Washington, DC-based celebrity chef and restaurateur, Spike Mendelsohn, announces the September 12 grand opening of PLNT Burger. The vegan fast-casual restaurant is located in the Silver Spring, Maryland, Whole Foods Market.
As reported by vegnews.com, the restaurant will serve Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burgers, herbed french fries, seasonal chopped salads, Honest Tea, and oat-milk-based soft-serve nice cream created by the founders of Dolcezza Gelateria.
Chef Mendelsohn, best known as the fifth-place finisher during the fourth season of Top Chef, has a career that spans nearly three decades and includes television personality, product developer, cookbook author, SNAP program advocate, chef, and restaurateur.
“Americans consume around 50 billion burgers a year, and in the US, they rank as the number-one selling item on 80 percent of menus they appear on,” Mendelsohn told VegNews. “With increasing consumer concerns around the negative health and environmental impact of conventional meat, there’s an insatiable demand for products that provide the same flavor and experience as traditional burgers but are derived from plants. I saw this business as an opportunity to diversify my restaurant portfolio and create a huge impact.”
“A delicious burger is a delicious burger, no matter where it comes from,” Mendelsohn said. “We are committed to cooking a burger that isn’t just indistinguishable from animal meat, but is better—better for you, better for the planet, and better for future generations.”
According to Director of Strategic Marketing Jonah Goldman, son of Bethesda-based Honest Tea co-founder, Seth Goldman, “It’ll be a plant-based burger joint, the emphasis being more about delicious burger than on the plant-based part,” Jonah Goldman said. He added that members of the PLNT Burger team would educate customers on the benefits of reducing meat in their diets in a way that celebrates life rather than attacking people’s choices.
