Portland Is Home to World’s First Vegan Mini Mall
It’s no secret that Portland is a vegan wonderland. The uber-progressive, forward-thinking Oregonian city has a meat-free history that dates back to the late 1800s (thanks to the Seventh-day Adventists).
That’s why it’s no surprise that the city is home to a vegan mini mall. The complex includes a vegan tattoo parlor (Scapegoat Tattoo), grocery store (Food Fight!), clothing store (Herbivore Clothing Co.), and bakery (Sweet Pea Bakery).
The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about the vegan mini mall’s existence this week, proving that vegan topics continue to make it into the mainstream.
“A lot of our customers aren’t necessarily vegans — they just come in and buy for dinner,” Bryan Zurek of Food Fight! told the Los Angeles Times. “We also have a lot of vegans who make the trek in from Beaverton and Vancouver. And we’re a tourist destination. We get a lot of Canadian vegans.”
From vegan bacon grease to vegan marshmallow creme, their stock is pretty impressive. The store, which dates all the way back to 2003, has five stars on Happy Cow, with one user saying “This is a vegan’s dream grocery”.
Via Scapegoat Tattoo on Facebook
So why a vegan tattoo parlor? Many people are unaware that standard tattoo ink can contain animal ingredients. Black ink, in particular, can be made with bone char or shellac from beetles, and the tracing paper used to transfer outlines to skin can have sheep-derived lanolin in it.
All in all, visitors can buy clothes, food, baked goods and get tattooed, all in one convenient strip of stores.
Hopefully, the mini mall will expand even further … maybe to every city in America?! We can dream.
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