By Megan Sayles,
AFRO Business Writer,
Report for America Corps Member,
msayles@afro.com
Pinky Cole, the founder, and CEO of Slutty Vegan, comes back home this weekend.
The philanthropist and entrepreneur brings the Pinky Cole Experience Tour to the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Soundstage on Dec. 2 at 7 p.m.
The event celebrates the release of her first cookbook, “Eat Plants, B*tch,” and features book signings, surprise musical guests, DJs and Slutty Vegan food trucks serving signature dishes from the cookbook.
“My tour for the Pinky Cole Experience is the first of its kind,” said Cole. “I wanted to have a book tour that is attached to a mini concert with surprise guests, and I’m excited that the idea I came up with in my mind really became a thing because we’ve been selling out every location and people are getting really excited about the book.”
Slutty Vegan was born in July 2018 in Cole’s two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta when she began selling fresh vegan hamburgers on Instagram. The idea caught on quickly and, in just a few weeks she began fulfilling more orders through a food truck.
A few months later, Slutty Vegan opened its first location in Atlanta to a crowd of 1,200 people. Hungry customers have been lining up around the block ever since, according to Cole.
Today, the restaurant is a multimillion-dollar company, with several locations in Georgia and one in Alabama. Most recently, Slutty Vegan opened its first New York location in Brooklyn, and soon will open another in Harlem.
Cole attributed Slutty Vegan’s longevity and rapid growth to her cultivation of a fun, entertaining environment around approachable plant-based foods.
“We don’t sell veganism. We literally meet you on whatever step of the journey that you’re on, and we want you to be confident knowing that whenever you come to Slutty Vegan, we’re not making you go vegan,” said Cole. “We want you to have a good time when you come here, and if you still want to eat meat, that’s fine.”
Cole says her mission is to educate people, regardless of their skin color, about veganism not just because of its health benefits but also because it reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
“Eat Plants, B*itch” is just one way she’s achieving this mission. The cookbook spotlights vegan comfort food and features over 80 easy recipes, like stuffed butternut squash and southern peach cobbler.
After stops in New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles, The Pinky Cole Experience Tour’s Baltimore event is on the road to being sold out, too, she said.
“I’m excited to go back to the place where I really started and where I got my humble beginnings,” said Cole, a Baltimore native. “To be able to say that I’m getting on stage in the city where I went to school and where my family was raised, that’s just big.”
Reach Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member here: msayles@afro.com
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