The founder of Slutty Vegan, Bar Vegan, and The Pinky Cole Foundation is showing no signs of slowing down her wild success.
If you haven’t heard the name Pinky Cole, you will soon. The founder of Slutty Vegan—the famous Atlanta-based vegan burger joint—has spent the last few years building a vegan empire that shows no signs of slowing down. Here’s everything you need to know about the vegan entrepreneur.
Pinky Cole: Serial Entrepreneur, Restaurateur, Author, and Philanthropist
Pinky Cole has always been a serial entrepreneur and had already achieved success in other industries before moving into the vegan space. She is most widely known for her restaurant Slutty Vegan, which is in a class of its own when it comes to vegan burger joints.
But Slutty Vegan is only one part of Cole’s entrepreneurial success. She has continued to grow her presence in Atlanta with the opening of Bar Vegan, has made a big impact on the local Black community with the Pinky Cole Foundation, and has plans to reach even more people with her message of good vegan food with the release of her first cookbook later this year.
And it isn’t just the vegan community that recognizes Cole’s unstoppable success. Cole has been named to several entrepreneurial best-of lists, including Restaurant Hospitality’s 2021 Power List, Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 100 Powerful Women in Business, Forbes‘ Next 1000, LA Wire’s Influential Women of 2020, and Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40.
Photo courtesy of Sterling Pics
Slutty Vegan: Some of the Best Vegan Burgers in the US
You don’t have to be vegan to know about Slutty Vegan. The Atlanta-based vegan restaurant has gained fame across the US, uniting people of all backgrounds in the name of great food and an even better atmosphere.
Pinky Cole had the idea for Slutty Vegan while craving vegan fast food in Atlanta and started cooking out of a shared kitchen in 2018. Just six months after Slutty Vegan’s grand opening, Cole’s idea had amassed over $4 million in revenue. Slutty Vegan began as a food truck and has since grown to include four locations in Atlanta, with a fifth location set to open in New York this spring.
Slutty Vegan restaurants often attract lines several hours long and the list of celebrities that frequent the franchise is growing every day. With menu items such as the Sloppy Toppy and the Super Slut and employees calling out vegan virgins in line, the atmosphere at Slutty Vegan almost always feels like a party.
When asked if she ever anticipated Slutty Vegan getting this big, Cole said: “I don’t think I could have predicted how much Slutty Vegan has blown up, but my dad always says, ‘Success is like mud, you keep throwing things at the wall, something will stick.’ I know I would have kept throwing things at the wall, but Slutty Vegan definitely stuck, and I couldn’t have done it without the city of Atlanta.”
Photo courtesy of Maya Hockaday
Fully Vegan Bar in Atlanta
Last year, Cole opened a fully vegan bar in the Central Food Hall at the famed Ponce City Market in Atlanta. The menu at Bar Vegan is different from Slutty Vegan, with comfort classics like vegan cheesesteaks, boneless wings, and fried chicken sandwiches decorating the menu.
The bar offers classic cocktails, house mocktails and signature cocktails, a full beer and wine list, and even several “experience cocktails” big enough for two, that you’ll have to see to believe. Bar Vegan hosts local DJs and special events, offers brunch on the weekends, and offers happy hour throughout the week. Visit BarVeganATL.com to see the full menu and schedule of events.
Photo courtesy of Bar Vegan
Vegan Recipes for Meat Lovers
Pinky Cole’s wild success as a restaurateur has led to the writing of her first book, which is slated to be released this summer. Eat Plants, B*tch is a cookbook filled with over 90 recipes from Cole’s own kitchen, as well as tricks for vegan cooking and tips on how to use common vegan substitutions.
With the tagline “91 vegan recipes that will blow your meat-loving mind,” Eat Plants, B*tch is designed to make vegan cooking accessible to everyone and remove the stereotype that cooking vegan food is intimidating. Eat Plants, B*tch is available for pre-order now and will be released at retailers across the US in November 2022.
The Pinky Cole Foundation Is Helping Build Generational Wealth in the Black Community
Even more monumental than Slutty Vegan’s success has been the creation and development of the Pinky Cole Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining generational wealth in the Black community.
The organization teaches and empowers young people of color to leverage economic opportunities while providing financial literacy-focused education, specifically to those in the 13-22 age range.
Over the years, the foundation has made a huge impact on the local Black community by paying rent for struggling businesses, paying the tuition of 30 Clark Atlanta University students, and buying a car and life insurance for the family of Rayshard Brooks, the young Black Atlanta resident who was murdered by a police officer in 2020.
In 2022, the Pinky Cole Foundation’s main focus is building up Square 1: The Liife Experience, a program focusing on enrolling 25,000 Black men in group term life insurance by the end of 2023.
Visit PinkyGivesBack.com for more information about the Pinky Cole Foundation and their upcoming projects, and make sure to give Pinky Cole a follow on Instagram at @Pinky907 to keep up with all of her upcoming endeavors.
