UnchainedTV: Why America's Going Plant-Based... Town by Town

0:00 If you want to revolutionise your health, get truly joyful and jump to the next phase of human evolution, all it takes is one simple choice. Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell. Welcome, we have an exciting show for you today. Check out these two mischief makers. They have created Fort Wayne, Indiana Vegan Restaurant Month, and it is all the rage. And we're looking at this to see if other people can replicate this in their cities and towns because it has really taken off and exposed, that's not egg, that's not cheese, that's not meat, that's vegan, that's 100% vegan, okay?

0:47 All of the food that we are showcasing today is 100% plant-based, but you've got banana splits, you've got breakfast, all sorts of delicious smoothies and milkshakes and pastries, and it's all completely without any animal products whatsoever. That means it's zero cholesterol. And so this husband and wife team, the Domins, whom you're about to meet, have really opened this whole new world through Vegan Restaurant Month in Fort Wayne. And so I would like to introduce you to these change makers in the hopes that they can teach us how to do the same thing in other cities and towns, because I was thinking if I was gonna do this in my neighbourhood, I wouldn't have a clue.

1:40 So Heather Domin, tell us, how did you make this happen? Right, hi Jane, thanks so much for having us on. So this started about six years ago, we're in our sixth year. Prior to this year, it's been a week -long event. And this year, because it's grown so much and we've had such great feedback from our restaurants and our community, we decided to make it a month-long event. So it's a month-long event of vegan food, going out and dining at different restaurants, the community gathering at different places and supporting these businesses that are participating in Fort Wayne Vegan Restaurant Month.

2:21 And look at your husband there, inviting us into one of the participating restaurants. So I wanna go to JR, your husband, and ask how did you get all these restaurants to participate and what is in it for them? That's a really good question, because it's really great for the vegan community, but also it's really, really good for the restaurants because they lose nothing by offering these vegan options. Their regular people are still gonna come in or whatever, but they're gaining a whole new market. And I think for a lot of them, they wouldn't just throw something on the menu because they don't know if it's gonna work or not.

3:06 And so this is a great opportunity for them to try something out. And then they realise, oh my God, this vegan community came out in force. And then a lot of this stuff winds up staying on the menu. And it's really cool because I think that they enjoy it because they can get a little creative, go a little off script. And Heather and I, we travel a lot and we eat the menu at all the vegan restaurants we go to. And some of these places have come up with concoctions. Like there's this place, Three Fires, that has a vegan Thai pizza. And it has gotta be the best thing that I've ever had. It is so unique.

3:46 I've never had it anywhere else. It's only here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And it's only there because they tried it out for Vegan Restaurant Month. And then they said, oh, it's so good. Let's keep it on the menu. Let's keep it going. Well, the theme of this show is every city and every town should have a vegan restaurant week. And I wanna know how you put this together. And in fact, you need to have a vegan restaurant month. But as you said, Heather, you started out with a vegan restaurant week. So tell people, for those who say this is a fantastic idea, I would love to do this in my community. Let's start with the week. How did you first create the vegan restaurant week, which has now become Vegan Restaurant Month?

4:32 Tell us. Right, so what I did is I just went to different restaurants. I already had a relationship with some other restaurants locally because we go out to eat so much and they know us. So reaching out to them and just asking them, hey, would you participate? We have Savour Fort Wayne in town, which is something similar. It's just not vegan. So I just explained it's similar to Savour Fort Wayne, but the menu is completely vegan. So just reaching out to different restaurants, letting them know what we're doing, what we wanna do, and how it could benefit them. I think the first- How could it benefit them? A lot more business.

5:13 Restaurants who participate have seen such an uptick in their business, especially during the week or the month that they're participating in. Sometimes it's a little bit too busy where there's like, oh, wait, hold on a second. That's why we extended it for a month. But just reaching out to them and letting them know, you can see increased business. We have a large community that's ready to support you. We just need you to create some more vegan options. So that's where it started, just reaching out from there. I created a website, I created the logos, and actually I've talked to other people about implementing these vegan weeks or vegan months into their own cities, because it is such an easy thing to do.

5:59 If you have restaurants that are already serving vegan options or have options on their menu that are customisable, have them participate. The only rule to being a participating restaurant is to offer at least two vegan options on a separate menu and to post about it during the month. So we're trying to normalise these vegan options and normalise people having vegan options and normalise people going out to these restaurants to support these businesses that are supporting our vegan community. Like Mocha Lounge, that's just one of the participating restaurants. Did they see an uptick in business, in your opinion? I haven't talked to everybody yet just because we're right in the middle of the month.

