Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

'Vegan Bodega' Aiming to Open on Lower East Side

By Patrick Hedlund | August 18, 2011 12:40pm

LOWER EAST SIDE — Don’t expect to find cigarettes and scratch-off tickets at this bodega.

A new health-conscious convenience store fashioned after the classic New York mini-mart is looking to land on the Lower East Side in the coming months.

“Vegan Bodega” — which would stock specialty items ranging from soy and seitan to locally grown produce — is the brainchild of Queens resident Eric Hopf, a self-described “hippie” who wanted to address the lack of vegan-specific markets in the city.

The idea sprouted when Hopf saw the array of vegan-friendly options during trips to Seattle and Portland, Ore., and noticed his native city of Orlando even had its own all-vegan grocer.

“I grew up there, and let me tell you — it wasn’t that friendly for vegans,” said Hopf, 33, who works as a freelance photographer. “If it can be done in Orlando, than what’s going in in New York?”

A plan to open an all-vegan bodega is in the works for the Lower East Side.
A plan to open an all-vegan bodega is in the works for the Lower East Side.
View Full Caption
Flickr/12th St David

He and his business partner, who recently pitched their plan via a fundraising website in an effort to raise $15,000 for the venture, chose to style their store after the ubiquitous convenience shop, given New Yorkers’ affinity for the neighborhood staple.

Just as vegans like to eat non-meat products designed to look like actual hot dogs and hamburgers — or “meat analogs” — so too do they want to shop at places they’re more accustomed to, Hopf explained.

“It’s that quintessential New York idea of a corner market,” he said. “You don’t stick out as much, but it’s also a familiarity that you connect with.”

Hopf set his sights on the Lower East Side and East Village, due to its abundance of vegan shoppers and vegetarian eateries, and would prefer to open below Houston Street on a block like Orchard Street.

“People are already used to going into Manhattan to see a show, to eat. That’s part of their routine already,” he noted. “The beauty about the Lower East Side is it’s maintained its character.”

Hopf plans to partner with as many New York food suppliers as possible — from a cashew cheese-maker to a Brooklyn tempeh purveyor — to stress the importance of locally-sourced food.

“Vegan Bodega” is as much a philosophy as it is a grocery store, he said, meaning that partnering with local farmers and only carrying seasonal items play as much a part in the concept as anything.

“If it’s out of season, we won’t have it,” Hopf said. “We don’t only want to support the local economy, but we want people to be mindful of where things come from. It’s great that you can get strawberries from Mexico in the middle of winter, but they don’t always pay fair wages.

"I don’t want to put somebody’s basic needs before mine.”

The mission makes sense for a guy “from a hippie family” whose mother grew up making her own loofa sponges.

But that doesn’t mean the store will preach the stereotypical vegan lifestyle, as Hopf also wants to offer vegan “junk food” products and candy for kids — just like a true bodega.

“We want to show people that think we’re all granola-eating hippies that it’s not that,” he said. “There are plenty of people that you’ve met that you wouldn’t know are vegan.”