Slutty Vegan, the popular vegan restaurant chain, announced on social media they temporarily closed their Birmingham location on June 11, and there’s no sign that the restaurant will reopen.
“Hey big head, Birmingham is off to get a BBL,” the Instagram post’s caption says, while listing the addresses for other Slutty Vegan locations.
Neither Pinky Cole, the CEO of Slutty Vegan, nor any restaurant representatives have responded to AL.com’s request for comment.
Teona Henry, who worked at Slutty Vegan before the closure, posted on Facebook that she found out the restaurant closed without warning. Henry said she personally attempted to contact Cole, but she was unable to reach her.
This isn’t the first time Slutty Vegan has been temporarily closed.
In early 2023, the restaurant closed for four days due to mechanical issues, and for a few days in early 2024 due to technical difficulties. In 2023, the restaurant was vandalized.
In a previous AL.com interview with Cole, she said Birmingham was a successful location.
“Birmingham Slutty Vegan is actually profitable,” Cole said.
“That is one of my profitable locations. Which I’m happy about because if you know anything about the restaurant industry, restaurants aren’t profitable. We have new management in place. We have new team members in place. We have a good group of people. I don’t have to worry about the Birmingham store because I have people properly running the store.”
The Birmingham Slutty Vegan location was the first location Cole opened outside of Atlanta.
The Hooker Fries at Slutty Vegan (Courtesy, Slutty Vegan)
“Birmingham was the springboard to be able to identify things will be different...I was used to Atlanta systems, county and state taxes. So coming to Alabama, the laws and permits are set up differently,” Cole told AL.com. “So there were a lot of learning curves that took us over a year to be able to identify. But now, I feel like we have arrived and we’re past the toddler stage.”
Slutty Vegan, based in Atlanta, opened its first Alabama location in August 2022 with people from all across the city looking to support the Black owned business.
The restaurant is known for “bangin’ plant-based” burgers, fries, other sandwiches, sides and desserts in a yellow and red colored storefronts among their 12 locations across the country.
Since the Birmingham location opened, Cole opened up other locations across the country like in Dallas, Harlem, and on Spelman College’s campus.
The Slutty Vegan food truck first came to Birmingham in 2020, and the average wait-time was two hours to get “sluttified” with one of their menu items.