Opening day at Vegan Mob was different from most other Bay Area restaurants.
As a DJ shouted for people to dance to music playing from nearby speakers, an elderly black couple sat quietly at a table only feet away and shared bites of a vegan po’boy.
Surrounding them was the line at Vegan Mob during its first day of business in Oakland, mostly young black and brown people, all of them either laughing, talking or dancing. The vibe, on Saturday, was joyous, like a family reunion.
And like any brown family reunion worth its salt, the music at Vegan Mob (500 Lake Park Ave.), located just up the road from the Grand Lake Theater, was mostly hip-hop. I could feel in my chest the bass thrumming from nearby speakers as a DJ spun Nicki Minaj’s “Moment 4 Life.”
Over the music, the elderly couple responded to a group of teens who were waiting in line and happened to ask about their food: “It’s the best po’boy I have ever had,” the woman said.
At Vegan Mob that day, I also waited in line. I rapped song lyrics to myself. I breathed deeply the smells of soul food wafting from the restaurant’s kitchen and I pondered a simple question: Are young black and brown people making vegan food cool in Oakland?
Vegan food, in various forms, has long been a part of my culinary identity. But I only realized this as I got older and grew curious about the connections between the soul food, Creole food and the Caribbean and African fare I often ate at home.
Next to the fried or jerk chicken recipes in my mom’s weathered recipe books, there would be notes for green bean and potato curries, or rotis with split peas, summer squash with Cajun spices or red beans and rice without sausage. All of it was vegan.
In a very 2019 way, Vegan Mob is the perfect vehicle to highlight vegan food in the black community.
“Education is a big part of why I’m doing this,” Vegan Mob owner Toriano Gordon said. “People have questions, but the more they eat, they realize this food is familiar. It contains things they know.”
Vegan Mob’s opening was attended by thousands. More than 900 orders were completed before the restaurant ran out of food and subsequently had to close for two days.
It was arguably the most bombastic Bay Area restaurant debut in recent memory.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Oakland’s Specialty Foods. At 42 years old, the downtown Oakland store is the oldest African grocery store in the Bay Area. While Vegan Mob was opening, Specialty Foods was in the midst of a liquidation sale, with plans to close in the coming days.
Specialty Foods holds a special place in my heart. When I first moved to Oakland and began feeling homesick, I would often go to Specialty Foods. Sure, I grabbed the beef-filled Jamaican patties by the handful for a few bucks each, but I also bought things like Nigerian atama leaves for $2.80 per pack. I never figured out how to cook with them, but I could open the pack, sniff and smell home.
The historical roots for black veganism also stretch into religion. The founders of the Nation of Islam believed in excluding meat from the diet, especially pork, and it encouraged black people to eat meals of vegetables. Meanwhile, the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, known as the Black Hebrews of Dimona, also follow vegan dietary guidelines.
New owners are slated to take over the building from the Castro family, which has operated the business for decades.
For a few more days, Nina Castro is still at the helm. She said she spoke with 20 people interested in the property over the past two weeks in hopes they would resume the business. “None of the 20 people interested could commit to this type of full-time job,” she texted me this week.
Vegan Mob shows how vegan food is modern and can be served steeped in hip-hop and black culture. Meanwhile, Specialty Foods is a remnant of the old guard of vegan dining, the type of place where black families for decades found African and Caribbean items they couldn’t find anywhere else.
So, are black people making vegan food in Oakland cool? The answer is yes. But, honestly, black people have always made vegan food cool. Most of us just needed a reminder.