On this day in vegan history · January 23, 2016
The Herbivorous Butcher Opens in Minneapolis
A brother and sister who used to haul coolers to a farmers market table opened the country's first standalone vegan butcher shop, and the line went around the block.
The facts
- Opened
- January 23, 2016, at 507 1st Avenue NE, Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Founders
- Siblings Aubry Walch and Kale Walch
- Farmers market run
- Sold seitan-based products at the Minneapolis Farmers Market starting in 2014
- Kickstarter
- Raised roughly $61,000 against a $50,000 goal to help build out the storefront
On January 23, 2016, siblings Aubry and Kale Walch opened The Herbivorous Butcher, a full-service butcher counter selling only plant-based meats and cheeses, at 507 1st Avenue Northeast in Minneapolis. The pair had spent 2014 and 2015 testing seitan-based sausages, jerky, and deli slices at the Minneapolis Farmers Market, building a following that included plenty of meat eaters. To fund the storefront and its kitchen, they ran a Kickstarter campaign that raised roughly $61,000 against a $50,000 goal, on top of savings and outside investment. What had started, by Aubry's own account, as a joke over dinner became a shop where the novelty of a vegan butcher counter drew the cameras, and the taste of the product is what kept customers coming back.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
We were both making the stuff for ourselves for years. I stopped eating animal products when I was 14 and Kale stopped when he was 17. I'd host dinner parties and didn't want to serve mock duck out of a can.
Aubry Walch, on why she and her brother started making their own vegan meats
Source: Minnesota Monthly -
Let's do a vegan butcher shop
Aubry Walch, recalling the dinner-table joke that became the business
Source: Minnesota Monthly
Why it still matters
A butcher counter is the part of the supermarket vegan food had never touched, the place built entirely around cut flesh. Putting a plant-based version of that counter in a Minneapolis storefront, and getting meat eaters to line up for it, argued that vegan food didn't need to imitate a salad bar to sell.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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