#210: Kim Anderson - Destination: Plant City!
Thousands visit Plant City each week in Providence, Rhode Island
After this interview, you’ll want to load up the family and head east to Providence, Rhode Island!
Over eight years ago now, Kim Anderson and her family watched “Forks Over Knives” and “Cowspiracy” and felt an IMMEDIATE responsibility to educate others and inspire change.
They hosted movie nights and dinners where hundreds would come to enjoy a delicious plant-based meal, but the refrain they kept hearing was, “It’s a shame I can’t eat my values and my health when I go out to eat.” There just weren’t many plant-based options.
That changed when Kim and her family opened Plant City, the world’s first plant-based food hall and marketplace in the heart of Providence, Rhode Island. Packed with multiple restaurants (including Mexican, sushi, Italian, and burgers), Plant City also features a bakery, coffee shop, and a vast community space packed with monthly educational programs and cooking classes.
Today, she and Rip discuss:
The genesis and inspiration behind Plant City
Her personal journey to plants, inspired by her son
How this experienced entrepreneur with no restaurant experience brought her vision to life with internationally acclaimed chef, Matthew Kenney
The unique environment and worldly flavors they bring in each of the restaurants
Transformations of guests who visit since most are not plant-based
How Plant-City, which opened in the fall of 2019, adapted the business to survive the pandemic
How Kim continues to educate students at area universities about the impact of climate change, animal agriculture, and sustainability
Kim and her family’s mission is to invest in companies for a more sustainable and humane future and you’ll hear that unrelenting passion in today’s conversation. She was inspired by "The Game Changers," but she, too, is a true game changer.
Kim Anderson has been a successful retailer and business leader for more than 35 years, starting in the management and buying departments of Jordan Marsh and Macy’s. She is former owner of the home store Teapots & Tassels, Co., where she was awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 1991 by the SBA and “Citizen of the Year” in 2005. In 2009 she co-founded, with her 15-year-old daughter, Ava Anderson, Non-Toxic, the nation’s safest full line of personal care and home cleaning products, sold via direct sales. Their business educated millions of American families on the dangers of harmful chemicals in conventional products for humans and the environment, with the support of 18,000 independent Representatives. In six years, they reached $60M run rate, were honored by Inc. Magazine, Fortune and Entrepreneur, and sold in 2016. She and her family are impact investors against the climate crisis, specifically with an interest in alternative proteins. In 2019 she created and co-founded PLANT CITY, the world’s first and largest plant-based food hall with celebrity chef Matthew Kenney, as an impact investment to show that food systems can be sustainable and delicious. In 2021 she opened two PLANT CITY X’s, the northeast’s first plant-based drive-thru’s in Middletown and Warwick, RI. She was recently chosen to be fifth Rhode Islander to be entered into RI Entrepreneur Hall of Fame by the Met School. Kim is a board member of Lincoln School, Social Enterprise Greenhouse, Collis Foundation and EverHope Foundation, a judge for Rhode Island Business Competition, and mentors many socially responsible entrepreneurs.
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Full Transcript via AI Transcription
Rip Esselstyn [00:00:00]:
PLANT-STOCK Promo: I am absolutely thrilled to announce that in the not-too-distant future, we have two events and there is something for everyone. Now, first up on the docket, we have our 12th annual Plant-Stock weekend celebration. This is going to be a virtual event, and it is incredibly affordable. I hope that you'll join us. We have Dr. Michael Greger speaking to us all about his new book, How Not to Age. And the whole theme of this year's Plant-Stock is coming together around food. And in that spirit, we have assembled the most insane list of Brockstar chefs that you can imagine. We've got Max Lamanna, who's an award-winning author, social media sensation, and incredible chef. We have got some of your tried and true favorites, like Chef AJ. We have Kim Campbell. We have the other social media sensation, Carly Bodrug. We have Camryn Clements, Mrs. Plantbased on a budget. Tony Okamoto. The Incredible Registered Dietitian Desiree Nielsen. Kiki Nelson, shane Martin Jackie Akerberg, Janet Verney. The list goes on. And, of course, Jane and Anne Esselstyn and my father. Now, the other event that we have coming up in October, from October 9 to the 14th, it is our live Sedona Retreat. It's a life-changing event. Highly recommend that anyone looking to take a deep dive with 80 to 90 other people in this very remote location in the Austere Red Rock Mountains outside Sedona, Arizona. You do not want to miss this. We've been putting these on now for close to 13 years, and this Sedona Retreat is one of my absolute favorites. We're talking unlimited buffets of plantstrong food, yoga, world-class lectures, stargazing bonfires, pickleball, and all kinds of wonderful bonding and camaraderie. All right, I hope to see you at either or both in the not too distant future. Whether it's Plant-Stock or whether it's Sedona for either one, simply go to Plantstrong.com and then click on either twelveTH Annual Plant-Stock or Sedona Retreat 2023. And I hope to see you at either or both. You can't go wrong. I'm RIF Esselstyn. And welcome to the PLANTSTRONG. Podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your PLANTSTRONG journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show. After today's interview, my bet is that you're going to want to load up the family and head east to good old Providence, Rhode Island. Over eight years ago, Kim Anderson and her family watched the documentary that so many of you are familiar with, Forks Over Knives, and they felt an immediate responsibility to educate others and inspire change. To that end, they hosted Movie nights and dinners where literally hundreds would come to enjoy a delicious plant based meal. But the refrain that she kept hearing was, it's a shame that I can't eat in alignment with my values and my health when I go out to eat. And the truth of the matter is, there just weren't many plant based options. That all changed when Kim and her family opened Plant City, the world's first plant based food hall and marketplace in the heart of Providence. It's packed with multiple restaurants, including Mexican, sushi, Italian, and good old burgers. And Plant City also features a bakery, coffee shop, and a vast community space that's packed with monthly educational programs and cooking classes hosted by lifestyle physicians. In fact, my sister Jane was there just a few months ago and told me how incredible it was knowing that you could walk into this beautiful space and feel the power of the food and the ambiance. The concept has been so popular that Kim's family has opened up multiple drive thru restaurants across town. Kim and her family's mission is to invest in companies for a more sustainable and humane future. And you're going to hear all about that unrelenting passion in today's conversation. Please welcome a true game changer, Kim Anderson. All right, here we are. Kim Anderson. Welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast.
Kim Anderson [00:05:37]:
Thank you for inviting us. Pleasure to be here.
Rip Esselstyn [00:05:40]:
Well, it's a pleasure to have you. I have heard a lot about you. I didn't know who you were. I had no idea who you were. And then all of a sudden, I got this barrage of people telling me about the incredible things that you're doing in Providence with the world's first all plant-based food hall and marketplace. And of course, my sister Jane, I think, was invited to go do a book signing and give a talk of her new book, be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior. And she came back and was raving about this woman that started it all. She was like, Kim is like Laurie Kortowich on steroids, laurie's on my team. And she just like, there's nothing she can't do, right. Pretty incredible. So you're really a serious mover and shaker. Now, before we talk about what you've created in Providence with what is the exact name of Plant City?
Kim Anderson [00:06:37]:
It's Plant City.
Rip Esselstyn [00:06:38]:
Plant City, period.
Kim Anderson [00:06:39]:
Plant City.
Rip Esselstyn [00:06:40]:
Plant City, before we dive, wanted to.
Kim Anderson [00:06:42]:
Make it really simple, no fancy names. People would just know what it was.
Rip Esselstyn [00:06:46]:
Yeah, well, and so before we dive into Plant City, I want to know a little bit about you. So where did you grow up?
