Some vegan restaurants may have struggled during the pandemic, By Chloe being the obvious example, but others are now gearing up to expand as the UK comes out of lockdown.
Among them is Neat Burger, the plant-based burger chain backed by F1 star Lewis Hamilton which serves Beyond Meat burgers.
It currently has three sites in London, and this week announced a fourth in Canary Wharf. It also says that there are seven more restaurants in the pipeline along with a range of delivery-only kitchens.
New venues will include Ealing, Victoria, Bishopsgate, Finsbury Park, the King’s Road and “two major shopping centres” which are yet to be confirmed.
Much of this is a re-statement of plans the burger chain announced before the pandemic. It is however good to see that its backers still have a lot of confidence in the future of vegan fast food,
“A few years ago, most people would not have been that into the idea of a plant-based burger restaurant, and restaurants had one option on the menu to cater for the vegetarians,” said Neat director Zack Bish of the company’s plans. “The fact that there is now such a high demand for a totally plant-based offering is really encouraging and exciting to us. Even meat-eaters are going out of their way to choose plant-based options as the awareness of the effect it has on the world grows and grows.
“A lot of operators are nervous about a post-Covid world, and everything ‘going remote’, but we think people are excited about getting out and eating together again.”
