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The 2023 Braves home opener against the Padres on Thursday, April 6, at Truist Park will also mark the debut of Slutty Vegan at the stadium.
Located in section 130 by the third base gate, the freestanding kiosk features a pared-down menu from the wildly popular vegan burger restaurant of meat-free bratwursts (Big Dawg) topped with sauerkraut on a vegan pretzel bun, batches of fries, and vegan chicken strips (Tenderonis) with dipping sauces like ranch, blackberry mayo, and agave mustard and barbecue.
Slutty Vegan becomes the latest local restaurant to join the roster of food offered at the Braves stadium, which also includes Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q, H&F Burger, and King of Pops.
It’s already been a busy year for founder Aisha “Pinky” Cole, who recently published her first cookbook and opened new locations of Slutty Vegan on the Georgia Tech campus, in Birmingham, Alabama, and in Harlem in New York City. A location opens soon in Columbus, Georgia, making it the tenth permanent location of Slutty Vegan.
Cole first launched the vegan burger business in 2018 as a delivery service and quickly amassed a following, leading to a food truck and late night pop-ups around Atlanta University Center and the historically Black colleges of Spelman, Morehouse, and her alma mater, Clark Atlanta University. She opened the first Slutty Vegan location in Atlanta’s Westview neighborhood a year later. Over the next two years, Cole opened a second location of Slutty Vegan in Jonesboro, followed by a third location on Edgewood Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward and a fourth location in Duluth.
In January, a lawsuit was filed by a former employee of Cole’s Ponce City Market restaurant Bar Vegan alleging unpaid wages. The collective-action lawsuit also names Bar Vegan partners Aaron Mattison and Jason Crain and alleges the trio withheld a portion of employee tips for themselves and the restaurant while also paying less than the $7.25. per hour federal minimum wage. Cole, Mattison, and Crain filed a formal response to the lawsuit with the U.S. District Court’s Northern Georgia District in Atlanta denying all of the allegations. The case is still pending.
