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A vegan fast food drive-thru is set to open this month at the site that was once a McDonald’s in Portland, Oregon. Face Plant will be a fully vegan drive-thru serving up classic fast food fare such as cheeseburgers, milkshakes, fries, and nuggets.
Entrepreneur Matt Plitch decided to open the drive-thru after he went vegan and struggled to find convenient, cheap food from a company whose values aligned with his own. According to Eater, he recruited cookbook author and food writer Molly Baz to devise the menu. Baz, who is not vegan, spent three years coming up with menu items, using Impossible Foods as the base of the burgers and nuggets.
Read more: The Best Totally Vegan Fast Food Restaurants In The UK And USA
Plitch is aiming to entice people who would eat from a McDonald’s drive-thru, who want affordable and quick meals, Eater reports. Face Plant will avoid the automation of customer service that is becoming more common in fast food restaurants. It will follow the model of In-N-Out burger, where staff will walk to customer’s cars to take their orders if there is a queue.
‘Take down McDonald’s’
“The mission of the company is to take down McDonalds, using 100% plant-based ingredients,” Plitch told Bridgetown Bites. “We can build a better fast food brand and experience than the others. But if the burger doesn’t taste better than the others, and at an affordable price point, it doesn’t matter. Ambitions don’t matter. It means nothing if we can’t give the McDonald’s eater reasons to come here.”
Plitch thinks Baz not being vegan is the reason Face Plant will be able to compete with the big fast food chains. He says that Baz can judge whether Face Plant’s food will be tasty enough to lure meat-eaters.
Face Plant isn’t the first vegan fast food restaurant to come for McDonald’s position of dominance. Mr Charlie’s is a US chain that has been dubbed “the vegan McDonald’s,” with yellow and red branding akin to that of the fast food giant.
Read more: Neat Burger Prioritizes ‘Healthier’ Fast Food In Major Rebrand