6:43 At the end of the month, I'll put out a survey and talk to the restaurants and find out. But I do know I've been seeing a lot of posts about people going to Mocha Lounge, people that didn't know that they had vegan options. They have vegan options on their menu. They have a chorizo burrito on their menu. I've never had any idea that they had it. So now people are finding out about them. They're posting, they're posting about all the restaurants they're going to. They're posting pictures on social media and saying, hey, I just went to this place and had this. They're getting groups together and going out to eat. So I know that they're all seeing an uptick in business just because I've seen it online so far. Go ahead. And when we go out to these places, I mean, they'll tell us right out.

7:27 They're just like, oh my God, thank you. We have gotten so much more business and it's good for the restaurants. It's good for the vegan community. But yeah, every one of them will report back to us that they've had an uptick in the business. And also vegan clients are very loyal clients. I mean, if you keep the vegan food flowing, we'll keep coming to you. And do you see people going vegan as a result of this, JR? Well, I think that there's definitely, there's a couple of things that happen, I think. Number one, maybe you have a vegan in the family and then they want to take the rest of the family out to show them, here, look, you guys have been razzing me saying that there's no such thing as good vegan food.

8:16 Come with me. They take them to this restaurant and the family tries it out. And I think that that changes a lot of minds in the families. But also I think then there's a lot of people that are going into these restaurants like that vegan Thai pizza that I was talking about before. They're going to these restaurants and they're handing them menus. And they're saying, I'm talking about people that are not vegan. They're going to the restaurants. The people are handing them the menu. They're saying, hey, we've got these specials for vegan restaurant month. And then they look at something like the vegan Thai pizza and they're like, well, that's interesting. They'll look at what it's made of. This is really unique. Let me try this. And generally, I don't think that they would normally try something like that, but it being presented to them.

9:01 And I do think that a lot of those people leave going, hey, this vegan food, maybe there is some good vegan food. And then they, I think Heather's dad was the same way where he was like, well, if I could eat like this all the time, I'd go vegan in a second. So yeah, they have an idea of what the vegan food is. And I think this is changing minds when they're going out there. And I think also the restaurants might want to top each other and come up with something special. It's just not another day in the office. It's, hey, look at us. You bring a little bit of that competition. And I was compiling footage of the dishes and I was getting so hungry.

9:42 I mean, it was like, oh my gosh, these dishes are absolutely incredible. But others might be saying, Fort Wayne, Indiana is going to the dogs. Because your dog is just loving it so much. And actually I think it creates community because a lot of vegans feel isolated in places like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it may not be as big of a vegan meetup group as New York City or LA. So then it creates community for them. And honestly, I would love to see this where I live because you mentioned family.

10:24 One of our biggest disagreements is I'm vegan, my nephew's vegan, his daughter's vegan, but others in the family are not vegan. Where are we going to go to dinner? Okay, and so sometimes I'll take them all to a vegan restaurant where I think the food's great. But sometimes they were like, well, it can't always be you making the decision. So this is a great way. I'm not the only one having these problems. Everybody who's vegan has this issue with their family members for the most part. I mean, I don't want to say that, but that seems to be the case anyway. And this is a great way to overcome that. So I want to ask you, if somebody were to say in their town, okay, I want to do this, I'm inspired and look at these incredible dishes.

11:10 If you're listening, you're going to have to take our word for it. It's sinfully delicious, but you have to know that none of this has dairy and none of this has any animal products. So therefore it's completely cholesterol free and absolutely good for you. So it's healthier for you. It's obviously better for the animals. It's better for the planet because animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change. And it also brings in business for the restaurants and gives people who are plant-based an opportunity to sort of enjoy being, just normalise it, bring your family in. It doesn't have to be this three-act play where there's negotiations.

11:54 You know, I've had negotiations with people on where we're going to eat. And it's so silly. It's so unnecessary. So what would you say, Heather? Not just go to the website, which is great. We're going to put the website up, but what would you say to somebody who says, I'm going to do this in my town? Take them through it. Right, so actually I have had people reach out to me. And anytime I talk to like Victoria Moran's Main Street Vegan Academy, I've been on there a couple of times because I'm a graduate from there. And I tell her students that are graduating what I do. And I tell them, reach out to me. Let's chat. I will help you. I will give you all of the tools that you need.

12:36 I will give you the logos. I'll help you create your website. Actually, I'm working on a website that I can post everybody's vegan weeks on. So that way it's not a barrier for them. Well, I don't know how to build a website. I have a website for you. I have logos for you. I have everything that you need to get this started. All you have to do is step one, create a list of restaurants that are in your city that you think would be good to participate. That's the first thing you need to do. Once you have your list, start reaching out to the owners, the managers, the decision makers about what you wanna do. And then from there, just do it.

13:18 It's super easy. Reach out to me if you have any questions, if you need help. I'm always happy to help people create this. Actually, we're getting ready to possibly next spring move into Indianapolis and do Indianapolis Vegan Restaurant Week. And then from there, I wanna move into some other towns as well, unless somebody else starts to do it there. Once I create it in the town, if they wanna take it over, great. I just really want to see this going in to more cities. And Jane, let's do one in Marina Del Ray. Like, let's do it. I would like it because I'm in the Venice area and you'd think, oh, hipsterville, right?

