The former plant-based restaurant chain Clean Kitchen Club has closed its last site in London, UK, just a few months after they started serving meat and many former vegan customers left. The last branch that was still open was at the new shopping centre at Battersea Power Station.
According to Plant Based News, a spokesperson for Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC) told Restaurant Online that Clean Kitchen Club’s trading agreement was terminated in November 2024, after breaches in the lease. Also in November, Brewdog co-founder James Watt revealed that he lost £150,000 through an investment in Clean Kitchen.
In 2021, the brand moved from delivery-only to brick-and-mortar restaurants, opening eateries in Notting Hill, Wembley, Camden boroughs, and Battersea (all of them in London, and now closed).
Clean Kitchen Club was founded in 2020 by Verity Bowditch from the reality TV show Made in Chelsea and YouTuber Mikey Pearce as an entirely plant-based business, but after the chain began serving meat in 2024, Bowditch left in response to the move away from a wholly plant-based menu. At the time she said, “I’m so passionate about animal welfare, I can’t physically be part of something that isn’t fully plant-based…I have to stand true to my values.” It seems that many vegans also stood true to their values and stopped buying products from Clean Kitchen Club, which may have contributed to its demise.
Clean Kitchen Club is not the only former plant-based brand that made the mistake of adding animal products to the menu thinking this would benefit their business. On an Instagram post from the 1st of January 2025, Sage Regenerative Kitchen & Brewery, an L.A. restaurant previously known as Sage Vegan Bistro before starting to serve meat and losing its vegan credentials, announced the decision to close all of its Southern California locations from the 5th of January.
In 2024, co-owners Mollie Engelhart and Chef Elias Sosa made the ill-fated decision to transition from only plant-based options to a menu based on “regenerative agriculture” — which would include animal-based products disguised as more sustainable than average to deceive customers who are already aware of the devastating impact of animal agriculture on animals, the environment, and human health.
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