WILMINGTON — It’s always been a part of the business plan: Pivot if need be.
READ MORE: Inside Panacea’s new taproom and restaurant opening this weekend
That time has come for Panacea Brewing Company, one of Wilmington’s only all-vegan restaurants. The owners announced they would debut a new omnivore menu on March 20.
“Multiple times a day people exit the restaurant when they learn we are vegan,” owner Robin Hill said. “It’s been a struggle to educate people, even though we have, of course, many vegans and a lot of meat-eating customers who like our food. People’s minds are just not as open as we wish they were.”
According to a Gallup news poll, around 4% of Americans identify as vegetarians with 1% as vegans as of August 2023. Those numbers are down from 5% and 3% respectively since 2018.
Panacea’s announcement on social media Thursday to expand into an all-inclusive dining clientele was received with a mixture of support and disappointment. Port City Daily reached out to a handful of diners, all vegan and vegetarian; only one responded who was willing to go on the record.
Holly Claire Bigness, a vegetarian for 20 years, said she has supported Panacea since kombucha was peddled out of its VW ‘booch bus at farmers markets. She is married with three children, all of whom have different dietary requirements.
“Our family consists of a vegan, a few vegetarians, and an omnivore,” Bigness said. “The new direction and menu at Panacea is great for us. I don’t really get all the fuss. The way I understand, they will still have lots of vegan options, just include other options as well.”
Some customers haven’t been as accepting, expressing concern regarding cross-contamination or calling the switch a betrayal to the vegan community.
Robin maintains the choice to go omnivore is solely a business decision, one she and her husband and business partner, Art, struggled with — for years.
“We didn’t just make this decision yesterday,” she said. “We knew it was going to hurt and disappoint many of our customers — and that was hard for us, so we really dragged our feet on it.”
The Hills started Panacea first as a kombucha line, launched in a small space on Eastwood Road in 2016. Three years later in 2019, they moved to their current facility in Anderson Square, to include a brewery, taproom and kitchen.
Art had been in the restaurant industry for decades and wanted to open an eatery that aligned with food requests they were hearing. The crossover from the kombucha niche into the plant-based community was strong.
“Of course, we researched trends as business people and we knew the vegan concept was something that was growing in the world and that it would pair well with what we were doing,” Robin said.
In 2018, $3.3 billion was spent on plant-based foods, while the number of restaurants serving vegetarians and vegans grew 3.8% on average between 2018 and 2023.
Since Panacea launched its kitchen, vegan and vegetarian options have become more abundant in the dining sphere, not only at independent restaurants, but fast-food and chain establishments and grocery stores, as more plant-based products have entered the market. Conscious-eating has also heightened, despite whether one is vegan, as seen with “Meatless Mondays” campaigns, trending to encourage diners to forgo meat one day a week to have a more positive impact on the planet.
“But we had a lot of naivete as far as the size of the vegan community in Wilmington and how that plays out in a business and what it takes to truly support a restaurant,” Robin said.
Neither Robin nor Art are vegans.
“We have never posted anything on our socials about being vegan, animal rights or activism; we opened because people were asking for more vegan options all the time back then and we listened,” Robin said.
While vegan diners showed out strong, Robin said it still proved a struggle to sustain the restaurant. She said they have been discussing a meat-inclusive menu since day one, in the event Panacea’s vegan-only concept was not profitable.
The restaurant’s first year in operation was blanketed by Covid-19 restrictions; the business was supported by paycheck protection program loans for employees and the kombucha revenue also subsidized costs throughout its history.
In 2021, the couple expanded Panacea, with another 1,600-square-foot multipurpose space to use for runover dining needs, private parties or the brewery. Panacea produces alcoholic and non-alcoholic kombucha in a three-barrel system and runs a canning line.
Yet, Robin said the restaurant was “hanging on in trauma mode,” especially out of the pandemic.
“We stayed in the concept a lot longer than we should have,” she said. “It was only sustainable because we built a large wholesale business for kombucha.”
Rising food costs haven’t helped either, oftentimes with vegan products being more expensive than regular dairy or meat. For instance, Robin said 1 ounce of vegan “pork” — used on a Panacea sandwich — is the same price as 12 ounces of regular pork.
“Vegan eggs, vegan cheese, vegan mayonnaise, vegan substitute products are just through the roof,” she said. “Everything is so expensive now, especially after Covid-19, and people are particular about what they spend their money on when dining out. We felt like we needed to diversify into that clientele.”
Panacea’s menu will still contain both sandwiches and comfort food for all dietary needs and the changes won’t affect the customers’ wallet. According to the restaurateurs, prices are not increasing.
The menu will have mirrored items prepared for each dietary restriction. So the restaurant’s most popular Trashburger will come with beef or Panacea’s houseblend vegan patty, created with Impossible crumbles, carrots, fresh vegetables, quinoa, celery, onion and more. That item alone represents roughly 80% of the restaurant’s food run, according to Hill.
Panacea’s popular cauliflower wings will remain as well, as will the tomato pie, also to be only vegan.
Some meat items won’t be replicated on the vegan side — a steak sandwich, for example.
The restaurateurs also are putting emphasis on more wholesome ingredients over processed foods, such as the fried “chicken” sandwich once prepared with a Gardein fake protein patty. Instead, it will be made with fried fresh oyster mushrooms, vended from a local farmer with Wholesome Greens.
“Right now we’re going to come out really strong for the vegans, just like we always have,” Robin said. “And if they come out strong for us, we’re gonna keep carrying all those products.”
Aside from getting a new health department permit, the kitchen has been rearranged to properly separate prep areas for the plant- and meat-based ingredients, as well as sinks and utensils. There is not a separate grill.
“But we will do our best to keep things separate on that grill — that is the way that the majority of restaurants function,” Robin said.
Panacea’s kitchen is open-air so diners can see what’s happening in real time as food is being prepared. Robin said they built it that way years ago for transparency, to build trust, and will continue to work to assuage diner anxiety. She plans to release a video that shows the kitchen crew preparing the new menu, in an effort to assure customers they’re being as careful as possible.
“Ultimately, this is our business, our livelihood,” Robin said. “We’re still here to serve the community. We believe we have a reputation in this community of taking care of people and we just want to keep doing that. And the folks who supported us are still going to come out and support us — and the folks who can’t, or don’t want to, we understand and totally respect that.”
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