14:01 Everybody's vegan. No, there's not that many vegan restaurants here. We have a fabulous Planta Casino. And by the way, you're looking at some of the restaurants that participated. And I wanna give them a big shout out for participating because it does take a certain amount of throwing your head over the fence, taking a wee bit of a risk because anything new involves a little bit of a risk. But I just wanna applaud these restaurants for doing it. And of course, the other thing that we could do is have testimonials from the restaurants that participated to encourage other restaurants in other towns.

14:41 That's something, essentially what I see you doing, Heather and JR, is sort of creating a franchise. I was just in Las Vegas to do a whole half hour special, which we're gonna put on Unchained TV about vegan restaurants in Las Vegas. On the way back, we stopped at Veganburg, which is a new franchise. It's on the way back. So it's almost back here, but it's not quite. Near Victorville, Hesperia is where it was. And it's a franchise. It's a vegan franchise. So it's the first in the United States.

15:24 It's a Singapore company, Turnkey, the best food, the best, it's a burger place, but the most extraordinary burgers. And it really got me thinking about franchises. Like I fantasise, oh, I wish I could have a vegan franchise. That would be wonderful. Of course, I'm a person who burns toast and can't eat with coffee and toast together at the same time. So maybe it shouldn't be for me. I know you can make green smoothies. That's true. But the whole concept of a franchise just really struck me. And what I see you guys doing is actually franchising this concept all around the United States so that it's Turnkey.

16:07 So that it's not like everybody has to reinvent the wheel if they wanna have a vegan restaurant week or a vegan restaurant month in their area. Now, when you say you have a website, do you have one like start your own vegan restaurant week or is it simply you're showing an example? It's just my website that I use for our vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month. But it's something that I want to create that anybody can log in and use for theirs as well. Or we can somehow, I haven't quite figured out how I wanna do it, but it's something that I've been thinking about is putting together a package, like you said, like a franchise.

16:50 So I can hand it over to somebody and say, or I can take my website, duplicate it and give that to somebody else so they can start off without having to start from scratch because I've built it in six years. There's no reason to start from scratch. I wanna make it really easy for people to do this in their cities. I mean, even down to where the letter that you write that you send to restaurants. Right. I would think cold calling a restaurant would be kind of scary. And saying, hey, how would you like to do this? I mean, I certainly think there are some very meat centric restaurants in my neighbourhood that might be like buzz off.

17:36 Although I have convinced restaurants that restaurateurs, local mom and pop restaurants I know in my area, I've convinced them to add tofu dishes. I've convinced them to add the word vegan options. So I've done that sort of just off the cuff over the years, being sort of friendly with those people. But how would you approach? When you go in there to approach these restaurants, what would you say in terms of, it seems like kind of scary. It's like you're cold calling. Yeah, actually I started out with an email. I have an email script and I keep all of my emails that I send out.

18:17 So that way, when I put together this package or if somebody else wants to do it, I have everything ready to go. This is year one, this is year two, year three, and so on. So I have all of those. And I even have a phone script because my sister has helped me out the past couple of years because I don't have time to be contacting every restaurant and saying, hey, did you get my email? This is what's going on. So I have a phone script as well that my sister uses to contact the restaurants, to ask them about participating and making sure that they receive all the information that they need. I mean, we have everything down to phone scripts for this to make it really easy. Well, I think this is also a form of activism.

18:58 When you think of animal activism, vegan activism, you think of protests. I'll give you an example of one that we were at very recently. Dairy and milk means stomach pain. Starbucks coffee is to blame. Plant-based milk should not cause more. Starbucks green, we do have more. The intention of this campaign is to get them to finally drop the plant-based milk upcharge, what they have already done in the United Kingdom, France, Chile, Germany, Japan, and other major world countries. They have resisted here in the US so far. This is their biggest market. They make over, we've estimated they make over. That protest and others like it were ultimately successful.

19:40 Recently, Starbucks announced they are dropping the vegan surcharge for plant-based milks. In Las Vegas, I went into a Starbucks for the first time in years and no surcharge. And their coffee's good. So that was a huge victory. But when you look at activism, the reason I bring that up is that you think of things like that, protest marches. But what you're doing, and JR, maybe you can address this, is also activism. But it's activism without any of the controversy. Nobody can fault you. Nobody can say, why are you doing this? It's a win-win. It's like stealth activism.

