Plnt Burger Founders Plan a Whole-Food Café in Washington, DC

Plnt Burger is preparing a broader menu for its next move. Founders Spike Mendelsohn and Seth Goldman plan to open Plnt Cafe in Washington, DC’s Mount Vernon Triangle at the end of 2026, extending the business beyond the burgers and fries that established its first chain. The concept’s central question is straightforward: can a restaurant built around familiar fast food make vegetables and whole-food dishes compelling enough to earn a regular place on customers’ orders?

The new counter-service restaurant will serve burgers alongside dishes centered on vegetables and whole foods. Planned items include chili crisp smashed cucumber salad and al pastor cauliflower tacos, a recipe first created for Mendelsohn’s digital-only taqueria concept, Knockout T@KOS. That menu mix suggests the café is meant to broaden the brand’s appeal while keeping its original products in view. It’s a measured extension, rather than a clean break with what customers already know.

Testing a broader menu

Plnt Burger launched in 2019 and now has 13 locations in the Northeastern US, operating inside Whole Foods Market stores from Alexandria to Boston. The founders have tested most of the café menu at those restaurants and say customers have responded well. That gives them some experience with the dishes before opening a dedicated café, though the format will still face a different test: whether customers will choose these meals when they’re no longer ordering inside a grocery store.

Plnt Burger

One returning favorite is the Chik’n Funguy: battered and fried oyster mushrooms with lettuce, pickles, and garden herb mayonnaise. It spent five years on the Plnt Burger menu. Its return gives the café a link to the chain’s established menu, while the new vegetable-forward dishes signal a wider ambition. The two approaches can sit together, but the balance will matter: a broader menu needs to feel like a coherent restaurant, not a list of unrelated additions.

The café’s wider selection reflects a bet that customers who enjoy plant-based fast food will also make room for more vegetable-forward meals. That’s a reasonable bet, but it isn’t guaranteed by interest in plant-based eating alone. Familiar formats and recognizable ingredients can lower the barrier to trying something new; repeat visits will depend on whether the food works as a satisfying meal in its own right.

“Our goal has been to make plant-based food something everyone can enjoy, whether you're vegan or simply looking to eat more vegetables,” PLNT Burger CEO Chris Treloar said in a statement. The line captures the company’s intended audience: people who may not identify as vegan but are open to changing what they eat. The practical test is whether the menu serves both groups without asking either to compromise on taste or convenience.

Familiarity and consumer interest

That bet tracks with stated consumer preferences. A 2026 L.E.K. Consulting survey of 2,000 Americans found that more than 70 percent prioritized familiar ingredients, while two-thirds sought minimally processed products. Those findings point to two different expectations that a menu has to meet: customers may want food they recognize, while also looking for options that feel less processed. The survey offers context for the strategy, but it can’t establish how people will respond to Plnt Cafe’s specific dishes or location.

Treloar says the company sees room to grow beyond burgers: “We've built a brand around burgers that people genuinely love, but we've always known there was an opportunity to do so much more.” The move broadens what the brand can offer without abandoning its best-known category. This is more significant than it looks: a burger chain’s next stage may depend on whether it can persuade customers to visit for something other than a burger.

Plant-based restaurants keep opening

Vegan restaurant closures have drawn attention, but new concepts are still finding places to open. Plnt Cafe follows Denver’s Vegan Van moving into a brick-and-mortar space, plans for a vegan Mexican restaurant in Baltimore, and Counter Culture’s return to Austin. Those openings suggest that the market remains active even as individual businesses encounter pressure. A string of launches doesn’t prove that every concept can sustain itself; it shows that operators still see enough interest to try.

Rendering by Plnt Cafe

Mendelsohn and Goldman hope Plnt Cafe can grow into a sister chain to Plnt Burger. Treloar told National Restaurant News that vegan diners remain, while recent closures reflect a “hype curve”: “It’s not like they stopped eating plant-based. They’re just running out of options.” (And this is the part most people overlook.) The presence of diners doesn’t automatically mean there are enough of them, in the right places, to support every restaurant model.

The DC opening will show whether a menu that stretches from burgers to whole-food dishes can bring more of those diners through the door. If you're working in this space, the useful signal will be whether the broader menu attracts repeat customers, not just first-time interest in a new opening. The concept has a head start from testing dishes in existing locations, but a dedicated café will have to make the case meal by meal.

What the expansion will test

Plnt Cafe’s plan offers a practical response to a familiar challenge for plant-based restaurants: how to serve customers who want more options without narrowing the audience to committed vegans. Keeping burgers on the menu preserves a familiar entry point; adding vegetable-centered dishes gives regulars a reason to look beyond it. That combination could widen the brand’s reach, though execution and local demand will decide whether the format can grow.

For background on the founders and the original chain, see Top Chef alum Spike Mendelsohn and the Plnt Burger guide. The cauliflower tacos were developed for Knockout T@KOS.

Related openings include Vegan Van’s new restaurant, a vegan Mexican restaurant in Baltimore, and Counter Culture’s return to Austin.