Kim Anderson [00:06:55]:
I've always been in Rhode Island, went to school in Boston, worked in New York, started off in the buying departments of Jordan, Marsh and Macy's. A lifelong entrepreneur, and more recently, in the last 15 years, a social entrepreneur. Meaning that this is not about money for me and my family. It's about using business to scale, to move the needle on an important issue or message for the world.
Rip Esselstyn [00:07:21]:
Okay, so you've been like, a lifelong entrepreneur, but I have found that being an entrepreneur is you got to have a pretty incredible constitution to be an entrepreneur. So where did you develop that drive to be an entrepreneur? Because to me, not everybody has it.
Kim Anderson [00:07:47]:
Yeah, it does take a lot of resilience. My father was, as an entrepreneur, built several businesses and always wanted to work for myself from the time that I can remember. I started my first business when I was 24 after I came home from Macy's.
Rip Esselstyn [00:08:05]:
Really? And what was that business?
Kim Anderson [00:08:07]:
It was a clothing store. And then that was in my 20s. In my 30s, I had a home store. In my 40s. I started a business with my daughter that was very successful with nontoxic personal care and home cleaning products. And then when we decided to close that, I connected with our family and said, okay, the next problem in the world will show itself, and we'll use our skill set to try to make a difference. And our son came home from college with an environmental studies degree and said, if you have a family of means, you have an obligation to invest in climate. So we started doing renewable energy, carbon sequestration, battery storage, investing in companies and entrepreneurs. And then a year later, he got Lyme and decided he wanted to figure out how to eat to protect his body against the onslaught of antibiotics.
Rip Esselstyn [00:08:53]:
Wait, did you say he got Lyme's disease?
Kim Anderson [00:08:55]:
Lyme disease.
Rip Esselstyn [00:08:56]:
Lyme disease.
Kim Anderson [00:08:57]:
Okay, sorry about that. And so he came away with a whole food plant based diet and started eating that way. And as a parent who's not educated, it's like, great, another thing I have to do to take care of my kids. But a few months later, he asked us for Christmas to watch a few movies. He gave me a list, but it really only took two. My husband and I watched Forks Over Knives. And then we watched Conspiracy.
Rip Esselstyn [00:09:18]:
Let me interrupt you, if you don't mind.
Kim Anderson [00:09:20]:
Yeah, I don't mind.
Rip Esselstyn [00:09:21]:
So, Forks Over Knives, what year was this that you saw?
Kim Anderson [00:09:27]:
Nine years ago.
Rip Esselstyn [00:09:28]:
Nine years ago. So about 2015. And what was it about Forks Over Knives that resonated with you, that made you go, wow, we're going to make some changes. Can you remember?
Kim Anderson [00:09:41]:
We were in our fifty s, and you start really bearing down on your health and your longevity and the questions of how you can make a difference in your life. And if you'd told me that morning, I would have been a vegetarian, I would have called you a liar. And yet we watched Forks Over Knives and Conspiracy. And as environmentalists and people who are kind of science based, we woke up the next morning and called our son and like, okay, we're plant based. What do you eat for breakfast? And we'll figure it out from there and literally just never went back. That was an easy decision for both my husband and I to make the same day, and our daughter followed a few months later.
Rip Esselstyn [00:10:21]:
So your husband is on board as well?
Kim Anderson [00:10:23]:
Completely.
Rip Esselstyn [00:10:26]:
Well, that's great. So can you remember what you had for breakfast that day?
Kim Anderson [00:10:32]:
Oatmeal. And my husband to this day does the oatmeal on the flax and the chia and the peanut butter and the blueberries and the banana. Like the thing weighs five pounds and it takes him half a morning to eat. I try not to do quite that many calories, but yeah, he's pretty much stayed with the same thing ever since.
Rip Esselstyn [00:10:52]:
Yeah. So you must, I would imagine, run in some pretty cool circles. What do all these people that you run in circles with think about what you, your husband, your family have done and now launching Plant City? Do they think you're off your rocker or are they like Envious or Admirable?
Kim Anderson [00:11:15]:
Well, my husband is also a cyclist, like, I believe you are as well. And he would go with his buddies and afterwards they'd go find a place to eat and they would all say, oh, where are we going to take the baby to find the right food? And they would bust on him. Kind of like what you talk about in the movie with your firefighter buddies. And I said, okay. That's it? We're going to have a movie night. We're going to invite them all over and we're going to educate them. And then they could decide, once the genie is out of the bottle, what are going to do with that information. And we brought them over for forks or over knives and pulled out the refrigerator and showed them what we eat. And I would say more than half of them now are, if not all plant based, leaning in about eight guys and leaning in hard. They're smart guys. They're now in their early sixty s, and the choices that they make after they finish their ride are usually plant based. And now they actually get to go to our restaurant. So that makes it very easy. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn [00:12:11]:
Well, that's very cool. I find that so many people are set in their ways and they have zero interest. I saw an interview that you had with some guy in the arena and he, to me is like the typical firefighter stuck in the mud, just can't get out of his own way. Right. I love the fact that your husband and you were invite these people over. They're cyclists, they're active, and it rings true and they do something about it.
Kim Anderson [00:12:46]:
Well, I've always lived my life by if you have important information that's changed your life, you have an obligation to share it. So I actually did movie nights every other week for about eight months. And I would email 100 or 200 people and get 15 to 25 to show up. And after about eight months, it moved about 300 people to plant based eating and just honing in on how do you share that message, what are the best movies, and how do you move people in 20 minutes flat to consider this and to actually do it? And that was very interesting because I would check back with those people regularly, and they would all say, kim, I could do this at home, but I can't go out. And one woman actually said to me, kim, I don't do this when I go out, but I do it all the other times. And I sat back and I thought, well, doesn't that stink that we can't eat our values and our health when we go out? There's got to be a better way. And that's where the genesis from Plant City came from.
Rip Esselstyn [00:13:46]:
Can't eat our values and our health when we go out. That's a powerful statement right there, because you're right, most people, they give up their values and their health when they go out. They want to be offensive, they want to be difficult, all those things. All right, so how did you get the brainchild? I understand how this has been building now, but what was the brainchild for Plant City?
Kim Anderson [00:14:14]:
I was thinking of what could I do to have a place to go where I could show people the food and do education at the game time, kind of like what I've been doing in my living room. But you go into small plant based restaurants and small vegan restaurants, and most of them are wild colors and tiedye and peace signs, and a lot of people feel really uncomfortable in that environment. And it's small, so there's no place to hide. So if somebody's trying plant based or being dragged there by a friend, it's not always a comfortable place to be. So I wanted something that was big enough that we as a family could eat in five different restaurants, all kinds of food, and be completely satisfied going there on a regular basis, not same game. So I wanted this experience, and the best thing to relate it to would be a vegan, eataly lots of options, a marketplace, a takeout area, a coffee bar. So it's kind of like a happening, right? So that picture there is the patio. And during the summer months from like May to October, between that patio and the tent, which you can barely see off to the right, we serve 150 people outside, and then on the inside, 150 on the first floor, 150 on the second. And we have two restaurants upstairs, mexican and Italian. We have a burger bar on the first floor of the sports TV on TV around the corner, we have like a sweet green build a bowl, and at night at 04:00, that turns into a sushi bar. And then we have hundreds of items in a very small marketplace because a lot of people say how do I do this at home? And so that became really our family's favorite in every category. You don't need 100 pasta sauces. You just pick your four favorites. And so it's well stocked, not deep and not narrow, but enough to have our favorites.
