On an Instagram post of the 1st of January 2025, Sage Regenerative Kitchen & Brewery, an L.A. restaurant previously known as Sage Vegan Bistro before it started serving meat and lost 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.
Unsurprisingly, the L.A. vegan community was very disappointed with the restaurant ceasing to be vegan, so they stopped going. An Instagram comment from a former customer reads, “So disappointing. Used to be our favourite restaurant,” and another reads, “What a bummer announcement, especially on #earthday. Nothing says protect the earth and its inhabitants like profiting off their suffering and exploitation.”
In June 2024, animal rights activists protested the addition of animal products to the new menu by mobbing the restaurant’s Echo Park location. This caused a negative reaction from the owners, who made comments further shifting them away from vegans, which in turn made more vegans boycott the restaurant. The restaurant had then lost the customers that had been gathering through its 14 years of existence.
It seems that animal agriculture and its damaging products have caused another victim (a family business), but there is a positive lesson behind this closure that other plant-based restaurants can learn from: nothing good will come from adding animal products to your menu and falling for the deception of “regenerative animal agriculture” will make you lose vegan customers who know better.
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