20:21 Yeah, I mean, that's always been kind of our whole idea is like finding the soft sell. Finding the soft sell, the easy way. I mean, it doesn't have to be a struggle. Heather and I, I mean, we've been vegan for 16 years and we've been really active in our community since the beginning. Step number one, before you do any of this, you have to build a community, right? If there's no community to go to the restaurants, there's not gonna... So step number one, 16 plus years ago, Heather had to make a Facebook group, brought people together. Those people kind of fed in on each other. They were saying, hey, here's some recipe ideas.

21:01 Here's a restaurant that has this, whatever. They're helping each other out. But we're constantly out there doing tabling events at Earth Day, explaining how the best way to be green is to be vegan. We're doing circus protests. We're out doing tabling events at concerts. Like we did tabling for Paul McCartney. Heather's getting ready to do one for Morrissey coming up here this weekend. So we're constantly engaged in trying to reach people where they live. And so yeah, this is just kind of an extension of that. But yeah, number one thing, you have to kind of build a network to grow that out of. So do you have, Heather, a vegan community in Fort Wayne?

21:46 We have a large vegan community in Fort Wayne. I'm very surprised how large it is and how much it continues to grow. I think we have about 3000 people alone just on our Facebook group, which is the majority of them are in the Fort Wayne area because I've met everybody that sends a join request to our group because I do wanna keep it as local as possible to kind of fight some of the infighting that you have on Facebook. And then also because I wanna keep it local to our community. I want people to share where they're going out to eat locally or share things that they found out at our local stores. So we have about 3000 people and we grew that from zero to almost 3000.

22:32 Of course, not everybody participates, but it's funny when I go out to restaurants and people come up to me and they say, oh, hey, I'm in your group. And I love being able to meet new people because we have such an amazing community and a lot of our friends are from this group. And I know a lot of people in the group, they've made a lot of friendships out of it. So it's very supportive to have. And so it's surprising to have that here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in such a small community. And it's hugely important. It's hugely important because when we went vegan 16 years ago, we had no idea.

23:14 What do you even eat? Before it was steak, potatoes, and like corn. And now, okay, now is it just potatoes and corn? So when we first went vegan, the first place we had tofu was at the place that I worked at. They had a little cafe and the guy served us a piece of tofu that was like a gelatinous piece of wedge, like a piece of pie, wobble, wobble, and put some barbecue sauce on it. And we're like, oh my God, this is tofu. If it was just that time, we would have never eaten tofu again. But luckily, right when we went vegan, that loving cafe opened up and we got to try tofu there.

23:56 But that's where this is, the whole networking community is great because you can share these things and get ideas. Well, I think what I'm hearing is that you wanna start maybe, because we have people watching on our streaming network, which is behind me. We have people watching and listening on social media as well as various platforms. But some people are saying, I don't have any vegans here. I don't know any vegan restaurants. They're feeling isolated, but it doesn't have to be that way. The first step I think would be to create the group.

24:38 If you're in a small town or a small city, and by the way, I looked it up, Fort Wayne is the 83rd most populous city in the United States. Now that's not a very big city. It's well under half a million people. It's under, I think 300,000 people, but you know what? In 300,000 people, you're gonna find some vegans. And it's the same thing in whatever town you're in. So if you feel, we can't just have vegans clustered in New York and Los Angeles. Okay? They're everywhere. And one of the first things that I do because we do travel a lot, one of the first things that I do is I go on Facebook and I look for a vegan community in the town that we're going to.

25:23 And I can always find a vegan community. And some of them might be small, but they're going to grow. If you get those clusters of vegans together, they're going to grow and they're gonna let other people know that they're there. So that's one of the first things I do. Anytime I'm going to a new city, I join their Facebook group so I can see what they have going on and get ideas of where we wanna go out to eat and try new things. And I like meeting other vegans. It's a fun thing for me to do when we're out. So- Let me jump in and say, Harolyn Sampson is saying, I'm in a small town, closer to nature, not enough vegan restaurants within walking distance.

26:06 So I'm pretty much on my own. What advice would you give her if she wanted to create a vegan community in her small town and then ultimately grow it into a vegan restaurant week? Or when we say vegan restaurant week, we don't mean vegan restaurants. There may be some vegan restaurants, but what we're talking about is restaurants offering vegan options during this week or this month. Yeah, I would say, Harolyn, go on Facebook and create a Facebook group if there isn't already one. Search for it first. And if there isn't, create it. So it's My Town Vegan Group or like ours is Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group.

26:51 Create that. And you'll be surprised. You may start seeing people because they're searching for one. You may start seeing people popping up. Or what I did, because I wanted to grow it faster, I threw a few dollars at it and advertised my group because I wanted to find where are those vegans? Like we did, we felt alone. We didn't know how to vegan. So I wanted to find other people. And so I threw a few dollars here and there at the group to promote it on Facebook and Facebook started sharing it with other people who were interested in veganism around my city. And we started finding other people and then getting together and going out to eat together at different restaurants.

