Small town near Kruger National Park in South Africa gets its first vegan restaurant during the pandemic

As a vegan consultant trained by Vegan Hospitality™ my mission is to help the hospitality businesses in Southern Africa become vegan friendly. It’s time to put Africa on the map as a vegan holiday destination!

You can only imagine my joy at finding out recently that my local ‘’bush’’ town of Hoedspruit was getting its very first vegan restaurant. I contacted the owner just before they opened to show my support.

Photo credit: LaMoo cafe

Hoedspruit is a town full of nature lovers, with most locals living in wildlife estates or the reserves which border the famous Kruger National Park. The town attracts many tourists and international who have holiday houses in the area as well. With all of this in mind, I feel it is an ideal location for a vegan restaurant.

I interviewed Laura Lewis, the owner & chef of LaMoo café which is now a place I have enjoyed some lovely meals for both business meetings and dates!

Now also keep in mind that LaMoo was opened during a pandemic. This is what Laura had to say:

Thanks for speaking with me Laura, so first thing’s first, I am assuming you are vegan yourself? If so, when did you decide to become vegan and what made you make this decision?

I’ve was raised to love animals. I never thought about animal farming until I had access to social media as an adult and realised it was very unkind. I was vegetarian for a while (I lived on the south coast where no one is vegan and no one knows anything about veganism. Back then, we were not catered for at all. I stumbled across an article on dairy farming and that was it. That was approximately 9 or 10 years ago.

What made you decide to open a fully plant-based restaurant?

Laura Lewis, owner of LaMoo cafe

There is so little for vegans to eat when dining out. I went to the north coast for holiday and there were all of these options. We didn’t have to struggle for takeout or restaurants and could actually enjoy our holiday. I thought that by opening LaMoo we could give all vegans a chance to eat out whenever they want (not just a salad minus a whole lot of stuff). It’s also very much targeting the environmental and compassion challenges we are facing. I’m trying to make people aware of plastic, recycling, climate change etc. We are trying to do events for all of the awareness days to help raise more awareness. People here are much geared towards wildlife but they don’t realise that the biggest threat to wildlife is agricultural farming. 

Were you worried about opening a hospitality business during a pandemic?

Very and I still am. I don’t have the same luxury other restaurants have. I have to try convince people to try plant based. People sit down, see it’s plant based and walk out. That makes me sad, not for me but for the animals and the environment. I might not make it, and if so, people keep telling me that it won’t be about the food but rather that people aren’t ready to hear the truth. But we will push through for as long as possible obviously with the hope that we can continue to stay open.

How did you think of the name LaMoo and what does it mean to you?

A few people close to me did some brainstorming for names. We knew we needed something that wouldn’t offend people or challenge their beliefs too much initially. People are so hard to convince after so many years of believing that cows were made to provide milk to humans and that someone else will solve the problems of recycling etc. So, we decided on LaMoo which in the urban dictionary means a cow that is laughing. That is my wish for all animals on this planet, that they can laugh as much as we do and have the same freedom we have. 

Photo credit: LaMoo cafe

How has the reaction been from the local community seen as you are the very first plant-based restaurant in the area?

It’s been very mixed. The vegan community has been great. And we’ve already seen repeat customers with the vegans but it’s still a small community. We’ve had people rave that they can’t taste the different between some of the meat substitutes, and we’ve had people refuse to drink their coffee or just get up and leave without trying anything. Our customers are often either foreigners or from Cape Town. 

Have you had mostly vegan customers or non-vegan customers eat at LaMoo?

It seems to be about even at the moment. A lot of people come for the waffles and pancakes which are easy to eat for both vegans and non-vegans. 

What would you say your restaurants food ''style'' is and why did you decide on this style?

We initially started with all of the typical foods that I could never find vegan versions of. Waffles, pancakes, toasties etc. As time went on we were able to add the healthier meals as well. We are doing a bit of everything to try to accommodate for both vegans and non-vegans, trying just to encourage people to change even just one meal a week to plant based.

What is your personal favourite dish on the menu?

I love the Tofu Mayo & Bacon Sub. I also love all waffles!

Where do your source your ingredients?

We are blessed to have a very well stocked health shop and she is always willing to try to source ingredients for me. Our fresh produce we try to grow ourselves but we are small scale and so we get waves of crops, but we are able to often provide our own spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, marrows, beans, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, beetroots and onions. The produce I do not have available in my garden we source from the farmers market unpackaged to avoid plastic. Most of our suppliers have been fantastic with sourcing in a way that we get unpackaged in bulk to avoid plastics.

Do you have any advice for anyone who is wanting to open a vegan restaurant?

Be strong. Breaking into the restaurant market can be super hard and being vegan makes it feel harder, but remember why you’re doing it. Our mission is to try to raise awareness, save some animals and provide something nice for the vegans that deserve more than just a salad at a restaurant. I just keep reminding myself that saving just one animal is worth it.

Article written by Hayley Cooper (Trained and Certified by Vegan Hospitality)

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