All-vegan eatery Leguminati NOT opening in the Milk District

In a blow to vegans and lovers of meatless dining, all-vegan eatery Leguminati won’t be opening in the Milk District as we first reported earlier this month.

In a blog post, co-owner Rebecca “Bex” Larsen cited a “series of unfortunate events” and “personal influences from select business owners in the neighborhood” as reasons for the shutdown.

As we told you earlier this month, Larsen, along with Nikki Namdar and Jeremy Joseph, partnered with Sandwich Bar owner Matthew Scot to move their all-vegan operation into the eatery at 2432 E. Robinson St.

But Scot cancelled the contract just one week before Leguminati was to soft open. The business owners Larsen mentions are also members of the Milk District Main Street Board and, she goes on to say, “a chain of texts and emails have since been sent to our lawyers for further review.”

This is all quite surprising considering the build-out had been nearly completed and design touches added to Sandwich Bar’s interior.

“We’ve lost hours upon hours in labor, spent thousands of dollars on renovations and equipment, paid rent for the space, placed orders with food distributors, and hired a staff, many of which who left jobs to come work for us” Larsen says in her post.

[NOTE: Sandwich Bar owner Matthew Scot refutes these claims. See our interview with him here.]

In the meantime, the trio behind Leguminati plan on staging pop-up events around town, the first of which will be this Saturday, Nov. 25, from noon to 6 p.m. behind the Etoile Boutique as part of Small Business Saturday.

As always, we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2017.