A few years back I found myself in a trendy Auckland café, the sort of place where the menus were printed on recycled paper and the barista could talk at length about the provenance of the oat milk. I’d been coaxed there by a mate who was on some sort of plant-based kick. The food was, I’ll admit, surprisingly good, a beetroot burger that actually held its own and a coconut “bacon” that was more convincing than I wanted to admit. At the time, the place was humming. Every table was full of health-conscious millennials, their smoothies a shade of green you don’t see in nature. It felt like the future of dining had arrived, and it was vegan.
Fast forward to today, and that same café is gone. In its place is yet another burger joint that proudly serves real meat from local farms. The transformation has been swift and a bit jarring. Across the country, and, indeed, the world, vegan and vegetarian restaurants that once looked like the vanguard of a new food revolution are quietly closing their doors. What was once a booming movement now feels more like a bubble that’s burst. A preview of Matcha- implosions to come, perhaps?
It wasn’t long ago that the plant-based world could do no wrong. Beyond Meat floated on the stock exchange and briefly looked like it might replace cows altogether. Venture capital poured into startups turning peas, soy and even algae into things that sizzled like steak. The idea was attractive: technology could fix the ethical and environmental mess of industrial agriculture, and consumers could have their burgers and eat them too. Silicon Valley was abuzz with talk of lab-grown proteins and cell-based meat. Investors, high on a mix of moral certainty and market optimism, were writing cheques faster than you could say “alternative protein.”
But economies, like diets, go through cycles. When times are good, consumers can afford to experiment. Paying $20 for a bowl of jackfruit tacos feels fine when the mortgage rate is three percent and the tech sector is booming. The problem is that the music has stopped. Interest rates went up, the cost of living is biting, and many of us are back to counting dollars and cents. Suddenly, the $9 mince pie at the local bakery seems more appealing, and certainly easier than a bowl of sustainably sourced lentils.
The downturn has hit the restaurant world hard, and niche eateries have felt it most keenly. Vegan restaurants, in particular, tend to rely on a committed but limited customer base. Once that discretionary spending dries up, it’s a tough game. It’s not that people have abandoned ethical eating entirely, but priorities shift when you’re watching your grocery bill climb by the week.
There’s another, subtler shift at play too, a kind of cultural correction. For years we were told that technology could solve our food problems. The future, we were promised, was in a lab rather than a paddock. But as the novelty has worn off, many of us have started questioning whether that’s really what we want. The synthetic precision that once felt futuristic now feels, well, a bit clinical. Increasingly, people are talking not about what can be engineered, but about what feels natural. Farmers’ markets, regenerative agriculture, and heritage livestock breeds are suddenly sexy again. There’s a yearning for something honest, something that looks and tastes like it came from the soil, not a stainless-steel fermenter.
The irony is that this shift isn’t necessarily anti-vegan. Plenty of people still care deeply about sustainability and animal welfare. But the expression of those values has changed. Instead of “meatless meat,” people are gravitating toward “real food.” They’d rather eat a lentil stew made from ingredients they recognise than a patty with a list of additives that reads like a chemistry experiment.
The big corporates have noticed the change too. McDonald’s quietly pulled its McPlant burger from several markets, citing underwhelming sales. Beyond Meat’s stock has tumbled, and the sheen has well and truly come off the alternative protein sector. It’s a lesson, perhaps, in how quickly hype can sour. When you strip away the buzzwords and the branding, food is still an emotional thing. It’s about comfort, culture and connection. That’s hard to replicate in a lab, no matter how advanced your extrusion technology.
For the restaurateurs who bet everything on the vegan wave, it’s a tough reckoning. Many of them were driven by genuine conviction, a belief that they were building a better food system. But conviction doesn’t pay the rent. When customers drift away and suppliers raise prices, passion only goes so far. Some are pivoting, adding “flexitarian” options or reintroducing dairy and eggs. Others are closing shop entirely, their idealism undone by harsh economics.
I don’t think this is the end of plant-based eating, but it might be the end of its first, idealistic phase. What’s emerging instead is something more grounded. People still want to eat with conscience, but they also want food that feels real, affordable and local. The next chapter of ethical eating might look less like Silicon Valley and more like a farmers’ co-op in Taranaki.
As for that café in Auckland, I still walk past it from time to time. The new place does a decent burger, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy it. But I miss the naive optimism of the old spot, that sense that we were on the cusp of changing the world, one beetroot patty at a time. Maybe the lesson in all this is that revolutions, culinary or otherwise, are rarely neat or linear. They stutter and backtrack before finding their true course.
So while the vegan cafés may be closing their doors, the broader conversation about how and what we eat is far from over. If anything, it’s becoming richer and perhaps a little more humble. And maybe, just maybe, that’s a sign of a food culture that’s finally growing up.
Great post, Ben