From her early days in a shared kitchen to a food truck to now owning three locations across Georgia, Aisha “Pinky” Cole has built a multi-million-dollar empire. The serial entrepreneur feeds Atlanta and surrounding cities with her vegan burger joint Slutty Vegan.
Vegans, vegetarians and food lovers alike will wait hours in line for a taste of Slutty Vegan’s plant-based burgers, including the notable Sloppy Toppy or One Night Stand burger. Her clientele includes Atlanta natives, travelers as far as Florida, and a bevy of celebrities from Queen Latifah to Chloe Bailey to Shaquille O’Neal to politicians like U.S. Senator Cory Booker and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
After welcoming new love, a baby, and opening her fourth Slutty Vegan location in 2021, Pinky Cole is far from being done with breaking barriers in the name of good food.
Atlanta Black Star caught up with the Slutty Vegan CEO, who shared how she manifested her thriving business and discussed a partnership with the online banking platform Varo Bank.
“Well, I’m nowhere near where I want to be. I still got a long way to go, but I think I’m in a really, really good place. I had a great vision for my life and I knew that I was going to be doing a lot of really big things in and around my community, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Cole, who stopped eating meat in 2007, said going vegan was “the best decision I ever made in my life.”
The Clark Atlanta University graduate formerly served as a TV producer on “The Maury Show,” among other series. By 2014, she’d used her business mindset to open a Jamaican restaurant in New York City. Things went south after a grease fire destroyed the building, which prompted Cole to create the vision for Slutty Vegan.
“My life is exactly what I remember as a kid because I’ve always manifested this,” she said. “I knew that I would be great. I knew that I was going to be big. I knew that I was going to change the world and I’m actually doing it now.”
Read full story at Atlanta Black Star here.
