Oh Naturel!
Adam Sobel Dishes on Vegan Food, Vendy Awards & Venture Capitalism
The ah-ha moment for chef Adam Sobel, founder of award-winning, all-vegan food truck, catering company & Penn Station cafe the Cinnamon Snail, was one part passion, one part necessity. The restaurant he’d worked at for more than a decade shuttered suddenly, just as Sobel, his wife & their 4-year-old daughter were set to close on a house. A born-again vegan, Sobel wanted to bring sustainable, organic, plant-based food to people who might not be inclined to wander into a vegan restaurant—basically the 98% of Americans who aren’t vegetarian or vegan. A truck eliminated the need to draw them in. He could go to them.
Award-winning chef and Cinnamon Snail founder, Adam Sobel. Photo Credit: Cris Ernst
Sobel grew up in an entrepreneurial household. He knew what it meant to work really hard, to need to take a leap of faith on ideas you believe in. So he did what any reasonable person would do. He bought the “absolutely most beat-up food truck on all of Craigslist.”
From there he enlisted friends to help with the plumbing & electrical work & got it onto the street as quickly as possible. The viral success of the Cinnamon Snail, the first totally organic vegan truck in the country, surprised no one more than Sobel himself. “There was a lot of making it up as we went along,”
he says. The menu evolved over the first few years, from “a dozen kooky items nobody wanted to eat from a paper plate”
to the more to-go-friendly options that were still high on texture, flavor & nutrition.
Think you have what it takes to be the next food trunk titan? Check out Sobel’s advice for would-be entrepreneurs:
Have Confidence In Your Idea…
“It’s important to have so much faith in your plan, (even when others might not) that you’ll do whatever it takes to make it a success, & to do so in the way that works for you. Starting your own business is hard. Working 18-hour days, 6 days a week until you can afford some help is not for everybody. The number-one rule: Get it done however you can.”
Sobel’s vision? Creating delicious, sustainable, plant-based food. Credit: Adam Sobel
… But Plan To Be Adaptable
“Running a food truck forces you to become extremely flexible & resilient—it’s a restaurant that gets flat tires & accidents. There are people who want to call the police on you. With any new business, plenty will go wrong, every day. The trick is knowing when it’s better to change course (which isn’t the same thing as giving up). Thinking on my toes has been crucial to my success. When we decided not to renew our truck permit & use it only for catered events, for example, I wondered if I had given up a bit. But a lot of different opportunities came our way, including the chance to open a brick-and-mortar location in Penn Station.”
Always Have A Goal
“In 2014, we won the Vendy Cup, the award for New York’s best food vendor; it’s the Best Picture Oscar for food trucks. For a long time, getting this award was my only goal. Once we accomplished it, it took a second to figure out what we were going to do next. So in the meantime, we set up small goals, which always kept us improving even as we figured out what the bigger picture target was. Like having no waste—that’s one everyday goal, important both for sustainability & for the bottom line. Or writing a cookbook, Street Vegan, which I did last year.”
Never Stop Learning
“This is what I’ve discovered about myself: I don’t like managing people. I love creating yummy food & making people happy, but being the boss has been one of the toughest challenges I’ve faced, full of trial & error. I’m still a work in progress. But I always take responsibility for my actions—and I’m always striving to improve. I don’t run from the hard parts. Making good food is easy. Keeping the staff excited, motivated & wanting to keep improving—that takes a lot of care & attention. But, of course, there’s nothing more important than that.”