NYC Restaurant Sued By Investors For Going Vegan

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First GustOrganics received hate mail for going vegan, and now they’re being sued by investors for the same “crime.”

Investors in the West Village health food eatery filed a lawsuit against the manager and owners of the restaurant complaining that the switch to veganism “have damaged the reputation and sales of the business”and sales was based solely on the restaurant management’s “personal beliefs.”

Those personal beliefs being that they — meaning manager Kiki Adami, her husband and co-owner Paul Chang, and fellow co-owner Alberto Gonzalez — could not in good conscience continue to serve meat after knowing the devastation caused by the global meat industry on the environment.

Sales have dipped considerably since the trio switched the health food eatery from a Paleo raw-foods diet to all-vegan earlier this summer, which might explain the aforementioned hate mail.

Adami told DNAInfo, “I was receiving hate emails from the [meat-loving] CrossFit people, we were their go-to spot. I must have gotten 50 hate mails.”

Yet Adami, Chang and Gonzalez still felt they were doing the right thing. “There was a huge disconnect, because even organic farming is one of the main reasons for deforestation and [agriculture] also produces more methane emissions from all the cow-farting than all the cars in the world combined,” Adami told Munchies.

However for a city that is usually quiet in June, the folks at GustOrganics were actually profitable.” I’m being sued for losing clientele, but for the first June in three years we actually made money,” Adami said.

However the lawsuit is moving forward. The investors are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop Gonzalez, Adami and Chang from doing anything with the business. They want Gonzalez to turn the business over to their control, and they are seeking monetary damages directly from Gonzalez in an amount to be determined at trial.

Gonzalez said, “I will provide my side of the story in court.”

Unfortunately, haters goin’ to hate. But we applaud the trio for making the brave decision to go vegan despite all the naysayers.

Via Munchies

Photo: GustOrganics Facebook