Rip Esselstyn [00:16:06]:
Okay, so how did you decide on which restaurants to fill up Plant City with because of your partnership with was it Matt Kenney?
Kim Anderson [00:16:16]:
Yeah. So I knew nothing about the restaurant business except I was a host at a bar on the Cape when I was a kid, and I was probably only 19. I'm not even sure if I was supposed to be doing that, but I'd never had any restaurant experience. But the one thing I knew from being an entrepreneur is it's a skill set of people and building teams, and really it's plug and play. When I was buying from Macy's, was it cosmetics, was it wigs? If you have the skill set, it can be anything. But I needed a restaurant partner who could bring me the recipes and that kind of startup. And we had met Matthew several times through investing through Ever Hope Capital in one of his CPG lines, as well as being a big fan of his restaurants in New York. My daughter had lived in New York, and we would go there and, like, literally on the train, we'd be blocking and tackling. OK, we're going to go Mexican first, we're going to Italian second. We just loved his food and really liked him.
Rip Esselstyn [00:17:12]:
He's a really what was his you said you invested in his CPG line.
Kim Anderson [00:17:18]:
We actually didn't end up investing in his CPG line. He wasn't ready for it yet, and it wasn't ready, but we really liked him and kind of just tabled the conversation. And so in October of 2019 or 18, when I had the idea for this, I literally wrote a one pager tim, and I said, okay, here's what I want to do. I love these five restaurants of yours. I want to put them under one roof. I want to create, like, a vegan eataly, and we're going to have a marketplace. We're going to have a community space where we can have like minded professionals share, like, cooking classes, cheesemaking classes, that kind of stuff. And he wrote me back in ten minutes and said, I'm in. I've always wanted to do it. We looked at it once. We didn't have the right real estate, and literally, we signed the lease four months later and opened five months after that. And the fun part was this building was empty for two years, but before we took this building, it was a steakhouse and a strip club.
Rip Esselstyn [00:18:12]:
Well, I can't imagine a better transition for steakhouse and a strip club than a Plant City. It's like, meant to.
Kim Anderson [00:18:22]:
Yeah. And since then, we've opened four other restaurants, and two of them are drive throughs and literally took an old Burger King and an old papa Gino's and turned them around into Plant City.
Rip Esselstyn [00:18:34]:
Wait city. X and so these are not affiliated with Plant City, the building?
Kim Anderson [00:18:42]:
Correct.
Rip Esselstyn [00:18:43]:
They're at different locations? Yeah. Wow.
Kim Anderson [00:18:45]:
20 and 15 miles away. We have two drive throughs across the parking lot. We have a speakeasy, and then 30 minutes up the road, we just opened a small counter space in a university, Bryant University. That was our fifth restaurant.
Rip Esselstyn [00:19:01]:
I am just like, I can't believe it. All right, so did you say five restaurants that are in Plant City now?
Kim Anderson [00:19:09]:
Five restaurants and about 300 employees.
Rip Esselstyn [00:19:11]:
Okay. Incredible. And how do they all do it's? Like, does the Mexican do better than the pizzeria, or is there one that does better than the others?
Kim Anderson [00:19:23]:
Are they all you know, it's pretty evenly split and it's more space related. So we've got a little bit less space for the new burger concept on the first floor. So in the winter, that doesn't quite do as much as the Italian and Mexican because there's more seats. So it's really more space constrained then they're all super popular. We started with Matthew's recipes. But I have an amazing executive chef who joined us from New York City, who was a traditional chef and ran some very large kitchens like Tavern on the Green and Isabella's in the city, and had never been exposed. To plant based food and joined us to be a consultant to try to help us open the doors and get the right chef, because we had not been able to do that at that time. And he really fell in love with the challenge and the health and all the things that it meant and has stayed with us since. So he's been with us for four years now, and we just adore him. He runs all the restaurants.
Rip Esselstyn [00:20:17]:
So you got almost 300 employees in this space. How big is this space?
Kim Anderson [00:20:23]:
Over 14,000 Main Plant City. We call it the mothership.
Rip Esselstyn [00:20:28]:
Yeah. So the 300 employees, does that also include the Plant City exes?
Kim Anderson [00:20:34]:
It does, but in the summer, we're up to 260 just at Plant City.
Rip Esselstyn [00:20:39]:
Okay, and who is managing all these employees?
Kim Anderson [00:20:46]:
That sounds like we have a great team. I'm very lucky, but like with any business, it's your team that makes it work. Right. I have a phenomenal gentleman who's front of house who's had a lot of restaurant experience, and another assistant manager with him, and then four or five floor shift managers. So a COO, an events coordinator. We do a lot of catering, a lot of weddings, a lot of parties. And then we have a custom bakery, and we do have a head baker there. We have five bakers that start at four every morning. And we make all our breads, all of our baked goods, and all of our desserts on site.
Rip Esselstyn [00:21:25]:
Do you know how many of your 300 employees are plant based?
Kim Anderson [00:21:30]:
That's a really great question. I would say a majority. Many people find us because they're plant based and they want to be a part of our mission. That's why we have really terrific people and a lot of retention. But the forks that aren't plant based when they join us often become plant based because they start getting dripped on from everybody around them. And it's just a beautiful, diverse, compassionate team. They're really amazing. We're very lucky. One of the things I didn't mention when you walk into one of our plant cities, we are plant based, palm oil free, certified kosher, compostable and wind powered. And we don't think there's another restaurant like that in the world as well as we believe we are the world's largest plant based or vegan restaurant.
Rip Esselstyn [00:22:21]:
Right. So you mentioned your mission. What is your know, our mission is.
Kim Anderson [00:22:27]:
To show people through food how beautiful and delicious plant based food can be. And what we do is we actually share our impact numbers on the environment every single month on our Instagram page as well as in the restaurant. And actually, I can share with you, I think Carrie could probably pull it up, but we've served close to 1.6 or 1.7 million guests now in four years. And keep in mind, we were only open nine months before COVID wow. And have saved it, quantifies the amount of grain, the amount of animal lives, the amount of carbon. We're also environmentalists as a family, and so that was a big driver for us. And I talk a lot. The wonderful thing about Plant City is I'm not having to be there every day to run it because we have this wonderful team, but it's given me the platform to go out and speak and share. And I've spoken to close to 2500 to 3000 students september this year at Bryant University, Brown University, PC, all of the local. We happen to be in a really great area, johnson of Wales, which is the top culinary institute. Whenever somebody comes to speak with us, I drag Michael Greger across the bridge over to Johnson and Wales. Your dad was here. If he'd been here a little longer, I would have dragged him there, too. We bring a lot of the thought leaders in this space because I want people to meet them. Then we provide really great food because I would say rip that. 75% to 80% of our guests are not plant based. They come as a favor to a friend. They saw somebody's instagram on their family or friend that this great burrito and this awesome looking pizza and that great margarita, and they want to try it. And I only need to get them there once because our place is amazing, our people are amazing, our food is through the roof, delicious. And so when you have all those things working for you, people will come back regardless of what the food is. And then what happens is they're like, if plant based, is that good. Why can't I be doing this? So the food is the message delivery system and oftentimes we have people come really almost against their will. Like you'll see this big huge birthday party and there'll be 15 people and I'm like, okay, who dragged you here? And the girl at the front with the birthday thing comes. That was me. It was my birthday. I made them come here. But almost invariably I hear re reviews from the people at the table who never would have come on their own and will definitely come back.
Rip Esselstyn [00:25:04]:
Well, it sounds like it's got an amazing vibe to it.
Kim Anderson [00:25:08]:
It does, yeah. We serve about 1000 people a day and close to 2000 on weekends.
