A NEW restaurant hopes to contribute to a growing vegan scene after throwing open its doors this week.

Vegivores opened its doors in Bournemouth town centre on Thursday, February 15, in Bourne Avenue.

Owner Kevin Farrell described how he visited the town for a weekend over Christmas in 2022 with his wife and felt there was a space for Vegivores.

His business partner, Sarah Lowndes, was looking to move down to the New Forest so they began to search for premises in the town.

Bournemouth Echo:

“A lot of people view it as competition, I see it a bit differently,” Kevin said.

“If you look at places like Brighton, there’s maybe 20 vegan restaurants. People think, if I’m going away for a weekend, where am I going to eat, they want to see that there are options, and that there’s something exciting.

“I think Bournemouth being the destination that it is, I think building a scene is an exciting thing and it can ultimately attract more people to the town.

“We all do something that little bit differently. Twelve is more focused on the fine dining side of things, and they’re a bit of a higher price point.

“The Mad Cucumber is a bit more of a café vibe, they don’t really do night times, they do the odd one.

“Whereas we sort of do a little bit of everything.”

Bournemouth Echo:

The business started in the summer of 2017 as a street food events business, before opening a restaurant in Caversham in October 2019.

It did delivery and takeaway through lockdown and went from strength to strength, with the pair looking to open its second location ‘for a while’.

“A very important thing for us is you’re not going to see the word vegan anywhere, we don’t really say it, we are a vegan restaurant ultimately,” Kevin said.

“In Reading, as an example, over three quarters of our customers eat meat, and they just come because they like the food.

“First and foremost, we see ourselves as a restaurant that makes good food.

“We’re about attracting everybody, it’s not just about catering to vegans, although obviously it's a logical starting point.”

Bournemouth Echo:

Its most popular dishes in Reading are the ‘Satay Slay Burger’, a crispy tofu burger with homemade sauces and pickles, and the ‘Waffle Biscoffle’, which both were bestsellers on the restaurant’s opening night.

To mark its first weekend of opening, the restaurant will be giving away free prizes to people who sign up to its loyalty app.