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Pinky Cole Hayes has announced that she has bought back her hugely popular restaurant chain, Slutty Vegan, after briefly losing the business earlier this year.
Cole Hayes, who founded Atlanta-based Slutty Vegan in 2018, said that “cash-flow issues” over the past year and a half led to her losing the business, leading to what she called the “toughest experience” of her life.
“In 2023, my corporate overhead was $10 million. I was profitable at the unit level. I did double-digit millions last year in revenue. But when you look at my balance sheet, there’s a lot of debt there,” she told Forbes. “And because the market is so volatile, people really don’t want to just expend their money in situations like this.”
Cole Hayes added that she fought for her company for a year and bankrolled it herself before surrendering. She lost the company for just over a month before eventually managing to buy it back again. “I’m happy that I have it again,” she said. “Because it’s rightfully mine. And I know that it deserves to be a billion-dollar brand.”
Read more: Slutty Vegan Founder Pinky Cole Hayes Opens New Bar Vegan Branch
‘I went through every emotion imaginable’
Opening up about the experience in a recent Instagram video, Cole Hayes said that the company went through a global restructure in February. She added that she went through “every emotion imaginable” when trying to save the business. Addressing her followers on camera, Cole Hayes teased that they should “show up for the new owner” and encouraged them to swipe to the next video to find out who it was. The follow-up clip revealed Cole Hayes herself walking into her restaurant.
Since opening seven years ago, Slutty Vegan has expanded to a dozen locations in the South and Southeast of the USA. It specializes in plant-based burgers, with each being given a tongue in cheek name like “Fussy Hussy” and “One Night Stand.”
Read more: The Surprising Strategy Behind Slutty Vegan’s $100 Million Success
