Louisiana Vegan Community Becomes a Big Dill

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Feeling misunderstood or isolated can be an ideal avenue for your next side hustle idea. And when it comes to feeling isolated, it's hard to find a better example than specialized diets. They tend to be very much misunderstood, the more extreme the better, because it means that it's harder to find people who relate and accept your situation. If you're following a specialized diet, if you're following a ketogenic diet, for example, paleo or gluten-free or whatever else, especially if you don't have any flexibility in that diet, it can be tough. And where there are problems, there are solutions.

Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. That introduction brings me to being vegan in Louisiana. Not a common thing. In this story, a Louisiana vegan community becomes a big deal.

Feeling like the only vegans in the state, two friends start a roving multi-course dinner series. Stay tuned for that story. [Music]

Many Americans don't understand vegans. They think ditching meat for more veggies is a big mistake. But Lindsay Foreman didn't see it that way.

For her, going vegan was a way to be a good steward of the environment and eat healthier. But it wasn't easy. The American South, in particular, isn't known for being vegan-friendly. And in her hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, that was especially true. There was no vegan restaurant in the whole town, so Lindsay and her vegan friend, Sarah, were accustomed to eating off the sides menu.

They dreamed of a local vegan restaurant. And instead of dreaming, they made their own. Well, not exactly, actually, but sort of. Opening a restaurant is not something we talk about very often on Side Hustle School. Why not?

Because it's expensive and risky. There are a lot of people who lose a lot of money trying to open a restaurant. So unless that is your field, your background, your industry, you might be better served by looking elsewhere. And in their case, instead of opening an actual brick-and-mortar restaurant, Lindsay and Sarah opened a pop-up multi-course dinner that would be held in people's backyards. They called this idea "vegetopia," like, you know, paradise, but with vegetables, I guess.

They knew how to cook vegan dishes. They knew they could get the right permits. And they knew there had to be other people looking for vegan dishes around town. Or if nothing else, even if there weren't a lot of vegans, for an evening, maybe they could convince the meat-eaters to be open-minded. Lindsay and Sarah reached out to one of their friends and asked if they could host their first dinner at their home.

It was time to start prepping. They bought tools, utensils, and serving gear, plates, napkins, wine glasses, everything that you need for a pop-up multi-course dinner. Most of it, they got secondhand, and the bill came to just under $400. It was another $150 to get a food service license from the city, bringing total startup costs to $550. They set up a reservation page on Eventbrite and started telling everyone they knew.

But this was the moment of truth. Would local adventurous eaters really pay $35 for a backyard dinner with live music? There was some live music as well. I forgot to mention that. It turns out they would.

Their first reservation took a weight off their shoulders. They could hardly remain calm, but it wasn't validation yet. To turn a profit after the food ingredients, they'd need a couple dozen people to sign up. So they kept hustling by putting up flyers at local cafes and posting on social media. Within a couple weeks, they had sold out that dinner with 40 guests.

Now it was time to deliver. They borrowed tables from a friend, rented chairs for $40, and spent about $500 on ingredients. When the day arrived, Lindsay and Sarah cooked up the five-course meal in their friend's kitchen. They made things like Thai quinoa meatballs, spicy mango chili wraps, and avocado ginger soup. They went all in on making amazing dishes because after all, they didn't want to be mediocre.

Doors opened at 6 p.m. The first course went out at 6.30 with the music starting at seven. By the time they delivered the final courses, they knew the night was a hit. They had successfully brought in enough money to cover their ingredients and pay themselves back for the initial startup fees. The following month, Vegetopia had its second event with a completely unique menu.

Another success, but Lindsay and Sarah realized they had to adjust their strategy a bit. Carrying all their cooking gear, utensils, ingredients, and other supplies to their friends' houses and then carrying them back was exhausting. It took a lot of time, and that moving time was rapidly reducing their per-hour profit. They needed a better system for transport. They solved this by offering two free tickets to people who would donate an afternoon to help transport.

It was an easy way to shave a couple hours off their event routine and yet still have a positive return on investment. Now, all this was in 2017. In 2018, Vegetopia branched out to new realms of food service. They started serving hot food at local festivals and began catering at events. As their following grew, they raised the dinner price to $45.

Overall, Vegetopia has become a big deal. They tend to profit around $500 to $700 per dinner, depending on the cost of the ingredients, and are constantly being requested to serve at more local events. Musicians line up to participate and short film screenings from friends traveling abroad have become a new part of the experience as well. But they're not getting comfortable just yet. As part of their Vegetopia World Domination Plans 2019, they're looking to expand into restaurants and bars on Mondays in particular.

Why Mondays? Well, the restaurants can get money from the open bar and Vegetopian dinners can have a covered air-conditioned location to meet. And because a lot of restaurants are closed on Mondays, the event won't interfere with normal service hours. Vegans in Lafayette don't have to eat lentils and cashew cheese enchiladas at home anymore. At least for one night a month, they get to eat stellar vegan food surrounded by people who understand them.

And for Lindsay and Sarah, that's been the greatest reward of all. [Music]

All right, here is an important principle. Now, listen, as we began this year, this principle is so important. You can apply it in lots of different ways in life. That principle is kind of my life motto, which is there is another way.

There's often more than one way to accomplish something. So whenever you encounter a problem, you've got a traditional solution out there, and then there might be at least one alternative solution. So how about an example? Well, in this story, getting licensed to serve alcohol was difficult in their local area. So Lindsay and Sarah were able to get the permits that they needed, but it turned out that getting the license to serve alcohol was more problematic or more expensive.

I'm not totally sure what the reason was, but the point is it was difficult. Which by the way, side note, Louisiana, I thought you learned to serve alcohol in elementary school there, but who knows, maybe their town was different. Anyway, they've got this problem. They want to serve wine at their dinners. So what do they do?

Well, instead of trying to wade through the process, presumably paying more money or dealing with more bureaucracy or both, they found a creative solution. That creative solution was to ask a friend to provide bottles of wine, and then the guests pay that friend a suggested donation of $5 a glass. Problem solved. That way, people who want to have wine with their vegan dinner can do so. Lindsay and Sarah don't have to worry about getting the license.

Everybody is happy. All right, so remember that. We're gonna touch on it more as we go along. There's often more than one way to accomplish something. If you'd like to check out what they're doing, the show notes for today's episode are at sidehustleschool.com/742.

This has been episode 742. Thank you so much for listening. Much more is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]