Is Pure Food & Wine from Bad Vegan still open?
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Ever since Bad Vegan: Fame, Fraud and Fugitives dropped on the streaming service last week, we've been obsessed with finding answers for our many questions. Namely, what does Sarma Melngailis think of the documentary? Is her dog still alive? And can you still visit the restaurant, Pure Food & Wine, now?
Opened in 2004 by Sarma and her then-boyfriend, chef Matthew Kenney, the NYC restaurant was the place to be in the mid-2000s, serving a menu of raw, vegan food loved by the likes of Owen Wilson and Anne Hathaway.
When the pair broke up in 2005, Sarma took on a $2million loan to own the restaurant, and ran it successfully as a solo venture. Then, in 2011, she met Shane Fox aka Anthony Strangis on Twitter, and the pair got married a year later.
Following their marriage, Pure Food & Wine employees voiced a suspicion of Anthony and his interest in the restaurant. It was later revealed that Sarma allegedly transferred over $1.6 million from the restaurant's account into her own bank account between January 2014 and January 2015, with led to employees not being paid.
A report from January 2015 in Eater, New York, reading, "Several tipsters are telling Eater that the front and back of the house staff walked out of vegan restaurant Pure Food & Wine after not being paid in a month. A small group of protestors are outside of the restaurant picketing now."
A small number of investors meant Pure Food & Wine and spin-off One Lucky Duck in Brooklyn were able to reopen in April 2015, but after Sarma reportedly transferred money into her personal account again, and workers were failed to be paid, Pure Food & Wine shut its doors for good in July 2015.
Later, workers set up a Change.org petition to try and reopen Pure Food & Wine under new ownership, while Sarma told NY Post in 2019 that she was desperate to open the restaurant again. "If there was some magical opportunity to open the same restaurant in the same place, I would do it in a heartbeat."
In May 2016, Sarma and Anthony were arrested, and faced up to 14 years in prison for a number of charges, including second-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal tax fraud and first-degree scheme to defraud, both Melngailis and Strangis took plea deals.
Bad Vegan is available on Netflix now
h/t Bustle
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