In April, celeb vegan chef Matthew Kenney, together with fellow entrepreneurs Mary Dumont and Pat McAuley, will open vegan bar PlantPub in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. The second location of PlantPub—the flagship of which the crew operates in Cambridge, MA—will open proper throughout the road from Fenway Park, the baseball landmark that’s house to the Boston Pink Sox.
PlantPub Fenway will likely be a lot larger than its flagship 20-seater Cambridge location which Dumont, McAuley, and investor/entrepreneur Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni opened final fall. PlantPub Fenway will take over the house of Boston BeerWorks, a brewery and bar which occupied the 8,000-square-foot house for practically 30 years. Full with outsized home windows and uncovered vents that give it an industrial environment, the house seats greater than 250 individuals.
MKC
A plant-based pioneer with greater than 60 eating places worldwide, Kenney—who additionally owns meals corridor Plant City in Windfall, RI— joined the PlantPub enterprise underneath his Matthew Kenney Delicacies (MKC) umbrella final 12 months. Whereas Kenney is predicated in Los Angeles, the chef was raised in Searsport, ME and is a Pink Sox fan himself. “It’s one of the iconic sporting stadiums within the nation, and I’m actually keen about working in locations I really feel a connection to,” Kenney informed VegNews. “I believe it’s very distinctive to have a plant-based house this huge … and I believe it’s going to be an expertise in and of itself.”
A plant-based pub for Boston’s baseball followers
An award-winning chef, Dumont is “past excited” in regards to the new Fenway restaurant and the culinary alternatives a bigger kitchen will afford. Along with providing lots of the fashionable objects on the prevailing PlantPub Cambridge menu—together with Buffalo cauliflower wings, loaded nachos, and a wide range of pizzas and burgers—PlantPub Fenway will serve extra ballpark-themed choices corresponding to sizzling canines, sausage and pepper grinders, and Bavarian pretzels with a stout cheese sauce.
“We’re increasing our menu with extra health-forward issues like bowls and extra entrée-style dishes that we don’t actually have the house to make in Kendall Sq. [in Cambridge],” Dumont informed VegNews. “And we’re increasing our dessert menu to incorporate Boston cream pie and one thing we’re going to name ‘pub tubs’— lovely sundaes with all the toppings. We’re going to have a number of variations of soppy serve ice cream, too, which is tremendous nostalgic. It’s a New England factor.”
Ellen McDermott
To enhance its attractive meals menu, the crew devoted an excessive amount of time, power, and thought to crafting an equally spectacular beverage program—which incorporates one thing for everybody. “We’re undoubtedly going to be celebrating all of the native craft breweries; that will likely be our main focus,” McAuley informed VegNews. “Figuring out the place we’re, in fact we can have the game-day mainstream choices like Bud Lights and issues like that. However the principle focus will likely be on New England craft beers, identical to we do in Kendall [Square]—solely it is going to be in draft type and in additional of a big-bar type.”
Along with these two PlantPub places, the crew plans to develop the idea to different cities across the nation.
New England’s plant-based meals scene
The PlantPub idea is increasing because the plant-based motion begins to penetrate areas throughout the nation, together with New England. McAuley calls the PlantPub crew “mission-oriented impression entrepreneurs” and says the pattern towards plant-based delicacies has seen exponential development, and that Boston, “being a little bit extra conservative than say Los Angeles or Manhattan,” is lagging behind. “Plant-based is the fastest-growing space within the meals business, so we’re assured in its success. We expect it’s lengthy overdue in Boston,” he mentioned.
Kenney, who owns Double Zero, a gourmand pizza eatery with a location on Newbury Road in Boston, says he has gotten “a lot optimistic suggestions and help” in regards to the new restaurant from the Higher Boston group, together with from PlantPub Fenway landlords Panos and Sara Demeter, who he says are “passionate” about plant-based meals and urged the Fenway location to him.
Ellen McDermott
“I believe persons are realizing, increasingly, how good plant-based meals is. Look, lots of people did nice plant-based meals previously, nevertheless it’s gotten even higher and is simply actually, actually good now,” Kenney mentioned. “Cooks at the moment are being extra revolutionary, there are extra merchandise obtainable now. … I believe that lots of people wished to do that [adopt a plant-based diet] for a very long time, however they didn’t like the feel or the style of the meals they had been consuming. That’s simply not the case anymore.”
Dumont agrees, saying that many PlantPub menu objects “mimic” not solely the style however the texture of their meat counterparts, so diners “aren’t sacrificing something taste-wise” by consuming a extra sustainable and nutritious diet that’s higher for the planet and is, she says, the way forward for meals.
“And the truth that we’re proper throughout the road from Fenway Park is important. To me, baseball is about nostalgia; issues that children bear in mind and, as adults, nonetheless love. Having a pub that has all the issues that you just love—solely made in a brand new and higher approach—will grow to be a part of your historical past, a part of your loved ones’s historical past … that’s the place we wish to get to,” Dumont says. “We wish to evoke that in individuals—get them to recollect the previous, however now they’re consuming in a approach that’s transferring towards the long run.”
For extra about Matthew Kenney’s vegan eating places, learn:
Chef Matthew Kenney Opens Rhode Island’s First Vegan Drive-Thru
There Are About To Be 100 Locations of Matthew Kenney’s Vegan Deli
Chef Matthew Kenney’s 40+ Vegan Restaurants: The Complete Guide
