move into that community.
Speaker 1: It will make more black people want to stay in
Speaker 1: that community. And I even just recently just bought the
Speaker 1: local daycare in the area, and I'm I'm making it
Speaker 1: a community center. So you're not looking at gentrification as
Speaker 1: as as a negative thing. You're looking at this, This
Speaker 1: is a black owned business gentrifying my neighborhood, as opposed
Speaker 1: to people coming in pushing property values up and pushing people.
Speaker 1: And now we are bringing the essence of blackness back
Speaker 1: into the neighborhood, back into the neighborhood and welcoming people
Speaker 1: to come and live in this neighborhood so that it
Speaker 1: can be inclusive of all people and not just big
Speaker 1: developers just building up these high rises. No, we're not
Speaker 1: doing that. And if I can buy, and what I
Speaker 1: do is I buy the land, so I buy the
Speaker 1: real estate in these places. So now there's ownership and
Speaker 1: I'm teaching the community about group economics. I'm just being
Speaker 1: to change that. I wish to say, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, So like I get to do that, and
Speaker 1: it's beautiful because I'll give you an example my my
Speaker 1: Birmingham location that I'm working on right now. I paid
Speaker 1: a hundred seventy five dollars for that location for for
Speaker 1: three thousand square feet. Right, it's not it's a historic neighborhood,
Speaker 1: but from the neked eyes, it doesn't look so desirable.
Speaker 1: But I did it because I know that when I
Speaker 1: put Slutty Vegan there, I'm giving an opportunity for the
Speaker 1: local business owners to make money. There's another opportunity for
Speaker 1: people to come and buy the real estate and the
Speaker 1: property value will go up. That's what happened at my
Speaker 1: first location. And I'm going to continue to wash, rent
Speaker 1: and repeat, because I know that there is value and
Speaker 1: putting slutty vegan in these areas and raising up the
Speaker 1: value of these locations where that some people in the
Speaker 1: community weren't so crazy about the lines in the language,
Speaker 1: the playfulness of slutty vegan and taking a little too
Speaker 1: a little too, a little too serious where they where
Speaker 1: they were. They were complaining about the use of the
Speaker 1: word slot and that kids were hearing this and how
Speaker 1: did you respond to that. I didn't get a very
Speaker 1: warm welcome um And it was stressful, I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: because here I am. I'm just a young girl just
Speaker 1: trying to do a thing right and just really trying
Speaker 1: to help my people out. But it really taught me
Speaker 1: about resilience. And when you think about the word slutty,
Speaker 1: people always ask me like, well, why would you name
Speaker 1: a slutty vegan? This has nothing to do with sex,
Speaker 1: you know. I many thirteen and twelve year olds are
Speaker 1: on TikTok and mouthing the words to every single curse
Speaker 1: word there is. I'm actually teaching people something good. There's
Speaker 1: an underlying lesson here. So when I noticed there was
Speaker 1: a transition, it started to make me feel good because
Speaker 1: now I got Muslims, I got Christians, I got old people,
Speaker 1: young people saying a where it's slot And it's all
Speaker 1: about the tongue, the power of the tongue, what you
Speaker 1: put meaning to. So we we created a word that
Speaker 1: that added power and value to people instead of taking away.
Speaker 1: So it's no longer considered a degrading word because it's
Speaker 1: a family fund place, even though it's ays slutty vegan.
Speaker 1: So now I don't have any problems with the community.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I told you I bought the community
Speaker 1: center because I wanted to show the people that I'm
Speaker 1: invested in this community. I'm not just here to make money, right,
Speaker 1: I'm here to actually really build up the and revitalize
Speaker 1: the community and the very best way that I can.
Speaker 1: And I'm doing that. So they don't give me any problems,
Speaker 1: thank God. And hopefully I don't have any more problems
Speaker 1: with anybody else or any other locations. So I'm happy
Speaker 1: about that. Let's let's keep talking about community here because
Speaker 1: I know you were very active in presidential election and
Speaker 1: got big wins, and uh that was watching the returns
Speaker 1: that night in Georgia. I was just just so thrilled.
