As a teenager growing up in Mexico City, Susana Chavez worked at a slaughterhouse. Chavez felt proud to have a job and be in school, and was mostly numb to the violence. The horror didn’t set in until Chavez was in their late 30s and saw a video of a chicken being killed.
“And that was the switch for me,” Chavez said. “I saw that on a Monday, and by Sunday I was already at my first protest. It took me a week to become an activist.”
Now Chavez is an organizer with Direct Action Everywhere, a global network of activists pushing for political and social change for animals. Activists with the group have laid down on the racetrack at Golden Gate Fields to protest horse deaths. They’ve held protests outside supermarkets, led funeral processions for animals, and are backing ballot initiatives to end what critics call ‘factory farms’ in Berkeley and Sonoma County.
Vegan Pop-up Market
The next pop-up market will be Aug. 25 from noon to 5 p.m. at Exit Now, 3223 Pierce St., Richmond.
One kind of direct action that’s hard to argue against is bringing tasty, plant-based plates directly to the people.
That’s part of why Chavez organizes vegan pop-ups — to spread awareness about healthy food and animal welfare while bringing the community together. Since June, Chavez has teamed up with 7 Stars Holistic Healing Center, a Richmond dispensary, to put together the Vegan Pop-up Market.
The monthly event is hosted at Exit Now, next door to the dispensary and across the street from the Pacific East Mall. People experiencing munchies or just the vegan-curious can walk over to try vegan cookies, tacos, Northern Nigerian cuisines, soul food, and more.
“The main goal is to bring some positivity to the community members around the area, and it’s working,” Chavez said. “The first month we did it, people were happy, people were taking pictures. All the vendors sold out. It was just great.”
A food pop-up with a social justice mission
Seducing people with vegan chicken and plant-based po’ boy sandwiches is still a challenge across the country, even if vegan options are popular in the Bay Area. Only an estimated 1% of the United States population is vegan, according to a Gallup Consumption Habits poll.
One study shows people are less likely to want food described as “vegan” or “plant-based” compared to food billed as “healthy” or “sustainable.” Plant-based meat giants like Beyond Meat are scrambling to win back customers.
Chavez and chefs at the vegan pop-up want to prove there are other options out there, and not just in hubs for vegan restaurants like Berkeley, one of the first cities to pass a meat-free Green Monday resolution, or Oakland, where residents can follow a vegan trail that includes more than 20 stops.
The natural partnership between food and cannabis
This is not Richmond’s first vegan pop up. The new pop-up at Exit Now is reminiscent of another event Chavez organized at Unity Park in Richmond. For about three years beginning in 2021, roughly 20 vendors set up at the park once a month.
“Oh my god, the energy,” Chavez said.
But the popular event was also hard to sustain, especially as Chavez poured into activism and collecting signatures for Sonoma County’s ‘factory farm’ ballot measure.
The director of marketing at 7 Stars, Ian Elwood, was a patron at the Unity Park vegan pop-up and reached out to Chavez to see if they could bring a similar event to Exit Now, the event space next door
The executive director of 7 Stars, Zee Handoush, believes dispensaries have an obligation in their community to help educate people about health. Partnering with food businesses is an extension of that philosophy. The partnerships go back to a patient with a peach farm, Handoush recalled. Restaurants were closed during the pandemic and the peach farm was sitting on a ton of peaches.
“So we thought, ‘Well, let’s give the peaches out to our patients that come through the door.’ We had her box up the peaches, and we passed out peaches,” Handoush said. “It kept their business going, and it kept our patients happy. So we just kept on doing that with different food vendors.”
‘A big vegan family’
At the vegan-pop up in July, vendors set up in the outdoor event space, each serving up unique flavors. Several patrons stopped to hug the chefs before ordering their food. Many of the vendors knew each other, some from the Unity Park pop-up.
“We find each other everywhere,” said Anika Wagner with Alkaline Family. She and her husband offer homemade alkaline waffles. “We’re like a big vegan family.”
At another booth, That Hausa Vegan served suya nachos with housemade plantain chips, a kind of Northern Nigerian Californian fusion dish. Fuckin Delicious Cookies brought Thai tea, coconut strawberry, and matcha macadamia cookies. Aziza Sikstar with Sikstar Art sold wild foraged culinary mushrooms and mushroom-based art.
Marbella Zepeda with Vegan Vibes greeted regulars and introduced new customers to her vegan tacos, burrito bowls and quesadillas.
Zepeda went vegan about five years ago after a night of research and thinking hard about the food she was serving her two kids, who were five and two-years-old at the time. She started small transitions, like vegan spaghetti with vegan beef instead of meat balls and vegan hot dogs.
“A kid is going to eat it as long as it looks like something they’ve eaten before,” Zepeda said. “And if they’re open to trying it, good. The hot dog looked like a regular hot dog, so they just ate it. It’s delicious.”
She saw they liked the food and were asking for seconds. She started experimenting with menudo, a traditional Mexican soup made with cow’s stomach, and making it vegan.
“I was curious, ‘What if we can make it vegan, and not cow stomach?’” Zepeda said. “I ended up coming across a mushroom that looked just like the texture that I needed for the menudo. And I was like, ‘You know, this is actually really good.’”
Zepeda launched Vegan Vibes in 2019, and her dream is to one day have her own office and combine her financial services business with her food business.
She sees the connection between the financial priorities we make and the food we eat, and imagines people entering her office for financial insight and ordering delicious plant-based delights when they leave.
Vegan for an afternoon
After carefully deciding on their orders, patrons devoured their plates at tables by the pop-up. Dominic Nudo, 30, came with his partner and a friend visiting from New York.
Nudo’s partner is vegan. He said he does most of the cooking in the house and doesn’t want to make two meals. So, he’s vegan an estimated 90 percent of the time.
But at the vegan pop-up, he was focused on how good the meal in front of him tasted. He ordered the fried oyster mushroom po’ boy from Plant ‘N Soul, and described the taste as “heaven.” The group with him agreed the thousand island sauce gave the dish a seafood vibe.
“It shows that vegan food isn’t just awful and bland,” Nudo said. “If you intentionally make something vegan, it’ll be good.”
Vegan food is more, he said, than a salad with no cheese.
And for the event co-organizer, Susana Chavez, the mission is bigger than an afternoon of good food. During the pop-up, some patrons stopped to ask Chavez questions, like what led to this collection of vegan vendors in the first place.
“Sometimes I have to take a little break from talking because it’s a lot of people and everybody has a completely different point of view. But everybody is super open,” Chavez said. “Once they hear the whole story behind the event, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that makes total sense.’”
The vegan pop-up will be back monthly to continue to serve up plant-based food, and spread the message.
