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Restaurant Widow wrote
This Just In – The Latest in Restaurant Gossip
Posted by Lisa the Waitress on Friday, February 15, 2008
A whirlwind of phone calls led to sources telling me that Chrissie Hynde (of the Pretenders) will open a VegiTerranean restaurant in the Shorth North. There is already one location of the moderately-priced Vegan restaurant at the Northside Lofts in Akron, OH.
Maybe that’s what will take over the old Coffee Table/8 Bar spot?
Related Stories:
- Chrissie Hynde to open veggie restaurant in Canton
She obviously doesn’t appreciate people who eat animal byproducts as she referred to them during a September interview as “terrorists”.
On the web: http://www.vegiterranean.com/
http://www.akronnewsnow.com/business/itemdetail.asp?ID=16531§ion=business&subsection=generalbusiness
:roll:
We should consider ouselves lucky we even have the luxury of having this debate. People who, for example, live in Northern Iceland only live on animal products. If there were no seals, they wouldn’t be able to survive – both for food or clothing. Are they terrorists? It’s just a stupid thing to say. Until you’ve lived in every possible situation, and you’re a freakin’ millionaire, you don’t really have the right to call people terrorists because they use animal byproducts.
Also, it’s kind of ignorant: ie, sheep have to be shorn in order to be comfortable; wool is a happy byproduct of cool & comfy sheep.
sh…………..be vewry, vewry qwuit, I’m hunten wabbit!!! ” Terrorist” Elmer Fudd? Who knew? and to think my mother let me grow up watching such a thing!
I’m sure she’s a smart person. Sounds like she’s just trying to drum up some controversy with lines like that. :roll:
So has anyone actually tried the place in Akron? Is it any good?
It’s good. It has a vegan menu that features a fair amount of Gardein faux meats. I’m not a huge fan of faux meat, but the rest of the menu is very good. I’ll still give Dragonfly the credit for being Ohio’s best vegan restaurant, but VegiTerranean should offer a quality alternative. I got a few pictures, if you like food porn.
I’m sure she’s a smart person. Sounds like she’s just trying to drum up some controversy with lines like that. :roll:
So has anyone actually tried the place in Akron? Is it any good?
I’m a smart person and I say stupid things all the time. I used to work for a giant clothing retailer and on frequent occasions Ms. Hynde would stand in front of one of our flagship stores in NYC and cut up our leather products. It just seemed so silly – first of all, going into the store and purchasing leather and then cutting up, therefore ensuring the animal died for absolutely no reason. Not to mention, I’m sure there were people within spitting distance of this event who could have used the money spent on the demonstration to feed their families. When people with too much money start wasting it with such disdain, it just gets under my skin.
It reminds me of back in the day when Rage Against the Machine would have all these political songs about how the US is raping the rest of the world, and then at the end of every show, they would destroy all of their equipment, which was most likely made in substandard working conditions by underpaid workers, just because they have the money to replace everything at the drop of the dime. They are the machine, duh. (maybe that’s the irony i missed?)
I have not eaten at the restaurant, but from reading the menu, I found a lot of weird meat replacements. Is the restaurant sponsered by a meat replacement company? I suppose just from reading the menu, I have more respect for Dragonfly, because they don’t try to replace meat; like any great restaurant, meat or not, they are choosing really great ingredients and elevating them to the become more than a sum of their parts. They are growing their own ingredients and trying to inspire and educate people on the value of amazing, sustainable ingredients.
Vegan meat replacements creep me out. Why not just have tofu be the main ingredient? Really good tofu? Why not make it at the table with local soybeans and vegan shitake mushroom stock? Vegan risotto with a study of the best of local squash? A variety of mushrooms from mushroom harvest, perhaps prepared in 4 different methods? Amazing heirloom beans and rice with really, really good extra virgin olive oil? The best seasonal vegetables with a variety of salts from around the world?
It’s hard to believe that an overly processed “chikn” breast is such an amazing ingredient that you can’t help but make it the center of a dish. But I’ve had locally grown shitake mushrooms that did inspire me so much they had to be the center of attention, and I am not a vegetarian.
I suppose we just come from 2 different world views.
Okay. Rant over.
I’d hardly call that a rant. It was very well put. ;)
I honestly hadn’t looked at their menu yet, but I agree that the faux-meat thing is a little weird to me too (outside of eating good veggie burgers here and there).
I guess I’ll just wait until this place opens and I can read some first-hand experiences there before I decide whether or not I want to try it out myself.
