It’s been a big two years for Diandra Phipps and Cory Urquhart‘s north end vegan eatery enVie: A Vegan Kitchen. After taking their farmers’ market based business to the next level and opening a restaurant at 5775 Charles Street, they’ve added cooking classes, juice cleanses and catering to their roster of offerings—on top of being one of the city’s most popular new restaurants, no biggie. The problem is, they’re running out of room for all this growing. Luckily, team enVie’s secured a sweet space in the same building as the restaurant, which will allow for a prep and catering kitchen and community space, perfect for hosting all of those classes, lectures and events.
It’ll be a $60,000 expansion when all is said and done, so enVie is looking for a little bit of support via this Indiegogo campaign. It’s a little different than your standard crowdfunding asks though—one-third of the restaurant’s $30,000 fundraising goal will be re-directed to help three nearby community organizations that are doing important work for the north end, and the city. So, in helping enVie build a new kitchen, you’ll also be helping Hope Blooms, Ark Youth Outreach and Ecology Action Centre build on the inspiring stuff they’re working on. It’s a cool idea! Check out the video below, and the fundraising page here.
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This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2015.
Gag me with a spoon.
Ooh, how about organizing a ‘cashmob’ on http://yelp.com?
What you need is some social media tie in, how about partnering up with this: http://northendhipsterdog.tumblr.com/
I do love those dogs, Cranky. You should pass that along to enVie.
Well, having watched the video I think I’d rather give my money directly (if I had any to give) to Hope Blooms but I think those rich assholes on that CBC show already dumped a pile of feelgoodmoney on them so that leaves street kids backpacking around NS cleaning windows and leaving messes in woodlots and the EAC who are against anything that can make money in Nova Scotia. Dang. Too bad the LOVE group wasn’t in on their bandwagon, that is a legit group that makes a difference. Anyway, might check out envie for eats, those plates looked good.
Also, hashtag ‘wearethenorthend’ . oh fuck, for serious?
I quite love the food at En Vie, but I lost a lot of respect for them when I saw how much anti-science garbage they post on Facebook, along with advertising and selling the myth of “juice cleanses” which are medically worthless. Stick with cooking tasty food, and stop with the snake oil sleaze, please.
If your restaurant needs crowd funding to stay open you’re already out of business.