Vegan coney restaurant Chili Mustard Onions in Detroit to close

Susan Selasky, Detroit Free Press
·3 min read
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Chili Mustard Onions owner Pete LaCombe prepares an order for a customer while working in the kitchen of the vegan Coney Island restaurant in Detroit on Thursday, September 22, 2022. Pete has had to cut down the amount of days the restaurant is open from six to four days and has had to cut his staff significantly many other vegan restaurants in the city have either downsized or closed altogether during the pandemic. He also struggles to afford the cost of vegan goods, such as plant-based meat which is not subsidized or sold in bulk like traditional ground beef.

The owners of Chili Mustard Onions said they are closing the doors of Detroit’s only vegan coney spot.

Owner Pete LaCombe said the business is up for sale. The restaurant expects to close in December, though no date was given.

“It has nothing to do with us being slow,” LaCombe said. “We are out of money and didn’t get any help. The business is for sale.”

LaCombe, along with his wife, Shellee, and daughter Darla are behind Chili Mustard Onions, or CMO, which opened its doors in 2018 on Brush Street in Detroit’s Brush Park neighborhood. A former die designer in the automotive industry, LaCombe became a vegan about 10 years ago.

“It is popular, I love it and people love it — I just don’t know how much more I can do,” LaCombe told the Free Press for a story on vegan restaurants hit hard by the pandemic.

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Lacombe also spoke of “running on fumes” and the challenges facing vegan restaurants, including ingredients costing more than traditional restaurants.

He cut staff along with scaling back the number of days the restaurant is open to four. Like most restaurants, business was not good in 2020 because of the pandemic.

Earlier this summer, famed NBC "Today" show host Al Roker broadcast from Detroit. And while in Detroit, Roker filmed a segment on Detroit’s coney hot dogs making a few stops at well-known coney places, including Chili Mustard Onions.

Roker spoke to LaCombe about his passion for the business, how he grew up cooking and opening Detroit’s only vegan coney spot. He also asked LaCombe how he came up with the recipe for his chili and the vegan hot dogs. Roker, of course, tasted CMO’s signature coney topped with chili with a base of Beyond Meat’s plant-based crumbles and LaCombe’s blend of spices including salt, pepper, garlic and onion.

“That’s really good, especially the chili,” Roker said in the segment.

When asked how the pandemic has impacted business LaCombe told Roker, “It’s been tough.

“It hit us extremely hard and we are still struggling, fighting," LaCombe said.

Roker also asked LaCombe what the future looks like.

“I don’t know,” LaCombe told Roker. “We are trying, we are working every day, but I don’t know what the future holds. I really don’t.”

A few minutes after tasting the vegan coney, which is a pea and soy protein-based hot dog, Roker said: "If it’s based on the taste of that, your future’s bright, my friend. Wow.”

The restaurant at 3411 Brush St., according to the listing from Keller Williams Paint Creek for $625,000. Chili Mustard Onions is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Contact Detroit Free Press food writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chili Mustard Onions restaurant in Detroit will close in December