Speaker 1: I was on a bunch of calls during the campaign
Speaker 1: with the Reverend Warnock, and Wow, what an inspiration. I
Speaker 1: was just just so thrilled. And I knew that. You know,
Speaker 1: Stacy Abras gets a ton of credit, and she should,
Speaker 1: and there's so many activists that are behind her doing
Speaker 1: everything they can to change it. Now now we're looking
Speaker 1: at Georgia UM, that is just doing their damned its
Speaker 1: best to keep people from voting. So what's the next
Speaker 1: phase in that work. I don't get a sense that
Speaker 1: you'll ever stop. Part of those laws is you can
Speaker 1: no longer hand out food or drink if someone's waiting
Speaker 1: on something that we did a lot. I know you did.
Speaker 1: I know you did. Are you willing to get arrested
Speaker 1: to do it again? Damn right? You know, because I'll
Speaker 1: be there with you. I get arrested, right, and I
Speaker 1: got and I got so many people that that back
Speaker 1: us and support us. You know, through my foundation, we
Speaker 1: did an initiative with Impossible Foods and Jamaine dupri Um
Speaker 1: to get people excited about the election before all of
Speaker 1: this stuff came up, right, Um, and I like to
Speaker 1: say that we had we played a role in turning
Speaker 1: Georgia blue. But you'd be surprised how many people actually want,
Speaker 1: you know, more about politics. They just don't know where
Speaker 1: to get started, right. I was one of those people.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I want seeing them, but like
Speaker 1: process and like all the information, I'm like, there's so much.
Speaker 1: I really just love helping people and and I don't
Speaker 1: feel that you need to have a political title to
Speaker 1: do that. And I've shown that through my foundation. When
Speaker 1: you think about all the political woes that are happening
Speaker 1: in Georgia, is it fair? Absolutely not? But am I
Speaker 1: going to continue to do the work. Absolutely because my
Speaker 1: my foundation is my campaign from the murder of Rahard
Speaker 1: Brooks and providing for the family with scholarships, life insurance,
Speaker 1: UM and a brand new card to like donating food
Speaker 1: and fruits and and money to to entrepreneurs and paying
Speaker 1: local rents for businesses who who are affected by the
Speaker 1: pandemic UM and and right now I'm actually doing a
Speaker 1: life insurance initiative that we're launching on the twelve where
Speaker 1: I'm getting every single black man in Atlanta life insurance
Speaker 1: that they don't have to pay for So I'm flitting
Speaker 1: the bill, so anybody who needs life insurance, they can
Speaker 1: sign up and I'm going to pay for it. Absolutely Clearly,
Speaker 1: you're trying to cheach people that there's importances absolutely. Um. Well, statistically, uh,
Speaker 1: the numbers show that that black people really don't get
Speaker 1: life insurance, um compared to their counterparts. Right. Um, there's
Speaker 1: so much police brutality and and and and crime that
Speaker 1: happens in our community. It's a hard conversation to have,
Speaker 1: but it's the truth. Right. So, so you don't don't
Speaker 1: have black ince and you're dying it earlier exactly. So.
