This restaurant closed last year, leaving fans in despair. Now, it’s launching a comeback.
Back in March of 2022, vegan cook Cheyenne Bullock opened her Shea’s Sol Kitchen in the Towne West Square food court, and vegan diners were quickly hooked. The business, and especially Bullock’s take on classic soul food dishes, earned lots of fans in a short amount of time.
But then, the restaurant was gone. In August 2022, Bullock said on social media that she was leaving Towne West after facing trouble with her landlords and with “structural issues” that she was having to pay to fix out of pocket. She said she would hunt for a new location.
Now, more than a year later, she’s found one that will work — at least for now. Over the weekend, a post appeared on Shea’s Sol Kitchen’s Facebook page that said the restaurant would soon be serving its plant-based favorites on Saturdays and Sundays out of the old Beautiful Day Cafe space at 2516 E. Central. The restaurant’s first day there will be Oct. 7, the post said.
Though Bullock did not respond to messages about the move, the former owner of Beautiful Day Cafe, Charolett Knapic, said she’s happy to have another tenant in the space where she operated her cafe until September 2021. She’s even looking for one or two more entrepreneurs who want to rent out the cafe’s commercial kitchen a couple of days a week.
In December 2021, Jamelah Kauffman started leasing the space for her meal prep company Nourish ICT. That business is still operating, Knapic said, but the owners aren’t in the kitchen every day of the week: Kauffman cooks over the weekend, and has people pick up their food on Sundays and Mondays.
Knapic said she decided it would be “more fair” to Nourish ICT if she found other cooks willing to share the expense of the kitchen, which is completely decked out with all the equipment small businesses need to prepare food to sell.
“They feel really good about working together,” said Knapic, who is in talks with at least a couple of other cooks who want to use the space at other times. Knapic said she’s especially looking for someone who’d want to rent the kitchen during the first half of the work week.
In the post announcing her plan, though, Bullock indicated that the plan was temporary.
“We are renting the cafe on Saturdays and Sundays from the lovely owner,” she wrote. “This is not our new permanent location.”
On Oct. 7, Shea’s Sol Kitchen will be serving a “chickun sammich” with a patty made from mushroom and palms; a “jackfruit sammich”; and the Sol Burger, with a patty made from mushrooms, quinoa and black beans. For sides, it’ll offer vegan mac, cabbage and roasted peppers.
For the first Saturday, on Oct. 7, the restaurant is asking for pre-orders, and customers will be able to pick up their food from noon to 6 p.m.
For more information about ordering, visit facebook.com/SheasSolKitchen
For more information about renting space at Beautiful Day Cafe, visit Knapic’s post on Facebook Marketplace.
