The head chef and owner Brenda Beener honed her culinary skills from her parents’ Cajun style kitchen. Both parents born in Louisiana, her father was a chef and her mother was known around town for being an excellent cook. Growing up in a household with two great chefs allowed Brenda to learn lessons from both sides, and create her own style.
Brenda stopped eating and preparing red meat and pork over thirty years ago and was introduced to vegetarianism by her husband twenty years ago when their children were ten and seven years old. Faced with the challenge of feeding children and a husband that were very accustomed to soul food, Brenda quickly learned to combine her Cajun culinary training with the vegetarian and eventually 100% vegan products she would prepare at home and at Seasoned Vegan. Her goal is to directly combat various health issues by providing a healthier and affordable option to the community.
Seasoned Vegan is the first full service vegan restaurant in Harlem, New York. Our mission is to fight the health ailments that affect our neighborhood by providing a healthy, affordable dining option. Since our inception in 2009 as a pop-up shop, one of our main goals has been to show people how expansive the vegan lifestyle can be. We make dishes inspired by various cuisines. Our slogan is “the Food you love, veganized” because we make vegan versions of classic favorite dishes.
Since our grand opening on May 3rd, 2014 we have been happily serving great tasting food to an extremely diverse customer base. We serve meat-eaters, vegetarians, vegans and everyone in between. People of all ages, races, and nationalities frequent our restaurant. We are most proud when we see kids and seniors in the restaurant thoroughly enjoying their plant-based meal.
In addition, as we are conscious of the economic conditions of our community, we make sure to price our menu items to allow us to be included in everyone’s budgets. In the future we hope to be a beacon for healthy living for underserved communities around the nation.
Our application for a liquor license has recently been approved! In the next few weeks we will be preparing to serve some great organic, locally sourced, vegan beer and wine. We need to buy a three door beverage refrigerator which costs $5,303.99, a beer tap for $2,983.50, some glassware and other miscellaneous bar items. We are excited to expand our menu. From the beginning we wanted to provide the full dining experience, vegan style, and now we will be able to do just that. Most restaurants rely on alcohol to make up 30% of their revenue. A large boost in revenue like this will allow us to hire more staff, fund our expansion and save for a future line of packaged goods.