Rip Esselstyn [00:25:15]:
And you mentioned you've spoken to like 2500 to 3000, I think, students and whatnot so far this year. How is your message received? Would you say that the younger generation is getting on board with it?
Kim Anderson [00:25:33]:
Yeah, for different reasons. The one thing I've learned is that unfortunately, americans change their diet like they change their underwear. So I kind of have to talk about a lot more than just diet, especially the young kids because they think they're going to live forever at 20. So I really talk about it in a circular sense of, okay, there's five reasons why somebody would go plant based. If you just use the basics, which would be health and health care cost, environment and climate, social justice, animal ethics and preventing the next pandemic. And if you look at those five things, it's like the Swiss Army knife of the world's biggest problems. It's like, what else really matters? But for the kids, I start with environment, climate and social justice. They are completely keyed into this and totally understand it. And then I back in at the end to health and health care costs because that's their second more important thing. And I'll tell you, these kids are climate depressed. So when I talk to them about how this can move, it's the greatest gift we've ever been given. Rip. That the diet that we're talking about that happens to be the best for the health of humans and the best for the health of the planet. And so that's really what I share with the kids. And most of the professors get mad at me for doing this, but I give out my phone number every time I speak with the kids. Whether it's an entrepreneurial group, a social entrepreneurial group, an environmental group, a sustainability group, a women in business group, because I'm up there pretty regularly at all of these campuses for a lot of different issues and thankfully a lot of women are being invited to the conversations at these places. So therefore it gives me another leg up. Invariably I get, you know, I hadn't thought about that. I haven't eaten meat in a month, I'm feeling really great and I'm having a hard time cooking at my dorm. And I'll send them a whole list of things that I've prepared for them that they can do easily in a dorm. And I always invite them to come have a meal with me at Plant City. So I've gotten to know a lot of these students, and they're just super amazing kids. And a lot of them have gone plant based over the four years because of it.
Rip Esselstyn [00:27:38]:
How far are you from Brown University.
Kim Anderson [00:27:40]:
At literally less than a mile to the center of campus.
Rip Esselstyn [00:27:44]:
Okay.
Kim Anderson [00:27:45]:
And Rhode Island School of Design is right next to us. That's one of the top art schools in the world.
Rip Esselstyn [00:27:50]:
Yeah. Do you know how big Providence is as far as how many people?
Kim Anderson [00:27:55]:
Oh, gosh, I know Rhode Island is about 950,000.
Rip Esselstyn [00:28:00]:
Okay. And isn't Rhode Island the smallest of the United States?
Kim Anderson [00:28:04]:
It's the smallest state, but not the smallest population.
Rip Esselstyn [00:28:07]:
Right.
Kim Anderson [00:28:07]:
We're very dense in Providence.
Rip Esselstyn [00:28:09]:
Yeah. You use the term climate depressed, I think, to describe maybe this generation. Is that because what's going on with the climate actually depresses them?
Kim Anderson [00:28:27]:
Yeah. And they're very anxious about what they're coming into.
Rip Esselstyn [00:28:30]:
Right. Which makes a lot of sense. So what's great is that your message, what we're trying to show them, is that there's hope correct. And we can do something about it, like now.
Kim Anderson [00:28:43]:
Right. And that's what happened with my son. We started investing in renewable energies and carbon sequestration and all of these things, and he came to us and said, it's going to be a long time before everybody has an EV. It's going to be a long time. We have enough renewable energy in this country, let alone the grid that can capture it, hold it, move it, release it over long distances, and all the loss involved with that. But if we can move millions of people away from animal agriculture now, we can reduce those global greenhouse gas, GHDs, carbon and methane dramatically. Regardless of who the policymakers are on Capitol Hill, we can control this. And that's where I felt a tremendous sense of urgency to scale this message and to figure out how to share it and how to get it out there.
Rip Esselstyn [00:29:32]:
I think I read or heard somewhere that your governor for Rhode Island, he wants all renewable energy by 2030.
Kim Anderson [00:29:43]:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn [00:29:44]:
I'm sorry.
Kim Anderson [00:29:45]:
And unfortunately, food hasn't been a part of that conversation. So I have some folks trying to get me into his back door. Because you can't have this conversation without food. It depends on what white paper you read. You know this just as well as I do. Between 14 and 28% of GHGs are from animal agriculture, and that's a massive number, whether it's the high end or the low end of that.
Rip Esselstyn [00:30:08]:
Well, and you know, from conspiracy there that Kip Anderson quoted 51%. And that's from a paper called Livestock's Long Shadow. It was done by the World Bank.
Kim Anderson [00:30:18]:
I got called on it when I use that number. So I try. Not to put myself with a target on my back. I just want to get people to be thinking and trying alternatives. And under the ever Hope Capital side of our family, we invest in plant based solutions, not only plant based for eight years now, but also cellular agriculture because there will be some people who will never want to eat plants for their political reasons or for whatever reason, and we're going to need to feed a growing population.
Rip Esselstyn [00:30:43]:
Yeah. No, it's incredible what's going on with the cellular meats right now. Yeah, I think there's been, what, some FDA approval just a couple of days ago.
Kim Anderson [00:30:51]:
Correct. Just last week.
Rip Esselstyn [00:30:53]:
Yeah.
Kim Anderson [00:30:55]:
Just company was able to push that.
Rip Esselstyn [00:30:58]:
Yeah. No, I feel very comfortable throwing around 51% or more. Just when you look at the fact that we consume close to 80 billion animals annually, the fact that the supply chain, the life cycle of these animals you've mentioned deforestation and everything. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. And I think it's fine if people want to question it, but they need to wake up and smell the roses.
Kim Anderson [00:31:29]:
The kids are really interested in the social justice part of this as well, because what I say to them is the people that do this work didn't wake up one day and say, yes, I want to graduate from college and go work for a slaughterhouse. Right. They're doing this work because it's off in remote areas and it's the only work that's available to them. And they're underpaid and they're physically and mentally ill from this work, as are their families and their communities. It's like an Aaron Brockovich 2.0. Right. So when I explain that to them and then I tell them, look, I got into this for health and the environment. If I would have one burger, would it change my health or the world environment? Probably not. But for the things that I wasn't aware about in the beginning, which is animal ethics and social justice, it's a hard no for me ever. So that's why I try really hard to educate on all aspects of this, because the time when they're wavering, because they don't really care about their health or their diet or whatever, the full picture is what will keep somebody there. And I think that's a really important message.
Rip Esselstyn [00:32:32]:
Are your parents still alive?
Kim Anderson [00:32:35]:
My father passed a year and a half ago. My mom is she's 89, sharp as attack. But about eight years ago, when our family went plant based, I insisted that they did too. And my dad pushed back a little bit. And he's an orphan, self made man, former veteran of Korea. Has a very strong sense of community and obligation. So I sat him down and said, look, you have an obligation to yourself, to your family, to your community and to your country not to get sick and not to have us to have to take care of you. And so this is the way to keep yourself healthier longer. And he lost, like, 30 pounds in the first two or three years, and I know that he was much healthier in his last years.
Rip Esselstyn [00:33:20]:
So your mother, who's 89, about the same age as my mother, you said she's sharp as a tack, and is she on board 100% most of the time.
Kim Anderson [00:33:30]:
She just hasn't been able to educate herself as much as I would like to. You could only push a rope so far, but she doesn't fight it. It's just a matter of sometimes lack of knowledge, of following through on it. But she had a doctor. I had this smoothie created that we did together for her, and this doctor was like, you're not getting enough iron, and you're not getting enough protein. So I deconstructed it, and I wrote a little paper, and I laminated it and put it basically in her wallet and said, the next time that doctor tells you to go have meat because you need iron, you pull the sheet out, and it's got my phone number at the bottom. And you tell that doctor he's full of you know what?