27:36 I would call up different restaurants and say, hey, we have a group coming. Would you make us something vegan? If they didn't already have anything on the menu, we would do vegan dinner clubs. We would get together and have meetups. We've done vegan restaurant clubs where we, or I'm sorry, vegan cookbook clubs, where we picked one vegan cookbook and everybody made a different dish and we got together and ate them. So just kind of slowly building that community. And when we first started, it was me and my husband. And I think we had another couple and then it grew to another person, another person. And now when we have get togethers, they're pretty nice. Yeah, so Amy Jean Davis, who's a wonderful activist here in Los Angeles says, I am from Northwest Indiana.

28:22 The vegan options slash restaurants have been progressing really well in that area. Talk about that because I think there is a sense that people who are not vegan like to portray us as some sort of elitist hipsters only living in Brooklyn or Venice. And that's not the case. In fact, just having come back from Las Vegas where there's an extraordinary array of incredible vegan restaurants, it blew my mind. I started to say to myself, you know what? Maybe what's happening is America's going vegan town by town.

29:02 Would you like to address that, Heather? Yeah, I think people are creating these little pockets of veganism in their communities. And when we travel, it's fun to be able to go out and see what communities people are building. We go to a lot of veg fests with one of our jobs that we do. And it's just kind of nice to see these little pockets of veganism popping up here and there. And when I go to LA or when I go to New York, it's fun to go out to all of those vegan restaurants. You have a lot of choices, but in these smaller towns, you don't have as many choices as you do in the bigger cities.

29:46 I mean, we're three hours from Chicago. And Northwest Indiana, I'm in your Facebook group, so hello to you. And they do, I've watched their vegan community growing as well. I mean, I think- And it didn't just- Go ahead. Yeah, and it didn't just start, we didn't just magically get there. Yeah, at the beginning, it really was just getting together and having meetups and doing potlucks and getting together. I mean, you got to start somewhere. And I think that that was so key here is just those getting together, especially if you're from a very small town that doesn't have very many restaurants at all, you really got to lean into each other and you have to share recipes and you have to get together and you have to support each other.

30:33 Because yeah, you do feel isolated and especially anymore with the whole world and everybody kind of feels like they're in their own little corner. And this is where Facebook can really help out and that you can build that community there. I mean, I think this is super important because it's a way to weave veganism across the United States and make an entire web. Look, I am a huge fan of the Happy Cow app. I urge everyone to get it. I have used it from Texas to Vienna and all points in between. And it shows when you, wherever you are, you go in and it shows you a vegan restaurant closest to you or vegan restaurants.

31:16 It also shows you non-vegan restaurants with vegan options. And that has been an incredibly powerful app that has been a game changer. I almost see this as an app that could be developed to connect people. I actually tried to start something like this but it didn't quite take off. The reason being, it was the idea was to create like vegans next door, just like you have next door that I go on all the time, trying to tell people coyotes aren't the enemy, you know, and helping people when their dogs are lost in the neighbourhood. It's a neighbourhood thing. So it's either zip code or maybe even smaller than zip code but I don't know where anybody lives as a result of that.

32:02 But wouldn't it be great to have an app where we could identify how many vegans we have in either a zip code or in a sub-zip code and then bring them together. Personally, I have found half a dozen vegans that live right in my neighbourhood that I never knew were there. And it was just accidental. It shouldn't have to be accidental, Heather. There should be a mechanism to allow vegans in their community to connect. Right. I love the idea. And I remember when you were talking about the idea of that app and I always love the idea of getting other vegans together in one giant community.

32:45 But the problem with that is we're segregating ourselves from the rest of the world. And we want to normalise veganism. And if we're over here on this other app, we're not over here on Facebook or Instagram or Blue Sky or wherever sharing veganism. We're kind of hiding ourselves away from them. Now, on the other hand, it would be nice to not see all the meat images and images of people hunting or fishing. That's always hard as a vegan. So, you know, both ways. But I think the problem with creating an app is it starts out so small that people are like, well, there's not enough people on here.

33:31 And I have all of my community over there. But I think we'll eventually have to figure out some way. And I think Facebook groups is a great way because we have here locally, we have Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group, but then we have Vegan Indiana, which brings our whole state together. And that's one of my next ones as well is I want to do a Vegan Indiana Restaurant Week where it's all of Indiana that's coming together and doing this, not just Fort Wayne. Well, I'll be honest. I'll be honest, like this is all blue sky. I think this is all brand new thinking for me because really, and we did this because we wanted to have great food, you know, here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

34:16 So this was a little bit of a selfish enterprise for us to first get in there, get the restaurants to be okay with making, you know, vegan food, putting it on their menus on the regular. Yeah, I think we should branch out. I think it seems like a logical conclusion. I've never thought about it before. Well, I just think what you've created with Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vegan Restaurant, first week and then you graduated to month is really a template for what could happen across the United States in many different towns. And I think that's super exciting.

