RICHMOND, Va. — One year after Richmond's water crisis forced some businesses to close for several days in January 2025, Philly Vegan on Hull Street Road is still serving the community. Richmond restaurant owner Samuel Veney says the prolonged crisis left lasting financial scars.
CBS 6 first spoke to Veney on January 7, 2025, one day after Richmond’s water outage forced him to close his doors.
“We don’t have the ability to operate. It’s pretty much impossible,” Veney said at the time. “December is our hardest month, so we usually look for a bounce back in January. We were looking forward to this week.”
A year after the water crisis and the restaurant is still up and running. But the prolonged outage hurt the business financially.
“It was huge to go back and look at our books and see that we started our first quarter off almost $40,000 less than we did in all the previous years,” Veney stated.
Grants offered by the city did help Philly Vegan temporarily, but Veney called them a drop in the bucket.
“It would have been our best year if it hadn't been a slow start. We did acquire a food trailer last year, which helped to make up for that, but then that balanced out everything instead of us being over top,” he added.
Philly Vegan is known for their pay-what-you-can meals and credited the community’s support for helping the business recoup their losses when the water was turned back on.
“It was like we were on a desert island, and we just kept finding each other. But as we found each other, we kept helping each other. I think that was the most important time I've seen the city come together as a community,” Veney said.
Veney said there was nothing his restaurant could’ve done to prepare for this event.
“The only thing we could have done was to be somewhere else, and that's the only thing. But we love where we're at. We love being on the Southside of Richmond,” he said.
Philly Vegan celebrated five years in business the first of the year and just renewed their lease for the next seven years.
Veney plans to expand their offerings and continue helping their neighbors despite last year’s water outage and the financial impacts that followed.
He said Philly Vegan is now one of the few vegan restaurants in Virginia to open their doors seven days a week.
“I'm just grateful that we're able to be a beacon of light for a lot of people that feel like it's a dark world,” he said.
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