Rip Esselstyn [00:34:07]:
Yes.
Kim Anderson [00:34:07]:
Because you've got spinach, and you've got flax, and you've got protein powder, and you've got your day's requirements for protein and iron just about knocked out of the park with your morning smoothie, and she has this smoothie every morning, so sometimes we do need to do some handholding.
Rip Esselstyn [00:34:23]:
Right. Tell me, you have a son and a daughter, right?
Kim Anderson [00:34:29]:
Yeah, my daughter is 29, and our son is 31 and married with a baby.
Rip Esselstyn [00:34:36]:
What's your daughter and your son's names?
Kim Anderson [00:34:39]:
My son is Froman as well as his dad's name, and my daughter is Ava.
Rip Esselstyn [00:34:44]:
Okay. Who is the most intense when it comes to trying, like, share and spread this message?
Kim Anderson [00:34:52]:
Oh, I am. Yeah. They've lived with me for a long time, and they tend to be more background, and they're not as strong at all, but that's okay. And I'm not with new people. I don't try to sell it. I don't try to push it. I really try to lead them to a movie because people don't want to be sold. They don't want to be told. They don't want to be lectured to. They don't want to think that what they're doing is wrong. And so I often say, Just do me a favor. Watch Forks of our knives, and let's have coffee after that. Then they've got the information, and they come to me informed, and they want to learn more, or they want to take the next steps. And we do movie nights a lot at Plant City, and then I also bring them out to the community. I work with the Met School, which is 800 students. It's black and brown in the south side of Providence because I really felt like this information needed to be Democratized, and the head of the school was a friend happened to be plant based for health issues. And I'm like, I can help you get this into the school. And the kids wouldn't eat it all the time, or even enough that his admin was starting to say, this isn't working. So we stepped in, and every Monday did a thing called Souped, where we had 25 students admins come to a little class during lunch. We gave them a tortilla soup and hummus pods and educated them on the five things that I talked about and why this matters. And at the end of the season, I did a showing for 700 students on the Game Changers. And now when they put this food out, they have a plant based offering every day, and it's four buildings on campus. You'll see kids coming out of one building running into the other because they ran out of the thing that they wanted, and they're eating the plant based food, and they're taking this message home to their parents as well. So that's the work that has to continue. COVID kind of upset that a bit, but that's what we want to do more of.
Rip Esselstyn [00:36:42]:
So depending upon who you're talking to and how old they are, do you either suggest Game Changers, Cowspiracy, or Forks Over Knives?
Kim Anderson [00:36:51]:
Yeah, I usually do. The Forks Over Knives are Game Changers first, and certainly Game Changers to young and male alpha types. Young male, but also older male alpha types. Forks Over Knives to anybody over 40 and anyone who has what I think looks like issues with weight and cardiac and diabetes type pre disease.
Rip Esselstyn [00:37:18]:
Did you know that they're working on Game Changers 2?
Kim Anderson [00:37:21]:
I heard that, yeah, I heard that.
Rip Esselstyn [00:37:23]:
LeBron James's film company has picked it up.
Kim Anderson [00:37:29]:
Very cool, because oftentimes I'll see these guys, they're all jacked up, and they're in their little marketplace, and they're kind of looking around and they'll come to me. They're like, can you help me? I just watched. And I said, let me guess. You just watched the Game changers. Like, how did you know? I wish I had a nickel for every time I got to say that.
Rip Esselstyn [00:37:47]:
Speaking of the game changers, I mean, there was a really great segment on the game changers with the Tennessee Titans, and I've heard that some of the Tennessee Titans have actually eaten. Is that true?
Kim Anderson [00:37:59]:
Yeah. I was very lucky to have Derek and Charity Morgan come visit us a couple of years ago. They would love to build a plant city in Atlanta, I think, or they expressed an interest at the time, and Charity wanted to do, like, a barbecue joint. And I'm like, you can do whatever you want in there. But he did call me the night before the playoffs between the Titans and the Patriots two and a half years ago and asked if they could come. I'm like, absolutely. So the whole defensive line, or like seven or eight of them came in and we laid out huge tables of food, and our server said they'd never seen anybody eat so much, and they beat the Patriots the next day. Sorry about that. I'm a huge fan, but we have a lot of athletes that come to us. Matthew Slater and Dietrich Wise Jr from the Patriots. Come. Jeremy Swayman, the new goalie for the Bruins comes. He actually was very friendly with us because he started coming to us when he was at Providence before he moved up. He had great kid, really wanted to do more plant based and was finding it. We actually I had him bring his teammates once a week to have a plant based dinner on me to try to I mean, he had one kid on his team who didn't ever eat vegetables. We called him Veggie Boy. And so I'd say, as long as Veggie Boy is coming, I'll buy you guys dinner. So he's very sweet, but it is hard even for these kids who want to go this way because the teams don't often support them. And I had a young kid, David Duke Jr. From PC who went on now he's with the Nets, I believe, and he was trying to do it at Providence College and found it difficult. So that's kind of something we need to do next is the kids that want to try this in the sports departments, they're not able to because it's really hard with the kitchens controlled by other people.
Rip Esselstyn [00:39:49]:
Yeah, I think that over the next couple of years, we'll see that this will make some serious inroads into athletes and sports, and they'll realize that this is a huge so you also have created something at Plant City called Plant Docs.
Kim Anderson [00:40:12]:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn [00:40:12]:
And so tell me about Plant Docs.
Kim Anderson [00:40:15]:
So after I did all the movie nights at my house with a few friends, I created a nonprofit called Powered by Plants RI, and we copied Nelson Campbell's and yours, other people's, ten day jump start blood work, three and a half weeks of whole food, plant based diet and blood work, and had tremendous results. I mean, you know, you see those numbers, and that really moves you to make a difference. And so the January before I opened, we had Neil Barnard from PCRM in DC come and speak to about 150 physicians and their spouses at a private dinner. And afterwards, this woman came up to me. Her name is Dr. Sandra Musial. She was a pediatrician at Hasbro. And she said, I really want to help. What can I do? And I said, I know exactly what I want you to do. I want Plant Docs in the cellar of Plant City. I want you to see a Cohort of 20 to 30 clients every month. And we want to do blood work, three and a half weeks of a whole food, plant based diet and blood work and show people by the numbers the difference you can make in their health. And again, we only had nine months before COVID but she and two other physicians do these Monday and Wednesday classes in this community cellar, and they would greet them with an appetizer they made. They would do a little eight minute video with Neil Barnard. They would do cooking classes, and they would do recipe building and menu building in groups within the groups. And then they have a Facebook page where people can follow up and kind of hang together and support each other. And she's got now over 200, I believe, result from clients and is writing a white paper, and I want to bring that to the hospitals and the private businesses in the area. I mean, wouldn't it be great to go to a large private business and say, give me a 50 people for a cohort with Dr. Musial and Plant Docs, and let us show you. You got to show them where they live, show you how we can improve the performance and the availability of your employees, reduce the sick days of your employees and reduce the cost of your insurance of your employees. I think that's how we're going to get people's attention on that side of the coin. Once that's successful with 50, how do we take it to the full company? So that's something that we're gearing up to try to do that work as well.
