Reina Montenegro has been called an abomination to her culture and an oxymoron — all because she serves vegan Filipino food at her South San Francisco restaurant, Nick’s on Grand.

“People come to me and say, ‘This is bullshit. We’re Filipino. We’re all about meat,’” she said. “It’s a mentality that needs to change.”

On Friday, Montenegro will bring her vegan sisig and leche flan to a wider audience when she opens Nick’s on Mission, a plant-based version of a typical turo turo (“point point”) Filipino restaurant.

“It’s like going to grandma’s little store, where you know everything is home cooked and delicious and you just point to what you like,” she said.

At the SoMa takeout-only location, the steam table will be filled with tofu-mushroom sisig, lumpia, pancit and kaldereta (Filipino-style pot roast). Breakfast options — including ube pancakes and tocilog (cured “pork” with garlic rice and egg) — will be offered all day.

Combo plates will go for $10-$15, while a vegan version of the shrimpy noodle dish palabok will be available as a standalone dish for $9.

“We want to prove being vegan isn’t expensive,” Montenegro said.

There will also be some packaged desserts and snacks and reusable containers for sale to encourage folks to cut down on waste.

Montenegro went vegan after watching her partner, Kenny Annis, successfully clear up a skin condition after changing his diet. Shortly after, in 2016, they bought a Daly City Filipino spot called Nick’s Kitchen. She hated how she couldn’t eat at her own restaurant.

“We weren’t doing well at that point because my heart wasn’t in it,” she said. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll change it to vegan and if no one shows up, we’ll shut it down.’”

She started tinkering with mock meats, rolling textured vegetable protein into lumpia and finding that shiitake mushrooms made a good substitute for pig’s ear in sisig.

In 2017, Nick’s Kitchen transformed into a vegan restaurant — and the decision saved the business. Lines started forming out the door. A year later, Montenegro expanded with a bigger, more upscale location, Nick’s on Grand in South San Francisco. A few months ago, she transformed the original Nick’s into a commercial kitchen for her various pop-ups and catering gigs. And now, she’s opening her first restaurant in San Francisco.

Nick’s is part of a small boom of vegan restaurants opening in the Bay Area, including Wildseed in Cow Hollow and Vegan Mob in Oakland. Demand for plant-based alternatives is soaring as consumers seek to make more environmentally conscious choices — but, as evidenced by the popularity of the beef-like Impossible Burger, without sacrificing on meaty flavors.

“I haven’t been vegan that long, so I remember exactly what it tasted like,” Montenegro said. “I think that’s an advantage.”

Nick’s on Mission. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 1; regular hours will be 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 996 Mission St., San Francisco. www.nicksonmission.com

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker