Two Buddha Blues
My name is Francesca Chaney, I'm 22 years old and I own a
vegan cafe in Brooklyn, New York.
(upbeat music)
My mission is to give everyone access to healthy food.
I grew up around healthy food options because my mom
is a vegan and I've always been around plant-based foods
and I'm from East New York, still living there.
The options that I had in terms of getting a healthy meal
was like bean curd and broccoli at the Chinese restaurant
or like french fries
things that were vegan but they weren't healthy.
I made the decision to switch over my
eating habits once I got to college.
I started having friends over and
I would cook for them every Sunday.
I would brew fresh teas and juices and smoothies and
alternative coffees.
They'd be like, "hey these teas are actually good,
like you should do something with them".
And from that I started to develop the concept of
brick and mortar pop-up as a cafe.
(upbeat music)
The intention was to come here and do this for 3 months
and I'm just really surprised to see how much it grew
in such a small amount of time.
(guitar music)
Sol Sips is located in Bushwick Brooklyn.
We've drawn so many different people and the main feedback
that I get is, vegan food is very pricey.
So I started a sliding scale brunch where anyone can come in
and get a full meal and beverage for anywhere between 7
and 15 dollars.
We started that initiative because we wanted to make sure
that everyone that lives here can get more foods that help
us to actually get our nutrients in.
(upbeat music)
So we have a lot of different things on the menu that's
appealing to everyone and it also allows people to just
test their taste pallet.
We do the breakfast burrito, it's wrapped up in a chia seed
tumeric flatbread, chicken and waffles, oyster mushroom
chicken, brown rice flour and garbanzo bean
flower combination on the waffles so they were gluten free.
The mission statement of Sol Sips is equity and
access across the board.
I'll be very excited when we get a bigger space,
we'll be able to expand our menu, we'll be able to do
community donation-based dinners and also have more
sliding-scale brunches throughout the week.
Basically it'll give us the opportunity to feed more people
(audience clapping)
Amazing!
Francesca Chaney joining us here in the studio.
You know I have so many compliments to give you.
You know just that you're making this quality of food
accessible to your community but that that was important
to you is amazing.
Thank you. Your best seller?
Is our avocado mushroom melt.
Yum!
I'm dying to check this place out, I love Brooklyn.
If you come to New York, there is more than Manhattan,
Manhattan is wonderful but we have 5 terrific boroughs.
And this is a great opportunity.
How did your mom feed you all of these great plant-based
dishes as a kid if she,
if you guys grew up in a food desert?
So my mom is from Belize, where living off the land
is very common and when we were in East New York, she taught
me the importance of community gardens and also local farms.
So she literally went out and sourced and tried to help
upstart and keep going those little community gardens.
Yes, she did. Wow, growing your own food.
Well that's how they did it back in the
All: Yeah
Certainly, yeah my grandpa did the same, he had 10 kids.
It's so cool 'cause we think about junk food and fast food
is cheap options right? And a lot of people just go to that.
But you're actually making healthy plant-based food
for everyone, right?
Yes, for everyone.
Why is that so important to you?
It's important to me because I know what it's like to
actually live in a food desert and not have access,
but want to actually eat healthy, so as I was in the
restaurant, I realized that everyone needed access to this.
So how do you guys do that and stay in business?
Do you just take small margins and feed more people?
How do you make it work as a business plan?
So, within the business plan, how we work it is
we start at number which could be it's a midpoint where
we know we'll break even.
(Rachael) Gotcha. That's 7.
And then 15 is like if we're going to go for a profit.
(Rachael) Gotcha.
So we allow everyone to pay within that price scale
so that either we're breaking even or making profit.
At least you're not losing money
Exactly
so you can keep the doors open.
Yes, definitely.
Brilliant, brilliant.
And mom is still involved?
Yes, mom is involved.
(audience claps)
I love a girl who works with her mom.
Hi mom, I love you.
I'm a momma's girl myself.
So, uh we wanted to help her of course and her mom
keep uh their business going.
Our friends at So Delicious, and they are delicious people
too, they make all kinds of dairy-free foods, they're
donating $5, 000 today! Yayyy
(upbeat music) (crowd cheers)
Oh my god!
Sol Sips! Wooooooohhh!
(audience clapping)