Speaker 1: So when myself and um my my foundation partner, we
Speaker 1: came up with the idea, it was a way to say, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, like they keep killing black people, right,
Speaker 1: so let's do something where black men are protected, right,
Speaker 1: at least their families, their families are protected. Right. So
Speaker 1: not only are we teaching financial literacy, we'll be teaching
Speaker 1: about mental health. Um. And we're showing people that you
Speaker 1: don't have to go to a fish fry and raise
Speaker 1: money for a funeral. You don't have to do it
Speaker 1: go fund me and nothing against go fund means or
Speaker 1: fish fries, but we really want to show people that
Speaker 1: you can create generational wealth for your family, and all
Speaker 1: you have to do is this. So so this is
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction. I'm doing a call
Speaker 1: to action all the big corporations that want to support
Speaker 1: small own, black owned, women owned businesses to to to
Speaker 1: to donate money to this cause. And we really just
Speaker 1: want to do a thing to be able to change
Speaker 1: the world, even if we do it one state at
Speaker 1: a time. So I'm excited about it. I'm excited about
Speaker 1: all the things that I get to do through my platform,
Speaker 1: and this is the meaningful work for me. Right. I
Speaker 1: was telling somebody the other day time, like, you know,
Speaker 1: business is cool, I make money, right, Like, I love
Speaker 1: that part, but like the philanthropic efforts that is what
Speaker 1: really like makes my belly leave. I watched my mother
Speaker 1: give the clothes off her back to help every single
Speaker 1: person around her, whether she knew them or not. I
Speaker 1: didn't gain like thirty new cousins that we didn't share
Speaker 1: any blood, but they grew up in the household with me.
Speaker 1: But I learned that from my mother. So growing up,
Speaker 1: I'm like, God, if you give me an opportunity to
Speaker 1: really bless other people, I'm gonna do that. And I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna stop. So this is me doing that and
Speaker 1: I'm never going to stop as long as I got
Speaker 1: breath in my body. Do you think that that the
Speaker 1: black community looking at these restrictions are going to come
Speaker 1: out in force just to push back. Absolutely, But let
Speaker 1: me tell you something about Atlanta. Okay, Atlanta is Wakanda
Speaker 1: okay um and Atlanta. One thing I love about Atlanta
Speaker 1: is the people of Atlanta will band together, um for
Speaker 1: a good cause. Right. We are a lot more conscious
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, um. And that feels good because there's so
Speaker 1: many beautiful educated black people, brown people, minorities, white people.
Speaker 1: There's so many people that are more in tune with politics,
Speaker 1: especially because politics are affecting the people of Georgia. Right.
Speaker 1: So now young people are getting more involved, um, Young
Speaker 1: educated people are getting more involved, and more more celebrities,
Speaker 1: more rappers are getting more involved, and they are leading
Speaker 1: the way of the efforts and like making Georgia the
Speaker 1: place where people want to live and people want to
Speaker 1: grow and people want to make money and have businesses.
Speaker 1: So do I believe that that people are going to
Speaker 1: band together and protest and do the right thing. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And I also think it's gonna happen in other states too.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see, you see what happened with you know,
Speaker 1: George Floyd, Rest in peace to him. Everybody came together,
Speaker 1: not just black people, everybody. You have white people, black
Speaker 1: people coming together for the first time publicly in a
Speaker 1: way where everybody was mad. Yeah, but you know, hopefully
Speaker 1: it doesn't take more black men and black boys getting
Speaker 1: killed to do this. And we have opportunities in St. Louis.
Speaker 1: I mean, Missouri is just too too red. And yet
Speaker 1: you have St. Louis where you can do the same
Speaker 1: thing that happened in Atlanta. You have Cleveland that could
Speaker 1: that could you know, change O High And so I
Speaker 1: agree with you. There's a lot of opportunities in a
Speaker 1: lot of different cities to get people out and voting.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the real disenfranchisement when it really
Speaker 1: come down to it's going going back to Jim Crow.
Speaker 1: This is all about making sure black folks couldn't get
Speaker 1: out of it. And it's so crazy. It's one the
Speaker 1: world that we live in. But I think that we
Speaker 1: have enough powerful voices to be able to combat that.
Speaker 1: And I'm actually looking forward to those efforts, know, and
Speaker 1: I'll be right out there too with those efforts. Like
Speaker 1: I said, if you want to feed people online waiting
Speaker 1: to vote, you, let me know what. I'll come down
Speaker 1: and we'll get risk. We'll get risk you. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with more citizen Chef. We're back with Pinky Cole,
Speaker 1: who was just sharing her amazing efforts to grow and
Speaker 1: change the community around Slutty Vegan. Where do you go
Speaker 1: from here? You're a successful business person, you are a philanthropists,
Speaker 1: You're what's next? I mean, obviously you're you're growing your business.