Rip Esselstyn [00:42:33]:
I'm listening to everything that you're talking about, Kim, and I'm like, you've got a lot of balls in the air. It's really incredible. It's phenomenal. Thank you. And I'm super impressed. I mean, huge congrats thank you. On the ecosystem that you've created around Plant City. Plant X, Plant Docs, Powered by Plants RI, it's all phenomenal. So let's say that I decide to do this ten day jump start with.
Kim Anderson [00:43:06]:
Three and a half weeks.
Rip Esselstyn [00:43:07]:
Okay, sorry. Three and a half week jump start with Plant Docs. Is there food at Plant City that adheres to kind of the more strict, whole food, plant based, limited or no oil?
Kim Anderson [00:43:24]:
It's very challenging. That is how I eat personally. And it is challenging because if you make recipes that way, the general public won't always eat them. But in our build a bowl area, where we build a grain bowl, which your sister was in love with, we have black handles and a lot of things in there that are no salt and oil. It's farro, it's brown rice, it's kale, arugula, all the green, the basics. So, yes, the corn, the black beans, there's things in there. And then we have several no oil dressings. We make 65 sauces, cheeses, and dressings every single day by hand, and six of those dressings are in that department. And there's one, I believe that's a lemon vinaigrette. That's no oil. So, yeah, we try to do that. It is not easy. You have to survive to share the message. Right. So it's that balancing act, but very funny. And I don't think Michael would mind me saying this, but Dr. Greger came a couple of times. He's been there now, but the first time he came, I had chef make this amazing pesto with veggies, no oil, no salt. And he looked at our menus, and he looked at that, and he goes, oh, no, I'm eating the menu today. I don't do that when I'm out. He's super healthy. But that was really funny because we'd taken special care to prepare this meal for him. Now, your father, on the other hand, that's all he would eat.
Rip Esselstyn [00:44:50]:
Yeah. You mentioned black handles. What does that mean?
Kim Anderson [00:44:57]:
So the handles on the big ladles have black handles on them.
Rip Esselstyn [00:45:03]:
Okay. And if they're black, does that denote.
Kim Anderson [00:45:05]:
Something that's the no oil. No, no salt or low salt? No oil. Low salt.
Rip Esselstyn [00:45:10]:
Gotcha. So you mentioned a pizza bar, and I've read heard that you actually imported these ovens from Italy for these. Is that because it just I mean, are these ovens what makes them so special?
Kim Anderson [00:45:23]:
They go to a super high temperature. I want to say it's eight or 900 degrees. And we could pump 90 pizzas an hour out of there, which on a Saturday night, we really need to do. And it's Matthew. Kenny's recipe for the crust in double zero is actually the very fine pizza crust from Italy. Our pizzas are amazing, and a lot of times people don't want to go plant based. And the last thing that's holding them back, it's the cheese. Right? So we make these phenomenal cheeses. And some of them came from Matthew. Some of them come from our executive chef, Luis Yaramillo. And Macadamia ricotta with zucchini and arugula with a little oil over the top. I mean, there's faro pepperoni, there's a tofu barbecue pizza that's, like one of our best sellers.
Rip Esselstyn [00:46:15]:
You've got my son Cole. That's his favorite.
Kim Anderson [00:46:18]:
Well, we'll have to get you there because it's really good.
Rip Esselstyn [00:46:21]:
Yeah. How far is Providence from Albany? New York? Oh, is that 5 hours? Yeah.
Kim Anderson [00:46:33]:
New York City, two and three quarters. Boston an.
Rip Esselstyn [00:46:39]:
If I if I went there for pizza, could I customize one and just say, can you give me, like, a margarita with just all the veggies? Yeah, we could do that, but can you order off the menu discourse?
Kim Anderson [00:46:51]:
We have six different so we have a small kitchen, and we have about 200 items on the menu between the five restaurants. So in order to keep the speed up, they really have to stick. But that said, we have a lot of guests that visit us with a gluten free allergy, a peanut allergy, tons of our guests with allergies, and our team does a really great job in accommodating that. And so sometimes we do have to switch it up, but chef likes as little switching as possible. So we try to do a robust menu with really great offerings. But yeah, rip you're a little bit different I'm sure we can do something for you.
Rip Esselstyn [00:47:32]:
Yes. Well, that cashew something cheese sounded really delicious.
Kim Anderson [00:47:36]:
The macadamia ricotta is out of this world.
Rip Esselstyn [00:47:40]:
Wow. You guys do a lasagna?
Kim Anderson [00:47:44]:
We do Matthew Kenny's famous raw lasagna with a sun dried tomato marinara, pistachio pesto, and the macadamia ricotta, that's just to die for.
Rip Esselstyn [00:47:54]:
And that's in the Italian side. So what's the favorite dish on the Mexican?
Kim Anderson [00:48:02]:
We make a fajita bowl that I just love. Our nachos are unbelievable. We have a local Mexican family that makes us these corn tortillas every morning or every other morning. Stacks and stacks and stacks of them. And on that, we do our own homemade queso, our own cashew lime crema, everything's. Our own guac pico, black bean corn. I mean, it's so good. And these nachos are thick enough to hold all that sauce. If you look on the instagram, you're going to see the nachos. They're amazing. And I happen to love the dorado taco. It's not fish. It's actually a mitake mushroom. But you would never know. It like, if I closed your eyes, just nobody would know that it was a mushroom.
Rip Esselstyn [00:48:50]:
Carrie, in the background, see if you can find a photo of that and pull it up.
Kim Anderson [00:48:54]:
If you can, I'm sure you can find the lasagna.
Rip Esselstyn [00:48:59]:
Well, I've seen photos of your pizza.
Kim Anderson [00:49:03]:
They're incredible.
Rip Esselstyn [00:49:03]:
That crest looks incredible.
Kim Anderson [00:49:05]:
Yeah, and it's actually fermented, too, overnight.
Rip Esselstyn [00:49:08]:
Okay. Is that upstairs? The Mexican and the Italian. Okay, so downstairs, I know you've got something very cute called the makeout.
Kim Anderson [00:49:18]:
So my original note to Matthew was, I want these five restaurants, and he had a Makeout cafe in La. And one in New York at the time. And I wanted a cafe, but we needed to serve faster than a cafe, so we did kind of like a sweet green line. So you can literally just go, I want that. That I pick these six things that's my dressing and go sit and enjoy or take it out with you and sit on the river's edge.
Rip Esselstyn [00:49:46]:
Does Plant city overlook the river?
Kim Anderson [00:49:48]:
Yes, we're right on the Providence river and the pedestrian bridge, which has become a big tourist attraction. It's just very pretty at night.
Rip Esselstyn [00:49:57]:
It sounds utopian.
Kim Anderson [00:49:58]:
It's lovely. Yeah. Well, actually, somebody was in last weekend, and we do get a lot of people that are plant based or vegan traveling great distances to see with us. And they'll actually come on a Friday night, have Friday dinner, Saturday brunch, go do something, come back for Saturday dinner, Sunday brunch, and then leave with a car full of goodies. So that's been kind of fun. But we had somebody who traveled, I think, from New York, and he walked in, and after he left, I had introduced myself. And after he left, he said, this is paradise.
Rip Esselstyn [00:50:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. Have you met yet? The, uh, Carl and Carol Asabi and their son Rowan. Is that ringing a bell?
Kim Anderson [00:50:36]:
I don't believe that I've met so many great and and so many because of Brown. A lot of celebrities kids are at Brown, and they'll come and eat with us. Uma, thurman comes in. Her ex husband comes in. Michael Rapaport's in there. Machine Gun Kelly was in. Like, these are the folks that have money and access to information, and they know what they're looking for. Oh, yeah. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones were in about a month ago, and it's because they have access to information that they've been able to make this change. And that's what I'm trying to help democratize.
