HARLEM, NY — When the pandemic began, Janine Smalls and Lanise Herman-Thomas did not expect that they would end up opening one of Harlem’s most popular new restaurants.
At the time, the two sisters were busy running the Young Excellence Society, their youth-focused after-school nonprofit based out of an apartment building on West 135th Street. When COVID-19 forced them to close their doors temporarily, “We didn’t want to have our kids displaced,” Smalls recalled — “so we went to our kitchen and began cooking meals.”
Those meals were the same hearty plant-based dishes that Smalls and Herman-Thomas have been eating since around five years ago, when both sisters went vegan for health reasons.
“We both know how to cook very well,” Smalls said. “Our slogan has always been, ‘Veganize but not compromise.’ We use the same seasonings that we would make for other cuisines or foods.”
Their home-cooked food was a hit with the kids, so Smalls and Herman-Thomas connected with delivery apps like GrubHub and DoorDash and began selling vegan lunches and dinners — all the while operating out of a tiny, apartment-style kitchen in the 135th Street building.
Thanks to a mixture of Instagram hype and word-of-mouth exposure, it became a sensation, primarily in Harlem — but drawing customers who commuted in from as far as Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Dishes included mac and cheese, meatless “oxtail” stew, rice and peas, collard greens, and above all, their signature fried “chicken,” made with soy and pea protein.
Within five months, the operation — which they dubbed Vegan Hood — had raised six figures, allowing the sisters to keep paying staff at Young Excellence Society and provide dozens of kids with pencils, PPE and other supplies.
By June, Vegan Hood had far outgrown the tiny kitchen, where they were scrambling to fulfill the nearly 200 orders that came in each night. So Herman-Thomas and Smalls began looking for a storefront space to open their own restaurant — and began fundraising to help with costs.
But space after space fell through, including one last-minute disappointment when a landlord told the sisters that their anticipated sales figures were “unrealistic,” Smalls said. Finally, they discovered the empty former Harlem Food Bar space on Frederick Douglass Boulevard between West 113th and 114th streets, where Vegan Hood opened on April 16 after months of renovations.
To call the initial few days a success would be an understatement: during the first week, Vegan Hood earned one-quarter of the profits it expected to make in a full year, Smalls said. The fundraiser, meanwhile, ended up exceeding its $45,000 goal — with nearly all contributions coming from “total strangers.” The money helped Vegan Hood cover a chunk of rent payments and furnish the restaurant interior.
That they have encountered such success in Harlem is a personal validation for Smalls and Herman-Thomas, whose stated goal is to “bridge veganism and the hood.”
“Our communities have the highest health problems: diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks,” Smalls said. “If we just can change our diet, it can make so much more of a difference, so that is Lanise and I’s mission.”
Vegan Hood is now open daily at 2100 Frederick Douglass Blvd. Learn more on their website or Instagram.
Have a Harlem news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at [email protected]
