Vegan offering at Lifestyle cafe

Lifestyle Cafe owner and chef Shanna Dean talks about healthy eating.

Doral Chenoweth, The Columbus Dispatch

As Shanna Dean alternates between meticulously folding vegan lunch wraps and speaking with customers as though she is keeping up with longtime friends, her cell phone buzzes atop the wooden kitchen counter.

She pauses for a moment, glances at the screen of the vibrating device, and then dives back into wrapping without giving it a second thought.

Thats the boyfriend, said Dean, the owner of vegan eatery Lifestyle Cafe. He knows Im working.

A more recent addition to Olde Towne East, Lifestyle lives in a catty-cornered storefront at Oak and South 18th streets. During the work day, the block just outside lacks the hustle and bustle of only a few miles away and a dozen months ago, where pre-pandemic stretches of Downtown Columbus sidewalks flowed with life.

Inside, however, is a different story. Warm sunlight streams through the front window, illuminating brick walls and paper lamps, as contemporary pop and R&B jams from ceiling speakers.

Between part-time jobs as a server, work as a personal chef and a stint in culinary school, elements of the restaurant industry have perpetually been in Deans life.

Little did I know, I was actually preparing myself. Its funny how life is, she said. Even though the writing was on the wall, I never thought I would be opening a restaurant.

Deans longtime friend and entrepreneur Dawn Dickson approached her in August 2019 about opening a business in the space previously vacated by the Angry Baker.

After mulling it over, Dean said she trusted her friend and went with it.

You have to be really creative, Dean said. But what infected me was the idea that I could feed people who are on their journey some food that will keep them on their journey.

After signing paperwork, stocking inventory and solidifying the menu including nine trial runs of the vegan chicken and waffles until Dean settled on one Lifestyle was ready to open to the public.

Core to Lifestyle Cafes culture is that it offers 100% vegan menu items, something that Dean holds near and dear. She became vegetarian at age 24, and switched to veganism in 2007, for both health and ethical reasons.

Thats what helped me with the menu, and coming up with things that people can really connect to, Dean said. When I cook at home, I want to have a pleasurable experience, so I lean on the spices and the flavors that made traditional foods appealing. Its worked so far.

Lifestyle offers vegan menu items that mimic non-vegan cuisine egg and cheese melts, BLTs and buffalo chicken balls are all made to order.

Deans daughter, Cadence Addison, works behind the counter at Lifestyle. A vegetarian herself, she said shes grown a lot on the job.

Ive learned a lot of different nutrients, Addison said, adding that working at LifestyleCafe has also taught her about customer service.

Working with mom as your boss is better than working at Piada, Dean said of her daughter.

Joshua Douglas, 30, stopped by Lifestyle to pick up a late lunch and to immerse himself in the budding vegan scene in Columbus.

Douglas himself owns the first U.S. franchise of Greenhouse Canteen, an Australian plant-based restaurant and bar concept that he opened on the Northwest Side of Columbus in late summer 2020.

On a Thursday afternoon in June 2021, lunchtime at Lifestyle cultivates a space where people sit and talk long after their plates are empty.

Its only recently that way.

Lifestyle Cafe opened in January 2020, only two months before the COVID-19 pandemic rocked Columbus and the rest of the world.

In the two months before the pandemic, business was bumping, according to Dean. Everything slowed to nearly a halt until June 2020. In the throes of the reignited Black Lives Matter movement, Dean said customers came frequently.

I had a lot of people come to me here, just trying to support a Black business, Dean said. I was super thankful for that.

But by July, the flow of people in and out the door had dried up again.

With revenue down, Dean had to make challenging decisions in 2020, including with her own finances. She introduced delivery, but reduced the menu, number of workers and store hours.

Anything that didnt have to be paid, for me to operate the restaurant, was not paid, Dean added.

Paycheck Protection Program and CARES Act funding provided much-needed relief during the pandemic.

Even as health restrictions on restaurants were lifted and the pandemic seemed to ease in the United States, owning and operating a newer, local business has not been without hardships. Dean's head chef was recently outwith an injury; she also has struggled to hire a full slate of workers.

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Toward the end of the summer, Dean plans to pack up and move to Atlanta. Addison is set to start her freshman year at Alabama State University, just a few hours' drive from Atlanta.

Dean's head chef will be running the kitchen at Lifestyle, and Dean plans to travel back and forth. She also hopes to open a new restaurant with a different concept in Atlanta.

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Black Business Spotlight: Lifestyle Cafe owner talks veganism and the plant-based life - The Columbus Dispatch