Slutty Vegan, the ever-expanding boutique vegan fast food chain, combines gourmet vegan creations with an innuendo-charged theme, enchanting thousands into lines that stretch along city blocks.
Valued at $100 million
With its $100 million valuation, Slutty Vegan might seem like the culmination of 34-year-old Aisha “Pinky” Cole’s vision, but this proud Jamaican American is just getting started.
In early 2022, Cole, the CEO and founder of Slutty Vegan, raised $25-million-dollars in Series A funding from investors such as famous mega-restaurateur Danny Meyer of Shake Shack fame. The investment, Cole says, will be used to open about 20 new locations over the next two years. To date, there are seven Slutty Vegans locations, spanning from New York, to Georgia and Alabama. Cole plans to go national.
International Recognition
Over the past year, Cole’s success has garnered her plenty of press, and she has become one of the most widely talked about restaurateurs today. She has been featured on CNN, in Forbes, Essence, New York Times, and many other major outlets. She a regular keynote speaker at events and her social media following has climbed to nearly half a million.
Jamaican Roots
Cole’s parents are both Jamaican Rastafarians. Born on the day her father, Asher Cole, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for criminal enterprise and distribution of cocaine, Pinky Cole took a front-row seat to the incomparable work ethic of her mother, Ichelle Cole. Ichelle Cole balanced three jobs – including working at Mcdonald’s and singing in a reggae band – to provide for her children. That entrepreneurial hustle is in Cole’s DNA.
Her business acumen began in middle school, where she would impersonate an adult to book time and space at her local recreational center in Baltimore to throw weekly parties. Thousands of people would turn out regularly. “I remember counting like $4000 on the floor with my mother every other week,” Cole recounts to Forbes. Barely into her teens, she was bringing in more revenue than her mother. She knew from then on, “entrepreneurial life was the life that I have to live.”
Challenges Along the Way
The path to where she is today was not always smooth. Slutty Vegan is Cole’s second venture as a restaurateur. At just 26 years old, saving money from a production assistant job, she opened her first restaurant, Pinky’s Jamaican and American Restaurant, in New York. “I was making a lot of money, so much money that I also opened up a juice bar on 139th and Lennox,” Cole explains.
Unfortunately, however, it all went up in smoke, literally. She remembers the phone call vividly. One afternoon she received news that a grease fire had torpedoed the venture. Cole hit rock bottom. She had no money, was evicted from her apartment, and so, she had to go home to Baltimore.
She took the time to recalibrate. Cole tore through book after book, and would fit in a five-mile run every day. She put herself in the mindset to succeed. The idea for Slutty Vegan came to Cole one day when hunting down something to eat. The near life-long vegetarian immediately realized a void that needed to be filled – affordable and approachable vegan food.
Sex & Food
As for the branding, it’s simple, “Sex and food are the most pleasurable experiences in life, and if you merge them, you have a recipe for success,” she says.
Cole has spun this incredible success into a book deal for her upcoming release, Eat Plants, B*tch: 91 Vegan Recipes That Will Blow Your Meat-Loving Mind. She also launched the Pinky Cole Foundation, an organization with the mission of empowering generations of color to win in life, financially, and in the pursuit of their entrepreneurial dreams.
Pinky Cole is undoubtedly a Jamaican American to watch as she continues to grow the solid empire of her dreams.
