Vegans Café and Restaurant/ Kyoto

Siitä lähtien kun olin lukenyt erään artikkelin tästä vegaaniravintolasta, olen halunnut käydä siellä pitkään aikaan. Valitettavasti en ole vielä ehtinyt käydä siellä, mutta ekhä joskus ensi kerralla...

Muuten, sen artikkelin otsikko oli tämä: ”Grilliravintola muutti vegaaniravintolaksi, Kiotossa sen maine kasvaa nopeasti”. Artikkelin mukaan, se vegaaniravintola oli alkuperäisesti tosi suosittu grilliravintola, joka on toiminut jo yhdeksän vuotta. Koska grilliravintola oli niin suosittu, ravintola remointoitiin kaksinkertaiseksi laajaksi. 

Ravintola oli samaan aikaan sen omistajan asunto. Uudessa kodissa hän halusi hankkia koiran, ja kun hän etsii tietoa lemmikista, hän törmäsi tietoihin, jotka kertovat huonosti kohdistetuista eläimistä. 

Sen jälkeen hän ei pystynyt syömään lihaa, ja pikku hiljaa lopetti myös kalaa, kananmunaa ja maitotuotteita. Kaikki tapahtui vasta kuukauden jälkeen kun hän avasi uusiksi remontoidun grilliravintolan. Hän halusi lopettaa grilliravintolan, mutta hänellä oli paljon velkoja remonnin kustannuksista. Kun hän kertoi vaimolleen hänen sisäisesta ristiriidasta, vaimo sanoi, ”mikset lopeta grilliravintolaa?”

Sen jälkeen hän opiskeli ja keräsi paljon tietoa vegaaniravintolan johtamisesta, ja kahen vuoden kulttua, toisen remonnin jälkeen hän avasi vegaaniravintolan. Siina kahden vuouden aikana, toinen grilliravintolan yrittäjä yritti ostaa entisen grilliravintolan huipulla hinnalla, mutta kuitenkin hän ei myynyt.

Nykyään vegaaniravintolan myynti on laskenut jopa yhteen osaan entisen grilliravintolan myynnistä verrattuna. Sen lisäksi remonnista tuli taas paljon velkoja. Mutta nyt hän tekee sitä, mitä hän haluaa. Hän kertoo tuntuvansa paremmalta kuin ennen.

Ravintolan tarina on hieno, ja sen lisäksi ruoat ovat kuulemma todella hyvijä, ainakin kuvista näkyy tosi herkulliselta. En malta mennä sinne!

(This english version is a quotation from restaurant's blog)

Why did the owner of a barbecue restaurant become vegan and choose the way of the vegan diet giving up the very popular barbeque restaurant?

I was the owner of a barbecue restaurant, and the restaurant was very busy and hard to handle the operation even if I had 15 employees work.  I enlarged the space of the restaurant, bought a house, and everything was going very well.  I felt like I wanted to have a pet, and my eyes stopped at a certain website when I was searching on internet.  It showed pets that could be purchased like commodity, and besides that there were animals that were going to be killed.  Furthermore, there were more pages showing terrible situations that I could not help covering my eyes.  Those photos and information overwrapped the image of the pet that I wanted to have, and it made me impossible to eat meat from the day.  And day by day I could not eat fish, eggs, or dairy products.  Thinking if it was right that I had been doing and eating, I started feeling inconsistency to my work.  Despite the feeling, the sales was going up smoothly.

But somewhere in my heart, “I have to quit, but I have a family….”  I was feeling a lot of conflict to the inconsistency everyday.  “If you really want to quit, you’d better quit,” my wife said.  I always stopped myself saying, “How could we live?  We have kids.”  “I would be able to muddle through if just myself, but I have to feed my family.”  More than that, I could not make up my mind to move forward even throwing away all the things that I had been building up.  The more I told myself it would be enough if my family and I would not eat meat and some lives of animals and children suffering starvation in the world would be saved, the more I felt empty, and I felt so much guilt to continue the barbeque restaurant.  But I wanted to be honest to my heart.  Then what should I do?  What I can do now is just cooking.  Let’s do a vegan restaurant!  I closed the real busy barbeque restaurant for this mission.  Someone was kindly offering to buy it for a high price and I was wondering if I should sell, but I somehow decided not to and finally was able to open Vegans Cafe and Restaurant.  It took two years to come to this conclusion since I became vegan.

To me, Vegans is one of the methods that spread out more of the goodness and pleasure of veganism to many more people.  It is not at all vague, but I would like to make soy meat, which is alternative meat, which is still expensive at the markets, be distributed regularly, build a factory that can provide the soy meat for lower costs, hire people, and develop alternative products and industry that care about nature and animals.  I would like to make these happen.  I would like to make the ideal that everyone is waiting for real and develop business that is peasant warmhearted and generous.  Funds are needed for that.  Many a little makes a mickle.  I would like to ask you to give even small help in order to make the environment better for nature, animals, and us, human beings.  The usage of the money of this fund will be reported on this website.  Your kind support would be highly appreciated.

 

Please remit to:

Kansai Urban Banking, Fujinomori Branch

Account No.: 759142 (Savings Account)

Account Holder’s Name: Vegans

Vegans Café and Restaurant

京都市伏見区深草西浦町４丁目８８

〒612-0029

4-88 Nishiuracyo Fukakusa
Fushimiku Kyoto-city Japan

TEL＆FAX 075-643-3922

(Open)
11:30～21:30(L.O.21:00)

(Lunch)11:30-15:00
(L.O14:30)

(Dinner)17:30-21:30
(L.O21:00)

Closed: 1th of every months, Sunday, irregular holidays