34:58 And the whole idea is to present what you've done and then have other people get it in their mind, like, ooh, I'd love to do it. I would love to do it in Marina Del Ray, absolutely. And I've had problems with, there's a hotel, shall go unnamed, that had just opened and had no vegan options. And then to make it worse, they were serving octopus. And what I did was I did a petition to say, you need to have vegan options because it happens to be on land owned by the county. There's a lot of land owned by the county in Marina Del Ray. And I said, you have an obligation.

35:40 But see, that was the activist in me immediately with the petitions and the thinking about protests, whereas perhaps your approach of creating a vegan restaurant week and a vegan restaurant month and showing them that it can be good business is the answer. Now, let me ask you this question, because I think we've all had the experience of being at either a hotel or a restaurant that's not vegan. And then the entree that they put together that's vegan is, I don't wanna use curse words, but not good, not good. I've had situations where it was drenched in you could tell some kind of a lard that they didn't realise they were cooking and it was inedible to me.

36:24 So how do you train the non-vegan restaurants to create vegan food that A, is vegan? Do you have to educate them? Because sometimes people don't know honey isn't vegan. There's certain things that they don't realise are, I mean, it's a process, not an event. What do you do to educate them? Right, and a lot of times people think, oh, it's gluten free. You can eat that, it's gluten free. Or I've had family members when we first went vegan, oh, it's organic, you can eat that. And we're like, no, it's still A, because even if they're organic, they're still coming out of a chicken. So we're not going to eat it. But I mean, just letting people know, going into a restaurant and saying, hey, do you have any vegan options?

37:09 Or looking at their menu and creating your own options out of it. You can always go in and get a baked potato. Just leave off the butter, get vegetables, ask if they're cooked in butter. So just starting to educate your restaurants that way and the servers. And it is kind of like hard sometimes because not everybody is interested in feeding vegans. But I mean, it's almost 2025. Like if you don't have a vegan option on your menu currently, you're behind the time. Let me ask you, what were some of the objections for those who, because we have to be prepared if we do this for some pushback, not everybody's going to say, yes, I'm going to do this.

37:56 I'm going to devote. They may feel they have to go out and buy different products that they might have to spend some time and money educating their chefs. What were some of the pushbacks you got from the restaurants? And again, I want to applaud all the restaurants that took part in this, but what were some of the pushbacks? How many restaurants said no? And how did you respond to that? Well, we have a lot of restaurants in Fort Wayne and we have 15 of them that participated this year. So not everybody's going to participate and that's fine. Even the, like our all vegan restaurant doesn't participate and that's fine. It's not for everybody. Some places don't have the manpower to get as busy as the restaurants do, but just educating them on what vegan is and looking at their current menu and helping them create vegan options out of that.

38:47 Or if they're wanting to try something new, just letting them know what's vegan, what they can't have in that. But I mean, what did they say to you when you approached them? Did everybody just say, yeah, absolutely. Or what was the dialogue so people could be prepared? Yeah, so we live in the Midwest. So there's such a thing as Midwest nice, where even if people don't like you, they're going to be friendly. And so sometimes they would just simply say, no, we're not going to participate. Some people would just not return phone calls or emails or talk to me. But for the most part, I think a lot of restaurants that I reached out to were excited to participate and they would ask me questions about it.

39:35 Otherwise they would just say, no, we're not interested in doing it at this time. Most people are gonna at least be nice to your face. They're not going to yell at you when you go into their restaurant. I feel like approaches everything, because we're not going and demanding anything from anybody. Heather, I mean, before Vegan Restaurant Week was even a thing, we were engaging with these restaurants on a very nice way saying, hey, you could get more people coming in if you did this. And Heather was consulting with restaurants years ago before we ever started doing it.

40:15 But it was always out of an engagement of, hey, here's something that might be good for you. You have to kind of position the whole thing, what's in it for them. So instead of being like, we demand that you do this for us. Does that make sense? Absolutely, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, I had restaurants reach out to me who we had gone to their restaurants before and they wanted to know, okay, what can I label vegan on my menu? And they brought out their book of recipes and I would go through their book of recipes and mark it if it was vegan, if it was vegetarian or nothing at all, or to let them know, if you just switch this one little ingredient, it would be vegan and everybody can eat it.

41:02 You'll get more business that way. So I did start there with restaurants and just kind of building those relationships, being nice is free and it goes a long way when you're talking to these restaurants who you want to go and dine at and you want to participate in things. Starting to build a community of restaurants as well as your community of vegans is I guess your first step. Wow, well, I think this is so exciting and I really hope that it inspires others. It's inspired me, but I'll tell you, it's a little scary because I don't like rejection and the idea that I'm going to go into some of these places and get rejected, but I like your approach.

