Savory and nutritious…with an increasing number of vegan restaurants and vegan chefs out there, it is becoming more common to hear adjectives like this one used to describe vegan cuisine. Vegan meals can be not only delicious and healthy, but also convenient and affordable thanks to The Veggie Grill. Kevin Boylan, one of the restaurant’s owners, sat down with Vegan Mainstream to discuss what this vegan fast food restaurant is all about. Warning…mouths may water!
Vegan Mainstream: Tell me about yourself and why you started The Veggie Grill.
Kevin Boylan: Well, it’s actually an interesting story in that my cofounder, T.K. Pillan, and I do not come from either a restaurant background nor a vegetarian background. Pillan is an MIT graduate and a very successful technology entrepreneur, and I was in the investment business for 25 years…The company was based on Pillan’s and my desire for delicious, convenient food that we could feel good about eating. The order is very important — delicious first, convenient [and] that we could feel good about eating.
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VM: Where is the restaurant located? What can people expect?
KB: We have four restaurants currently…we are a Southern California company at this point. We have two restaurants in Orange County, and we have two restaurants in Los Angeles County. We are currently just commencing construction of our fifth restaurant, which will open in Santa Monica later this year — November/December. In addition to that, we have already completed transactions for two additional restaurants in the first quarter of 2011.
What we bring [to the public] is an unparalleled focus on flavor, so there’s a reason why the vast majority of our guests are not vegetarian, much less vegan. We are focused on redefining American comfort food…we offer savory sandwiches and burgers, indulgent sweet potato fries…absolutely delicious desserts, all of which are plant based.
VM: How did your background in finance assist you in opening the restaurant?
KB: Well, one of the things my partner and I do well is identify very quickly what we don’t do well. So we surrounded ourselves with very good restaurant people.
On our board of advisers, we have Jim Collins, he’s a legend in the restaurant business. He was the founder, ironically enough, of the Sizzle restaurant group, which in the last 30+ years has been enormously successful. He was Kentucky Fried Chicken’s first franchisee — and he helped spread Kentucky Fried Chicken worldwide.
Another one of our members is Bob Spivak who is the founder of…the Daily Grill and The Grill on the Alley chain…Bob has been National Restaurant Association man of the year. He’s a very experienced gentleman.
The former CEO of Baja Fresh, Greg Dollarhyde, is on our board, and just a few days ago, Tom Davin just joined our board. Most recently for the last five years, he was CEO of the Panda restaurant group…
VM: What is the mission of The Veggie Grill? What are your hopes for the future?
KB: We intend to continue growing the brand in Southern California and then we’re going to roll it out nationwide. We’ve had very broad critical acclaim. We were named the best new restaurant of the entire year in Orange County when we opened there…that’s of all restaurants — all the steak places, all the sushi places, all the Italian restaurants — they picked The Veggie Grill as the best new restaurant of the year in all of Orange County, which is an enormous area.
We were chosen as restaurant of the year by Veg News magazine for the entire country…we were just chosen in Los Angeles for our new restaurant in West Hollywood as one of the top 10 new restaurants in all of Los Angeles.
VM: Why should people choose your restaurant over other fast food places such as McDonald’s or Wendy’s?
KB: They can get delicious food that is extremely satisfying without the cholesterol, animal fat, trans fat, high fructose corn syrup that exist in those other choices…we have done an enormous amount of research — we spent almost a year doing research before we launched the company. When you say that food is ‘healthy’…immediately people, in the back of their minds, [think] this is going to be a little punishing [and that the food] isn’t really going to be delicious; it’s good for me [and] I’m doing this because I enjoyed myself yesterday. And what we’re trying to do is redefine the way people think about wholesome food. It can - and should indeed – be completely delicious and satisfying. It should be indulgent. It should be savory…we say that we feature classic sandwiches and burgers that just happen to be vegetarian and people are amazed.
VM: What are your favorite foods on the menu?
KB: Well, it’s kind of like saying which of your children would you say is your favorite. My partner and I have obviously approved every item on the menu. Let me put it this way, our most popular item is our Santa Fe Crispy Chicken…it’s just outstanding. We just flash fry in canola oil a delicious moist chicken breast, which is made from of course plant protein, and then we add fresh lettuce, tomato, red onion, fresh avocado, and we have our own Southwestern Spice vegan mayo that we make daily at all of our restaurants. It is unbelievably delicious!
…If somebody’s in the mood for something more towards meat or beef, we have something called the All American Stack (a grilled veggie-steak, thousand island dressing, pickles, lettuce, tomato, topped with crispy onion rings on a fresh-baked whole wheat bun). You can’t believe how indulgent it is! You need two or three napkins. It’s a completely enjoyable plant-based meal and you haven’t had any cholesterol or animal fat, yet you’ve completely enjoyed yourself.
VM: When it comes to starting a new business, what advice do you have for novice entrepreneurs?
KB: Write a business plan. Spend the time to do a full business plan. It’s time intensive, and it’s torture. But it will force you to [think things through], and it may stop you from doing something you thought would be a good idea.
I’m looking at ours right now, and we put this together in November 2005…we talk about an executive summary, market overview, our sales and marketing strategy, our real estate strategy, our logistics strategy, our organizational strategy, the risks that we see out there, how we would mitigate those risks, the finances of the organization…
If more people paid attention before they launched a company to actually do an in-depth business plan, I think we’d have fewer business failures and a lot fewer broken hearts. It’s very, very difficult to start a business. Being an entrepreneur is a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day job. And you better be passionate about it. If you’re passionate about it, you owe it to yourself and others around you to have done your homework.
[Also], address your weaknesses. Be honest with yourself about what you don’t do well and then figure out how to address that.
Many people choose the vegan lifestyle because it is a compassionate choice, but more and more research is showing that a plant-based diet is better for your overall health as well. Boylan says, “We’ve found that getting people to stay focused on the food and to talk about how delicious and amazing the food tastes, the ancillary benefits of the fact that this is good for the people, for the planet, good for the animals, that will occur as a benefit of people eating at The Veggie Grill.” With passionate leaders in the vegan fast food industry like Kevin Boylan, eating tasty and nutritious meals can be a quick, inexpensive and enjoyable experience.
