by nahlah Abdur-Rahman
May 27, 2025
Cole hopes to reclaim her restaurant glory with this new sandwich shop concept.
Pinky Cole has seen the highs and lows of starting a restaurant empire. Now, the “Slutty Vegan” founder hopes to be on the up again with her new sandwich shop concept.
Cole has now launched “Voagies,” a term for vegan hoagies, in the same location where she first became a household name with Slutty Vegan. The West View location in Atlanta was the first of many multi-state storefronts where customers could order plant-based burgers and more.
“There was a lot of people that thought I was dead, metaphorically,” Cole said at the Voagies grand opening. “But let me tell you how even in that dirt, flowers will grow higher.”
According to 11Alive, Cole had lost her business earlier this year in February to creditors. However, a little over a month later, she restored her ownership of the multi-million-dollar food empire. She said the decision came as cash-flow issues and operation costs troubled the growing entrepreneur.
Now, Cole hopes to begin anew with the “Slutty Vegan 2.0” venture. She hopes to elevate the typical sandwich shop experience, citing her own boredom with traditional options when ordering.
“This concept was born because I was tired of going to sub shops and just getting veggies on bread,” she said. “I wanted to be able to create something that I could appreciate, and I knew that it was guilt-free, and I knew that the market was wide open for a vegan hoagie shop. So I decided to do that… I’m so excited that this concept has finally manifested itself.”
She added, “I wanna say, all the people who ever doubted me — I hope that you have a front-row seat to the success” she said. “I hope that you are sitting in VIP to all this greatness that’s happening and is about to happen.”
Slutty Vegan’s cheeky schtick made vegan meals fun and engaging, with Atlanta proving itself as the first indicator that the restaurant would succeed. Now, she hopes to include the same charm that made her original restaurant soar. She remains optimistic that she will expand this empire across the U.S. and the world.
“This is the first business in Slutty Vegan 2.0. This is a hoagie shop like you have never experienced before,” explained Cole. “This brand is going to scale in a way that you ain’t never seen before… We will see this all over the world.”
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