41:45 Your approach is, hey, this is, oh, first of all, it just occurred to me, once, do you say, hey, this one signed up, this one signed up, this one signed up, you should sign up because if not, you're going to be kind of out of it. Like, is there that competition that- You know, there really hasn't been. I'm trying to think back of when we did our first one six years ago, I think it was just kind of, we had another all vegan restaurant at the time that participated in a few small places and then from there, people heard about it on the news or different things and they said, oh, hey, I want to be a part of that.

42:26 And we just started looking at the different restaurants that we thought would be a good fit for Vegan Month that would do something really, really good, especially local restaurants. If you reach out to local restaurants, they're able to do a lot more than if it's a national chain. National chains have to go through corporate, they're not going to be interested in trying to change things for us, but the local restaurants want the business and they want to keep their community happy. So a lot of times they'll go out of the way, even when we go into dine, we'll ask for, hey, you don't have really anything on the menu, would you mind making us this using the ingredients that you have that are actually vegan?

43:10 And they're always, a lot of them are always happy to do that. So starting with those restaurants that are local and that can do scratch foods is going to be the ones to focus on first. I absolutely agree with you. Mom and Pop, smaller restaurants that are not part of big chains, forget the big chains, like that hotel that was serving octopus, that's a major brand, one of the biggest in the world. That's going to be very hard to get in there with corporate and make that change. We've got a lot of comments coming in. Amy Jean Davis says, we're doing the same menu adjustment campaign with Plant Based Treaty. Paige Parsons Roach and I were out yesterday going to cafes and everyone we spoke to was very nice.

43:52 So yes, menu adjustment, I like that phrase. I think that there's a tendency and I suffer from it of all of nothingness. Like I want everybody to go vegan tomorrow. The idea of adding a vegan option may seem like a small thing, but if all of that put together is cumulative and I really have a new attitude toward what's happening with veganism in the United States, I think that it's morphing. I think it did start out where it was kind of like this Californication type, you know, hipster thing.

44:34 And then we realised, well, a lot of people are alienated by that. They may not, they think it's expensive. They try to make this, the meat industry tries to make that veganism is more expensive when we all know it's cheaper. You could buy a sack of brown rice, a sack of dried beans and a sack of potatoes and live for two months. And so we all know it's cheaper, but the word out there that the advertiser-based media tries to push is that it's vegan and elitist. Now I see a change happening. I see that it's going mainstream in these smaller towns.

45:15 And I was, again, blown away by the vegan options in Las Vegas. Not that that's such a small town, but it was just, it was shocking. I mean, and we talked to a couple who came all the way from Florida, who run a sanctuary, who fly all the way to Las Vegas, not to gamble, but to go to this vegan Asian restaurant that makes vegan sushi, vegan dim sum, and traditional Chinese dishes. And the food was so good, I brought the leftovers home and had it for lunch yesterday because it was absolutely delicious. And I'm thinking, we need you to open a restaurant in LA like that.

45:57 I was trying to convince all these people. But it made me think that, when you try to push something down and you try to suppress something, which let's face it, the meat industry is, there's an article in the Guardian that says basically they have a war room in Colorado where they send out all this negative stuff about ultra processed and never mentioning that processed meat is officially cancer causing, according to the World Health Organisation. So we have to push back. And so I see that it's coming, the vegan movement is sort of like, okay, you're gonna try to push it down here, it's gonna pop up here. What's your thought on that, JR?

46:37 Well, I think it's all about normalising the whole thing. Heather and I have been involved with that for years, whether it's, Heather gives cooking demos, Heather does tabling events. And I wanna also stress, one of the cool things that these restaurants get is publicity out the wazoo. I mean, like Heather is doing, she's done like maybe three TV interviews. She's done, you've got a newspaper and whatever. So that's huge for them. So they're getting their name out there and people are curious. So yeah, I think it's all about- This is a list of, we're putting up a list of all the restaurants that participated and kudos to you.

47:26 You're right. So that's the other piece of the puzzle that we have to explain to people, Heather. It's not just, oh, you go up to these restaurants, you've issued a news release, which I've read, which names all these restaurants, they're named on the website. And you're also doing TV interviews where you're saying, hey, look at these great restaurants that are participating. So you're providing them free advertising. Right, well, the restaurants do pay a little bit of money to be in this because we do have a lot going on behind the scenes that we have to pay for. So the restaurants do pay, but they don't pay a lot to be included.

48:06 They pay enough to help pay the bills. So it's not quite free, but they're getting publicity all month. I own a marketing agency. You can't get the type of publicity that these restaurants are getting for even one day on what they pay to be included in this. So yeah, veganism is popping up. To go back to what you said, I mean, veganism, I see it popping up in different cities. I mean, we go up to Michigan and small towns there, there's Detroit, there's Ann Arbour, Traverse City, have all these little pockets of veganism around there. We go to upstate New York and Rochester and different places, and there's little pockets of veganism.