Amen, Lisa. Chrissie’s comments do not serve to endear me to her place… even less so after I consider that it would appear to be her intention.
Singer Chrissie Hynde plans to expand vegan concept here
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
BY BILL CHRONISTER
Rocker Chrissie Hynde’s emerging second career as a restaurateur is about to make its next stop in Columbus.
Hynde and restaurant manager Daniel Duplain are looking for sites in the Downtown area for a second edition of their VegiTerranean Restaurant and Bar.
The original restaurant opened a little more than three months ago in Akron.
“Chrissie and I were in town (two weeks ago) to scout for locations,” Duplain said. “We’ve made a commitment to ourselves that we want to be in the Downtown or in the Short North.”
He and developers Paul and Joel Testa intend to visit Columbus again in the next few weeks to settle on a location. They hope to have the restaurant built and open by midsummer.
READ MORE
Invite her to the Dagwood Challange!
Lisa, you are right and a half on all counts. And you know food is where all these moral calibrations start.
That said, I love Chryssie Hynde. She just sounds like she needs to have a PC-ectomy :)
Eating meat and wearing animal skins, etc., are a beautiful part of being alive when done correctly and sustainably.
I’ll probably still try her restaurant, but I won’t be getting near any “faux” meat with a 10-foot-pole :wink:
Just ’cause, you know, I keep a ten-foot-pole around to touch meat products with :lol:
Maybe this should have gone in a different post but I thought it would give all the people complaining about $8 Northstar soup some perspective. Further down in this story:
The Original Soupman is the chain born from the Soup Kitchen International that Al Yeganeh started in New York City in 1984. He was made famous on Seinfeld as the “Soup Nazi” in the early ’90s.
“Yeganeh closed the shop in 2004 and went to work on creating the chain and a frozen-food line.
The soups sold in the store — a rotating menu of about 30 recipes — are started in New York, frozen and shipped to the individual stores. Any ingredients that don’t freeze well, such as the lobster in lobster bisque, are added to the soup when it is finished in the store.
The store will offer a full menu of soups, sandwiches, panini and salads. Prices will range from $4.95 to $10.95 for bowls of soup, and from $3 to $5 for sandwiches. Soup-and-sandwich combinations will run from $5.99 to $8.99.”
I place Downtown will sell frozen soup for $10.95 a bowl. Makes NS look pretty reasonable.
Downtown please, Gay St if possible. I think the place would be a draw for Downtown and would work on Main St like where Brownstone used to be.
Please consider the Gibby’s location next to the North market so another D-Bag bar doesn’t snap it up.
Thanks.
Funny….the Dispatch didn’t give me any credit, LOL.
..OH..and you are welcome Columbus. ;)
She may be outspoke and weird…but aren’t we all.
So I take it that this isn’t happening? Or happening very very very slowly? ;)
Tawd and Sharon of Raddog and i were just wondering about this, too.
Anyone know what’s up?
I wrote earlier, in another thread:
“An acquaintance of mine who is in commercial real estate approached Mr. Duplain (Ms. Hynde’s business partner), on behalf of a client who owns a Short North restaurant which is for sale. He was informed that they’ve already finalized a location.
So, where? I can only guess. We know it is not East Village, as that recently sold to a local group. Bluefish, then, or something else in The Cap?”
Well, Bluefish is going to be Sushi Rock, and East Village is back on the market. So I still do not know where, but apparently they aren’t looking for a space anymore, they’ve found one.
Ah, thanks. I must have missed that in another thread.
Maybe she has decided to open elsewhere? This article was posted last Monday on contactmusic.com
PRETENDERS – HYNDE PLANS TO OPEN NEW YORK RESTAURANT
LATEST: THE PRETENDERS rocker CHRISSIE HYNDE has made plans to open yet another vegan restaurant – near the site of New York’s 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The singer recently opened her first eatery in her native Akron, Ohio, called The VegiTerranean.
And Hynde is already eager to branch out, with hopes of continuing her culinary venture in the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero – the main building of the new World Trade Center complex that is currently under construction.
Hynde tells People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): “There’s been so much horrific blood and guts and violence there that it’d be fitting to open a cool restaurant where no mangled, burnt bodies are on the menu.”
10/13/2008 07:01:55 PM
They should snatch up the premium corner spot occupied by the Black Olive. I had hoped they would have taken this spot anyways… Great exposure and location and though their Akron location has similar futuristic modern design they would have had better execution than the current tenant.