Twisted Plants is a vegan restaurant in Cudahy, WI owned by Arielle and Brandon Hawthorne.
What started as a food truck in 2019 has turned into a real success story, with a second brick-and-mortar location and a communal kitchen project in 2022.
But how did they make it happen during a time when a record number of restaurants closed their doors?
“We started in 2019 with a food truck, probably about a year after I gave up meat and dairy,” says Arielle Hawthorne. “I was actually two years without meat. But when I finally decided to go vegan in January 2018, we noticed that there was a shortage of vegan options in our area. And that sparked the idea for Twisted Plants.”
After a year of successfully offering vegan burgers and sandwiches at various events and locations with their food truck, the entrepreneurial couple decided to open a brick-and-mortar location in the Milwaukee area. But when they finally opened their restaurant in early 2020, the coronavirus was rapidly spreading across the country.
The restaurant’s future did not look bright. But despite the pandemic, the community rallied around the restaurant. From opening day, Twisted Plants has received more calls, orders, and business than they ever expected. Why?
The pandemic led to the closure of public spaces and many, if not all, dine-in options were limited across the country. Like many others, Twisted Plants had to get creative and pivot.
“From the start, we’ve pretty much had to do curbside service. We’ve also had to transition to online ordering and partner with delivery services to reach more customers.”
Online ordering turned out to be quite a challenge for the couple. Online ordering platforms like GrubHub, DoorDash, and UberEats, which are designed to help restaurants reach more customers, were charging extremely high fees. That’s when Arielle and Brandon realized they should have their own online ordering platform, so people could order directly from the restaurant and avoid those fees.
This led to the couple to partner with a local startup, whose founder was a regular patron of the restaurant, that designed a system that integrated seamlessly with Twisted Plants’ existing website.
Patrons could order food from any device without having to download a third-party app, so Twisted Plants could control the brand experience from end to end. It also gave Twisted Plants valuable insights into its customers by collecting key data, a major asset.
“The startup helped make the customer experience and ordering experience very smooth and easy, because it’s very straightforward to browse the menu, the customer can easily pay online, and they can do it all right from our Instagram page, without leaving the app.”
This partnership helped the restaurant thrive during an extremely challenging time, boosting sales and keeping revenue at a pre-pandemic level. It even earned the restaurant the coveted 2021 Best of Milwaukee Take-out/Curbside Pickup award!
As restrictions have been easing throughout the country, Twisted Plants is opening a second location in the Milwaukee area in the coming months. Arielle and Brandon also plan to keep parking their food truck at various locations and events in the area to continue serving their growing community of vegan foodies.
Author : Julien LACOMBLEZ