48:50 And it's so fun to know that we're out there. We're not just in the big cities. Anywhere you go in the US or even outside of the US, there's vegans everywhere, and you just are hiding. We're hiding everywhere. You just don't, yeah, you just don't know it. So it's a lot of work. Don't let me lie and say it's not a lot of work. I put a lot of work into this leading up to it, but I think the benefits for the vegan community and the benefits for the restaurant and the benefits for the animals outweigh like all of the work that's put into it.

49:31 And it is kind of a streamlined process that I've done the past six years. That makes it a lot easier. It's a labour of love. It's a labour of love. I do love it. And there's no doubt that, I mean, the other restaurants that don't participate, the first year, maybe it's a little harder, but they see that. The other restaurants that don't participate, they see that coverage and they're like, ooh, I kind of missed the boat on this one. And I'll tell you what, if they see it two years and they weren't participating and they see that coverage, they're like, man, I am, so number three, they're definitely on board. So yeah, it's a labour of love. I know Heather puts in a lot of time into this. I just get my picture taken, so.

50:13 Well, speaking of that, this conversation has been so much fun and it's gone by so quickly, I forgot to play, but I'm going to play it right now. What you do when you're not doing vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month. Oh, right, right. Long live the king. But what if, say, Jailhouse Rock had been written by a vegan instead? When a vegan throws a party, you can bet your tail, all the chips on the plate will all be made of kale. The salad and the smoothie will be kale as well, cause every single vegan loves the kale, kale, kale. Let's rock with the lettuce, let's rock. Every vegan living on your block will be munching on the kale nonstop.

51:02 I'm kale-less. Kale-less parsley. Thank you very much. It's ridiculous. I love it. And I will say you have a whole bunch of others, but I did check and Jailhouse Rock is public domain. That's why I played that one. Oh, is that right? Okay, okay. You've got plenty of others. Super fun. Another example of how veganism is a joyous, fun, very fun adventure, no sacrifice involved. And that's what I think is the final thing. We've only got a couple of minutes left, is that this whole vegan restaurant month, vegan restaurant week shows that it's fun, that our lifestyle is a blast.

51:52 And frankly, I have to control myself not to just make it a social club because I could go somewhere every night to a different potluck or a different restaurant or a different meetup or a different party or a different veg fest. Your programme of vegan restaurant month needs to go coast to coast. I personally want to get involved to help this. I think it should maybe become a 5013 nonprofit project where you get funding to do all this. And so that we enable people all around the United States and beyond, Canada, Europe, Latin America, everywhere, the entire world could be creating their vegan restaurant weeks and months in their towns because you've provided a very specific template almost like a franchise.

52:49 So final thoughts, Heather, what do you say to that? Yep, I think Jane, you're definitely right. And I've procrastinated long enough and I think you've just kind of given me the push that I need to put together my package of everything that we do for vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month. I mean, I don't think many places can jump straight to a vegan month starting at a vegan restaurant week, even with two restaurants is good. So yeah, I think that's kind of given me the push that I need to put everything together and touch base with other vegan communities and other towns to say, hey, let's get this started in your town. And a final thought from JR. You said something really interesting.

53:35 You said, you feel like you should make it a social club. And I think that that's where it's gotta start, right? It's gotta start as a social club and it's gotta start as a network and people leaning into one another. I mean, the things that we do, everything that we do, whether it's the tabling, whether it's the vegan restaurant month, whether it's Heather's doing the cooking classes, we do all of these things out of love and because it's a fun thing to do. And we wouldn't do any of this if it wasn't fun. I mean, it's great to be there fighting for the animals, but I wanna be a happy warrior. So that's where it's gotta start, I think. Wow, well, please reach out to Plant Based Treaty for possible collaboration, says Amy Jean Davis, who's a very well-known activist and who does so much for animals, people and the planet.

54:28 So yes, I think that Plant Based Treaty, which tries to turn institutions, cities and restaurants, plant-based and individuals would be a great collaborator. And somebody else said, put them on the team. Well, guess what? Full disclosure, they're already on the team. Heather Dahman is on our board on the Unchained TV, Jane Unchained News Network, 501C3 nonprofit board. And she is also our technical director. And a lot of what happens on our streaming network would not be able to happen without Heather. So with that, I am going to urge everybody, yes, make a vegan restaurant week in your town.

55:13 And also, I think you should download Unchained TV. So it's a vegan Netflix. Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. I love Unchained TV. Unchained, Unchained TV, your life will change. It's just that easy. Unchained TV has all sorts of content for everybody. Unchained TV changed my life. Unchained TV is crushing it. I love Unchained TV. Unchained TV is my go-to. Unchained TV, who knew? Unchained TV, yeah.