Pioneering vegan restaurant in downtown Las Vegas closes after 8 years

VegeNation, the pioneering vegan restaurant in downtown Las Vegas, has closed. Last weekend’s Sunday brunch was the final service, VegeNation announced on its Facebook page.

Health challenges 20 years ago inspired chef-founder Donald Lemperle (who once cooked at New York City’s famed Le Bernardin) to adopt a plant-based diet. When he opened VegeNation in 2015 at 616 E. Carson Ave., he had his doubts about what was then a still-developing area.

“I remember walking down Carson Avenue at night and it being dead quiet and abandoned,” the chef told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on VegeNation’s fifth anniversary in 2020. “I was really concerned. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I’m putting everything into this. How is it going to work out?’ ”

Lemperle supported the regional foodshed — community gardens, urban farms, local food and drink artisans — to create his menu. Among its items were elote and sweet potato tamales, spaghetti with plant-based meatballs, and lasagna with roasted vegetables and mushroom marinara.

Lemperle said he hoped such dishes would show people new to vegan cooking that it went beyond the “tofu and sprouts and hippie food” stereotypes. “It hits so many cultures and has so many things to give. It’s got unlimited possibilities, which I love.”

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram and @ItsJLW on Twitter.