Rip Esselstyn [00:51:12]:
How did you guys survive through COVID?
Kim Anderson [00:51:14]:
It was very tough. We closed the day before the governor closed us because our employees justifiably were very scared and headed for the door. You can't run a business like ours without employees. But when the dust settled that night, chef texted me or called me and said, there's about 50 people here that really can't afford to be earning 60% of their pay, which is what programs offered 60% of their pay. And we're going to hunker down, we're going to mask up, and we're going to try to make this go. And we already have our own app, so we educated that night online and shared with people on social media. Okay, starting tomorrow, we're going to have takeout the four parking spots in front of us, just drive through. It's going to be curbside pickup. And we were expanding our delivery service. We have twelve drivers of our own because I really don't like DoorDashes and how they treat small businesses. And we expanded our delivery to 10 miles. And that was, I think, on a Monday morning or a Sunday by Friday of that week, you know how the tickets get printed for the orders, but they kind of hang together like Nepalese prayer flags. And Chef walked all the way to one end of the restaurant and had somebody walk all the way to the other end, which is like 100 and 200ft. And he said, no, Moss, I have to stop this. I can't make all these orders. So we were lucky that we survived. We took care of those employees. And then when we got the PPP, we were able to ramp up our takeout, ramp up our delivery, and bring back another over that month through June, July, and August, another 50 to 60 employees. So the program did for us what it needed to do to get people back to work.
Rip Esselstyn [00:52:50]:
Did you feel like COVID because what you had to do to survive with the takeout and the delivery has made you stronger?
Kim Anderson [00:52:58]:
Yes. But entrepreneurialism during COVID is kind of like a contact sport. You're just pivoting every day, and there's a new set of problems, a new set of parameters, a new set of rules. It was exhausting for the whole team, but you do what you got to do to be able to do what you want to do, which is share the message.
Rip Esselstyn [00:53:20]:
Yeah. Are you profitable?
Kim Anderson [00:53:24]:
Yes, we were profitable from day one. Plant City look, this was an idea. I thought it could work, wasn't sure. And it's really like jumping out of the 17th floor with a parachute and saying, I hope this works. So the day we opened happened to be the day of pride, which I did not know was going to go right by our front door. And in our 1st 72 hours, we served 13,000 guests. God and our executive chef, I'm sure he would tell you this himself because I've heard him say it before, came out of the kitchen, that was Friday, Saturday, Sunday, on Sunday, crying and said, I don't know if we can do this. And before that, next Friday, we had to build an extra prep kitchen in the basement and I rented space across the way for the bakery because the bakery things were making everything else hot and it wasn't working. So we had to get them out and we literally did that within one week.
Rip Esselstyn [00:54:17]:
How much are you guys composting every week? Do you know?
Kim Anderson [00:54:21]:
We've diverted 280 tons of compost from the local landfill because everything is compost, all of our packaging, all of our food scraps. If you drive pipe Plant City, there's like 18 bins outside the back of the kitchen of compost and recycle. And the Composting Group out of Southern Mass comes three days a week and they have a great system. They offload it, they dump it right in, they power wash the buckets and they put them back on the.
Rip Esselstyn [00:54:51]:
Do you do you know by avoiding having all those scraps going into the landfill, how is that helping the environment?
Kim Anderson [00:55:02]:
I don't know the exact number and I have not factored it into our impact numbers that are on our Facebook page, but I should have some of these university kids help me out with that. And it would probably be pretty easy to figure out. It's got to be a massive number because as you know, methane is 85 times more potent than carbon. It's got a lot less shelf life, doesn't hang around forever to do the long term damage, but because it's a really bad actor in the beginning, it's devastating. And so, yeah, we have to get rid of that. And I do, whenever I speak, say to people, if you know a restaurant that wants to compost, we are not competition, we are support. I will open the kimono, I will share the numbers, I will share the costs. It's less expensive than I thought it was going to be and it's not as expensive as my trash. And I want to show people how easy this is to do. On the other hand, the takeout packaging is very expensive and there's white space there for somebody to solve that. But the compost packaging, I wouldn't consider doing anything else. I wouldn't do plastics, but it's extremely expensive. I mean, we spend almost $8,000 a week on takeout packaging.
Rip Esselstyn [00:56:10]:
Wow, you're committed.
Kim Anderson [00:56:17]:
Yeah, we are. We want to expand. We think the drive thrus can go to franchise and we actually have I don't get excited and up and down as I used to when I was a kid because as you know, things can start and not happen. But we are working with a group that out of China. It's actually an American group that works with a Chinese mall developer. The highest end mall developers and the folks that brought Starbucks and Shake Shack to China want to bring Plant City to China.
Rip Esselstyn [00:56:49]:
Really?
Kim Anderson [00:56:50]:
We'll believe it when we see it, but it's nice to know that people really want it and they're willing to have those conversations and start negotiating. And Matthew is the one that gets all the phone calls people all over the world want to open. Like, you know, we let's not entertain small restaurants because the Plant City is much bigger and financially viable for anybody to be spending the same amount of brain damage to build and run. But the problem right now is we looked at one in La. It was a 45,000 square foot former post office and they wanted $250,000 a month to rent. So right now the cost of labor, the cost of goods, and the cost of rent really makes it prohibitive to do a lot of development unless it's people who own the properties and have really deep pockets and are mission driven and don't care about the economics. And so I'm like Michael, Matthew, those are the people that you want to talk to. And so the Royal family of Dubai wants one in Dubai.
Rip Esselstyn [00:57:53]:
They want a Plant City or a.
Kim Anderson [00:57:54]:
Plant City x Plant City. Plant City X is smaller, 3000 square foot drive through. It's just like a Burger King drive through counter service. Sit in, sit on the patio or eat in your car.
Rip Esselstyn [00:58:04]:
So is that what you're serving? Are you serving plant based burgers and fries?
Kim Anderson [00:58:07]:
Oh, yeah. But you can get an impossible burger if you want. But we make our own burgers. Rice, black beans, carrots, beets, walnuts and mushrooms. It's like the future of fast food. Rip. We make everything fresh every single day that we serve fast food in three and a half minutes out the drive through.
Rip Esselstyn [00:58:32]:
So does that mean you're making everything like the Burger Patties the day before? Are they in the freezer?
Kim Anderson [00:58:37]:
The day of? The day of, the day of.
Rip Esselstyn [00:58:41]:
I need to come witness this.
Kim Anderson [00:58:43]:
Yes. It's the future of food. We're wedged between a Taco Bell and a Burger King and those folks are trucking in meat and leaving it in a freezer for a month before you even see it. Ours is made in the morning and served in the afternoon. It's unbelievable.
Rip Esselstyn [00:58:58]:
And how are those know?
Kim Anderson [00:59:01]:
One of them does better than the other. And it all comes down to. Traffic and seasonality. One of them breaks even, and the other is very successful in doing quite well. So I do believe that that's something that could be franchised.
Rip Esselstyn [00:59:15]:
And you said that one of these or both of them, they were old Burger Kings, is that right?
Kim Anderson [00:59:19]:
Yeah, one was an old Burger King. I'll send you the pictures. It was really ugly, and now it's really handsome, so we totally transformed them.
Rip Esselstyn [00:59:27]:
It's handsome. Not. Have you have you ever met John Mackey?
Kim Anderson [00:59:37]:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn [00:59:37]:
You have? Yes.
Kim Anderson [00:59:39]:
I met him at PLANTSTRONG at the last one that you guys had up at your farm.
Rip Esselstyn [00:59:44]:
Oh, you were there. Fantastic. So do you know what John's doing right now?