Speaker 1: How quickly do you see yourself growing? And how are
Speaker 1: you going to go the franchising route? We talked about
Speaker 1: raising money? Are in the process of raising money? What's next?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you dream of having five hundred Slutty
Speaker 1: Vegans across the country in Europe and Australia and anywhere
Speaker 1: else where? Do you go from Slutty Vegan will be
Speaker 1: a household name. I'm confident about that. I remember when
Speaker 1: I first started Slutty Vegan and I was sitting at
Speaker 1: the table with two billionaires and probably a millionaire thousand there,
Speaker 1: and I looked at them and I said, my company
Speaker 1: will be valued at a billion dollars in less than
Speaker 1: five years. And they laughed at me, and it was
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with the money, but the
Speaker 1: value of the business and the impact that the business made.
Speaker 1: And they laughed. And and now I'm laughing because I
Speaker 1: know that I'm on my way. I'm opening some additional
Speaker 1: locations this year. Already have three that I'm working on
Speaker 1: right now, and that's Birmingham, New York and gownd that's
Speaker 1: in Georgia. I got some airport opportunities that are happening.
Speaker 1: I will be doing an injection of capital, a large
Speaker 1: raise to be able to scale in a way that
Speaker 1: I want to scale. But right now, I'm really focused
Speaker 1: on making sure that my operations continue to get better, uh,
Speaker 1: making sure that I bring in the right people to
Speaker 1: help me grow the company. You know, I started this
Speaker 1: company by myself and then I grew it with about
Speaker 1: five people and now here I am, I have a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty five people helping me to grow the company.
Speaker 1: And now it's time to really level up. We went
Speaker 1: from my mom and pop to now this is a corporation,
Speaker 1: am I am. I'm looking for more people who have
Speaker 1: the expertise, who have proven the scale businesses to to
Speaker 1: really help continue to grow the company, because, to be honest,
Speaker 1: the company is out growing me. Right, So I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm keeping up as the CEO of the company. Again.
Speaker 1: Remember this is the girl from East Baltimore who has
Speaker 1: a background of TV, who just had an idea to
Speaker 1: do a restaurant. And now here we are. I have
Speaker 1: three locations to food trucks, about to open up three
Speaker 1: more this year, and I'm like, how did we get here?
Speaker 1: And I did it all in the pandemic. No, actually,
Speaker 1: it accelerated everything. I opened up a fourth location tom too.
Speaker 1: I opened up a bar. It's called Bar vegan Um
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia. It does extremely well. But the beauty
Speaker 1: of it all is I get to to basically do
Speaker 1: all the things that I think about every day. I
Speaker 1: see Sledty Vegan making an impact through the community, vegan
Speaker 1: or not. I want people to be able to see
Speaker 1: themselves when they come into my business, right. I want
Speaker 1: a white person to be able to see another white
Speaker 1: person like, hey, I see you. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like I want a black person to be able to
Speaker 1: see themselves. And at the end of today, I want
Speaker 1: everybody to be able to feel like they're included and
Speaker 1: they see a part of themselves and they can come
Speaker 1: and work together as a family. It's all about family today.
Speaker 1: And I am looking for more diversity in my company
Speaker 1: and I'm excited about that, right. I'm excited about the
Speaker 1: diversity and inclusion and just making people feel welcome and
Speaker 1: wanted in my business. And that is why Slutty Vegan
Speaker 1: is going to change the game when it comes to
Speaker 1: being a silent pillar of bringing people all people together
Speaker 1: in the name of food and non food. I want
Speaker 1: to get back to the pandemic question. Do you think
Speaker 1: you had an advantage? Because there was clearly and still
Speaker 1: is a disruption in meat. Prices are going through the
Speaker 1: roof right now, and uh, you don't have to deal
Speaker 1: with that. So what is the barrier growth in terms
Speaker 1: of who we're seeing inflation everywhere? Are you seeing the
Speaker 1: cost of your goods going on? And how are you managing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going up, but we just keep going. I think
Speaker 1: one of the advantages that I had, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be totally transparent with you and everything happened with COVID one.
