Pinky Cole is preparing for her homecoming to Harlem.
As AfroTech previously told you, the Clark Atlanta University alumna recently took her popular Slutty Vegan restaurant to the Brooklyn streets.
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The expansion will mark the eighth for the Slutty Vegan brand, and Cole isn’t taking the blessing for granted.
“I’m never too big to be humble. You understand what I mean when I say that? I don’t care how much money I got in a bank. I don’t care how many accolades I got. I will never be too big to be humble. So, it never gets old to me. So, when I get on location hundred, I’mma cry. When I get on location 250, I’mma cry because I know at the end of the day, just like God has given this to me, he can take it away. And I never take that for granted. So, when you see those tears, those are tears of joy and happiness, because I know that God could have gave it to anybody in the world, but he gave it to me,” Cole told ESSENCE.
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What’s more, this isn’t Cole’s first entrance into Harlem as an entrepreneur.
Before the inception of Slutty Vegan, she was the proud owner of a Jamaican-American eatery that was just a mile away from where her newest location is set to open.
Unfortunately, the eatery went up in flames, destroying her restaurant. Cole then said her goodbyes to Harlem, but in her heart, she planned to return.
“I knew that I was going to come back and open up a restaurant in Harlem, whether it was today, tomorrow, the next day. I knew that it was going to happen,” Cole told AfroTech exclusively. “This was really a homecoming for me because I had a restaurant and I had the grease fire. I had to walk away from that restaurant and to be able to come back in the same community that I had to walk away from just feels so good. Although I wasn’t born and raised in New York, it feels like a homecoming. I’ve lived here for almost eight years, and I’m just happy that I could just do this all over again, but this time do it the Slutty way.”
Cole hopes her restaurant will remind the people of Harlem, no matter what trials and tribulations they face, they too can create their own redemption story.
“I want Slutty Vegan Harlem to be symbolic of the fact that you can fall and rise up again,” Cole said. “You can have a speed bump, keep going. It won’t always look bad every day. You can have your high moments and come back from everything that you lost. I’m a walking testament of it. I went flat broke in the same community that I now own a $100 million business that will be there. To be able to have that full circle moment, less than a mile from where I started, I want people to see me as a voice of redemption and know you can be relentless in all the things that you do.”
Cole has already accomplished so much, but she continues to prove her journey is nowhere near its end.
As AfroTech previously mentioned, Slutty Vegan is currently valued at $100 million after receiving $25 million in a Series A funding round led by entrepreneur Richelieu Dennis’ New Voices Fund and Enlightened Hospitality Investments earlier in 2022.
Outside of expanding her business, Cole will also be heading on tour starting next month to talk about her entrepreneurship journey and to promote her newest book, “Eat Plants, B*tch” which features 91 recipes.
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