Kim Anderson [00:59:48]:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn [00:59:49]:
Have you talked to him about what he's doing and what you're doing?
Kim Anderson [00:59:51]:
No, have not. I would love to be connected with him. A big fan.
Rip Esselstyn [00:59:56]:
Well, you guys are so mission aligned, and you're trying to do so many similar things. His new venture is basically trying to do restaurants and medical centers or little so much overlap here.
Kim Anderson [01:00:11]:
Right. We don't need to recreate the wheel. I'm certainly happy to help in any way I can. Again, never been about competition or money. It's about furthering the yeah.
Rip Esselstyn [01:00:19]:
Yeah. So wonderful. Well, Kim.
Kim Anderson [01:00:24]:
Yeah. One thing I want to do before you yeah. Here's one thing I want to do, and I have not been able to have the time or the energy to get that off the ground. I want to do national or global movie nights. One night a month, second Tuesday of the month, you invite ten friends to watch the game changers, ten friends to watch The Smell of Money, the new one that's coming out about pig farms, ten friends to watch what the health and just do a different one every time. Can you imagine if a million people sat ten people down in their living room and did a movie night and then opened up their fridge to some of their favorite food? The power in that, the scale of that would be earth shaking. The other thing I want to do is have game changes shortened to a 45 minutes version, the way Forks Over Knives did, because we need to be able to take that into schools, and it's too long.
Rip Esselstyn [01:01:13]:
I didn't know that Forks Over Knives had a shortened version.
Kim Anderson [01:01:16]:
That's what I've been told. I have not used it personally because I want to wait for the game changers one.
Rip Esselstyn [01:01:23]:
I wonder if they left me climbing the pole in that.
Kim Anderson [01:01:29]:
So if you go onto Plant City instagram at the top, it says, by choosing a plant based meal, you have saved with us. Thank you. To you. 564,000,000 gallons of water, 39 million pounds of grain, 29 million forest, 20 million pounds of carbon, and 969,000 animal lives.
Rip Esselstyn [01:01:54]:
And that's since you opened your doors four years ago. Wow. Who is keeping track of all that?
Kim Anderson [01:02:00]:
I'm just using the vegan calculator and I'm counting lunch and dinner. I'm not counting breakfast. And I'm counting that 75% of our guests are not plant based.
Rip Esselstyn [01:02:10]:
Do you guys serve alcohol there? Are there bars? Yes, we do. Are those downstairs? Upstairs? Where are those?
Kim Anderson [01:02:17]:
We have three full bars.
Rip Esselstyn [01:02:19]:
Wow.
Kim Anderson [01:02:20]:
Plus the speakeasy across the way, so that's four.
Rip Esselstyn [01:02:23]:
So can you smoke cigars in the speakeasy?
Kim Anderson [01:02:26]:
No.
Rip Esselstyn [01:02:26]:
Okay.
Kim Anderson [01:02:27]:
No, we got to draw the line somewhere, but we have a lot of mocktails, not just cocktails.
Rip Esselstyn [01:02:32]:
Is there a secret password to get into the speakeasy?
Kim Anderson [01:02:35]:
There's not even a sign on the door. You literally have to know where it is. Walk through the bakery, hang a left at the stove, and the chef will say, yes, you're in the right place. Go down the stores, through the black door, speak there through the black door. And the Boston Globe called it a very sexy, sultry speakeasy. And literally, when you walk in, it's dark, and it's really cool.
Rip Esselstyn [01:02:57]:
Wow, good ambiance. What about the other two bars? What's the ambiance of those?
Kim Anderson [01:03:02]:
So the first floor is the sports bar with the burgers. Second floor is the Mexican Tequila bar, and then the third one is with the Italian side. It's a little more wine, but you can get any cocktails or any drinks at anyone, and it's all vegan wine. So obviously everything the minute you walk through the door is plant based.
Rip Esselstyn [01:03:19]:
All right, so in your vision, Kim, looking out, ten years from now, how many plant cities do you think are going to be around the world?
Kim Anderson [01:03:32]:
I have no idea. I hope there's a handful of really good ones, but I have no idea. What I do think is that by our success, there's a lot of other restaurants in the area and beyond that have said, holy shit, what are they doing? They're always busy. And they've added plant based options to their restaurants. We actually had a guy come recently who owns a very famous bar and restaurant down in South County, near Westerly, near the oceans, where Taylor Swift has her home, and it's a very high end old New England resort. And he's adding another restaurant, and he said, I don't think the region is ready for all plant based, but I'm going to have a lot of plant based options. And I keep hearing about this place, and most people look at that and say, oh, competition. I look at it and say, how can I help know, yes, it's been successful. I'll share with you. What do you want to know? There's a thing called Rhode Island Mushroom Company, and we are the second largest purveyor of their mushrooms other than Whole Foods in Rhode Island, and I'd love to have somebody else use their mushrooms.
Rip Esselstyn [01:04:41]:
Do you know what kind of mushrooms?
Kim Anderson [01:04:43]:
Oh, my gosh, my taki. We've got so many lion's head. I know there's a bunch of them that we use in our recipes. I'm not even allowed in the kitchen. Rep. If I go in the kitchen, I hear this from Chef. Get out of my kitchen.
Rip Esselstyn [01:04:59]:
Get out of my kitchen.
Kim Anderson [01:05:00]:
And he's only half kidding.
Rip Esselstyn [01:05:03]:
Well, have you ever met Derek Sarnow?
Kim Anderson [01:05:07]:
Yes. Okay. Yeah. My son was a partner with NewCrop Capital and Chris Kerr, so we know Derek, and my husband says we're part of the vegan mafia, but just the most wonderful platform to meet the cool kids that are doing great things. And the Sarno brothers are their story is amazing. They're tremendous human beings. And, gosh, I hope they have so much continued success.
Rip Esselstyn [01:05:37]:
Oh, yeah, they will.
Kim Anderson [01:05:38]:
That whole wicked line we saw when we were traveling in Europe, it's Chad.
Rip Esselstyn [01:05:43]:
Chad. Derek and I were on the same team at Whole Foods for three.
Kim Anderson [01:05:47]:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn [01:05:47]:
Yeah.
Kim Anderson [01:05:48]:
I did not know that, but I knew that that's where they got their vegan. Chef Chloe is a good friend. We've just been so lucky to meet great people who are doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Rip Esselstyn [01:06:01]:
Yeah, man, wonderful stuff. I can't wait to get to Plant City. I got to check it out, see the scene with that. Kim, all the best to you. Thanks for spending some time with me on the PLANTSTRONG podcast and sharing all the incredible things you're doing around Plant City in Providence. A lot of great peas, a lot of great alliteration the alliteration.
Kim Anderson [01:06:25]:
So nice to meet you. Thank you for all the great work that you do and look forward to meeting you someday in person. And thank you.
Rip Esselstyn [01:06:31]:
Appreciate it. Give me a Plant Strong fist bump on the way out. Boom. Keep it plant strong.
Kim Anderson [01:06:38]:
Hey, thank you.
Rip Esselstyn [01:06:40]:
For more information on Plant City, visit plantscitypvd.com. Their next four week Jumpstart Your Health program kicks off this September, and next week, you're going to hear from the doctor leading that charge, Dr. Sandra Musial. Until then, thanks so much for listening and sharing these episodes with your family and friends. And if your travels ever take you to Providence, be sure to keep it PLANTSTRONG at Plan City. Thank you for listening to the Plan Strong podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants. Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything. The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth, most notably my parents, Dr. Calwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. And Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