Speaker 1: People got emotional, and when people are emotional, they want
Speaker 1: to eat right and We were a popular company before
Speaker 1: the pandemic. We got even more popular because we turned
Speaker 1: on online deliveries and now everybody wants to order online.
Speaker 1: That's number one. Number two, we saw a influx of
Speaker 1: big corporations wanting to support small businesses, and that was
Speaker 1: an advantage for us because we had the biggest of
Speaker 1: companies wanting to support us in whatever way we wanted
Speaker 1: to get support, right, And I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of other small businesses could say the same thing, So
Speaker 1: that gave us an advantage. And because we were already
Speaker 1: doing community work before the pandemic, so we continued the
Speaker 1: community where people like, Okay, this is a company that
Speaker 1: was doing this before even a pandemic existed, and now
Speaker 1: they continue to do the work. This is a business
Speaker 1: that we believe in it that we wanted to support.
Speaker 1: So I did a collab with shake Shack, I did
Speaker 1: a collab with Morning Star, Incognito foot Locker, so so many,
Speaker 1: so many within the year. I'm doing a documentary that
Speaker 1: I'm dropping August six, on my third anniversary, and that
Speaker 1: documentary is about how Slutty the Again thrived in a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Literally all the things that I just said to you
Speaker 1: and what we've done and how we were able to
Speaker 1: do it and pivot and just really continue to grow
Speaker 1: this ecosystem that we know it's Sledty Vegan. I suspect
Speaker 1: that there will be a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: trenches with you, because you're really inspirational and uh and special.
Speaker 1: And hopefully when you're when you're opening New York, I'll
Speaker 1: come and I'll see you. Well, you have no choice.
Speaker 1: You gotta be there. I'll be He'll be there for you.
Speaker 1: It's an honor for me to even be able to
Speaker 1: have this conversation with you and we get to candidly
Speaker 1: talk about like business and entrepreneurship, um and I admire
Speaker 1: you and all the things that you've done, So thank
Speaker 1: you for having me my pleasure. Really, I'm thrilled to
Speaker 1: to talk to you as a peer, not as a mentor,
Speaker 1: because you certainly deserve that. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1: The way the pandemic is impact your restaurants makes Pinky
Speaker 1: story of success something that industry should be proud of.
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that it's in part due to
Speaker 1: the incredible commitment to the community around her, especially during
Speaker 1: this time of crisis. You know, it goes to show
Speaker 1: it's very clear that restaurants are more than just a
Speaker 1: place to sit down and grab a meal. They actually
Speaker 1: become anchors at the community and the community. If you
Speaker 1: support that community, the community will come out and support you.
Speaker 1: You know. Really, hearing restaurants expand during COVID was unheard of.
Speaker 1: It was amazing to hear that Pinky was able to expand.
Speaker 1: There were a few instances of restaurants opening up that
Speaker 1: we're about to open right before the pandemic and just
Speaker 1: plowed ahead with those plans. But uh, you know, Pinky
Speaker 1: really is thrived during this pandemic. And again, a very
Speaker 1: hearty thanks again to Pinky Coal of Slutty Vegan. We're
Speaker 1: spending time with me this afternoon and it's always a
Speaker 1: special thanks to a place the table. Citizen Chef is
Speaker 1: executive produced by Christipher Haciotis, Our producer is Gabby Collins,
Speaker 1: and our researcher is Lillian Holman. Citizen Chef as a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Media. For more a podcast, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartMedia app or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.