Plant-Based Power

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The story below is from our March/April 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you! 

Screaming Vegan expands its commitment to community with a women-led Wellness Cafe in Grandin Village.

Stepping through the unassuming storefront at 1902 Memorial Ave SW feels a little like stumbling into an enchanted bubble. There’s a striking wall mural, shelves stocked with salves and herbal extracts and cozy nooks decorated with crystals and candles. Take it all in from a perch at the inviting bar and sip an adaptogen-infused latte while perusing the chalkboard of daily plant-based offerings. Perhaps avocado toast topped with marinated mushrooms and crispy sun-dried tomatoes, or a homey squash casserole studded with apples and chickpeas served with a sidecar of cashew cream sauce. This is Screaming Vegan Wellness Cafe, Roanoke’s newest vegan restaurant.

The Grandin Village cafe is the sister restaurant to Screaming Vegan on Melrose Avenue NW, where co-manager Elise Templeton previously worked. She developed a rapport working with owner John Winter, who she first connected with as a customer when she worked at Garden Eco Song Cafe. When the space in Grandin became available, he saw potential for a second location where he envisioned Elise taking the creative reins. “He said to me, ‘I feel like this would be the perfect place for us to do your herbs and crystals and we could have some wraps and smoothies and teas,’” Templeton says. “I jumped at the idea. I’m really passionate about healthy food and community and trying to bring everybody in and integrate all those things together.”

Templeton’s counterpart at Screaming Vegan Wellness Cafe is farmer Alexis Meyer. The two met during the pandemic and bonded over their shared passion for local food, herbs and wellness. Templeton is also an herbalist and owns Harvest Bloom Herbs, which supplies the bulk herbs, crystals and oils for sale, while Meyer runs Savage Acres, a small farm in Catawba where she grows produce and endangered medicinal herbs and makes syrups and tinctures that are also sold at the cafe and incorporated into dishes.

The pair started working on the project about a year ago and first popped up at Grandin Chillage. For the menu, Meyer relied on her intuitive flair for flavor and texture to riff on the kinds of plant-based dishes Templeton eats at home. Attendees lined up for collard wraps, chili and cornbread, a Korean-inspired bowl, collards and baklava. That they found early support for the concept in Grandin is perhaps unsurprising given the neighborhood’s established local food scene—with the likes of Local Roots, the Co+Op and farmers market—makes for a receptive audience. Plus, as national interest in plant-based diets has grown, Roanoke has become fertile ground for vegan restaurants. In addition to the two Screaming Vegan locations, there’s Queen’s Vegan Cafe and Sir Vegaani (Garden Eco Song Cafe and Honestly Vegan have shuttered).

Still, both women are conscious about creating a space that is approachable for vegans and non-vegans and welcoming to all. “We have a diverse community in this area,” Meyer says, explaining that there is Section 8 housing in Grandin Village and that Mick-or-Mack, which used to be across the street from the cafe, was the cheapest grocery store in town. “Something we will aim for here is a pay-it-forward, donation system so you can sponsor someone else eating. We’re trying not to associate ourselves with only a certain demographic and trying ourselves to learn how to approach the community and share the knowledge of food grown from the ground.”

In that vein, Templeton and Meyer are deeply invested in carrying forward Winter’s original mission. “When he started Screaming Vegan, he started that so he could provide a source of good, healthy food to the people in a food desert,” Meyer says, noting that she is keenly aware of her position as a white person working for a black-owned business and not making any assumptions about what any one neighborhood needs or wants. “He has provided this space for us to come in and write a menu and play with food and put our products out. There is a point of building a deeper community in Grandin that can bridge the gap of socio-economic placement.”

Though the menu at Screaming Vegan Wellness Cafe is a departure from the original location’s comfort food line-up of vegan cheesesteaks, chicken sandwiches and hot dogs, Templeton sees the wellness cafe’s menu as complementary. “Over here, people have maybe already started that plant-based diet or there are sick people looking for wholesome food that won’t mess up their bellies. There’s bridging the gap of bringing both of those things together. So, people can come here and get a delicious salad or wrap or go over there and get comfort soul food. It’s kind of nice to have both options.”

Templeton anticipates Screaming Vegan Wellness Cafe will hold a grand opening this spring. Until then, hours and menus will be announced weekly on social media. The menu will typically include a wrap, salad, soup, bowl and side, plus specials like avocado toast, and sweet treats like carrot cake muffins or coconut date balls. Local purveyors are showcased with pride, including Dan Hill Permaculture and Wingstem Farms, who supply the oyster, Bella, shiitake, and lion’s mane mushrooms that make their way into dishes such as Hungarian mushroom soup and a collard wrap with marinated mushrooms, kimchi and hummus. Products from Templeton and Meyer’s businesses are sprinkled in too, as with a tahini-mustard salad dressing sweetened with Savage Farms maple syrup, apple ginger pine needle tea and a Harvest Bloom Herbs chai latte.

In the future, the duo hopes to expand Screaming Vegan Wellness Cafe’s retail offering by creating a hub for other farmers and artisans to sell their products. “We want to support all of our friends who are doing awesome things,” Templeton says. “We want this to be almost like a farmers’ market you can come to every day.”

The story above is from our March/April 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!