Vegan Van is on the move.
Denver’s first vegan food truck is relocating from its Park Hill commissary to 1490 Eudora St., the former home of The Fifth String.
Vegan Van general manager Hannah Lagaly told BusinessDen that the eatery will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner in the spot along Colfax Avenue beginning Oct. 17.
“It’s been somewhat of a saga to get here,” she said. “But it’s always been our vision to have a gathering space to host parties and events, so we’re really excited.”
Lagaly said owners Justin Warner and Brittney Gurule, the husband-and-wife duo that bought and relaunched the business in 2016, have been looking for a bigger space since moving out of the Globeville neighborhood’s Assembly Student Living building two years ago.
Since then, Vegan Van has been operating out of a commissary kitchen in Northeast Park Hill, serving its crunchwraps, tacos and fries out of a pickup window. Before then, it was a full-time food truck.
“When we toured (the commissary space), there was no one here,” Lagaly recalled. “But we’ve been rocking it for two years and now have a line of cars every day that we built up.”
Lagaly said Vegan Van, which was started as a food truck by Amie Arias in 2011, will bring largely the same menu to Denver’s Hale neighborhood when it opens. Changes will include a bigger baked goods section, something that Lagaly is excited to delve into after years working for the since-closed vegan shop Make Believe Bakery.
Vegan Van will also serve alcoholic beverages at the counter-service restaurant. Lagaly said they have nine taps that’ll feature local beer, as well as house-made cocktails like a Baja Blast margarita.
“Our thing is Taco Bell-inspired food, and we also like to do rotating specials inspired by other fast food,” she said. “We’ll still have our crunchwrap. If we ever took that off our menu, there would be mutiny.”
Vegan Van will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week to start, with extended hours possible on weekends when the spot hosts live music and events.
The inside of the 3,500-square-foot space will feature plants thanks to Lagaly’s wife, who is a horticulturist. The outside will have a stage and hammock area.
Lagaly plans on adding four employees to the business’s current staff of 12, she said. The original food truck, which is currently in the shop, will be available to rent for private events. It’ll be back in action to serve wings to the public on Wednesday, Oct. 14, the day after Vegan Van will move out of the commissary.
“We mostly now just do weddings and private events,” she said of the truck. “Festivals and the brewery scene have been hard for us, but we want to keep the truck going and give the option to rent it out.”
Lagaly, who’s been with Vegan Van for four years, said that business has steadily increased by 5% annually since she’s been on. For the new spot, she couldn’t put a number on how much she thinks revenue will grow.
“We’ve never really done anything like this with a bar and full-service restaurant, so it’s tough to say,” she said. “But the markups with alcohol will definitely give us more wiggle room on the food side to play with.”
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Dining and Cooking