Actor and comedian Kevin Hart is also a businessman. So if he is going to the trouble and expense of opening up a fast-food restaurant with a brand new concept at the forefront, he’s thought it through, and there must be a legitimate market. 

It’s called Hart House, and it is set to open its first location in Los Angeles and will feature only plant-forward food, according to a story in Los Angeles Magazine. 

The CEO of Hart’s company, Andy Hooper, said Hart got the idea when the country was shut down. 

“Kevin sort of conceptualized this idea at the beginning of the pandemic. f I were advising him at the time, I would say, ‘Don’t you dare ever start a restaurant, and don’t you ever start a restaurant in the middle of COVID,’ but after almost two years of really working on this menu and getting the food to a place where it can deliver on that promise, we’re ready to go and we’re excited to tell the world about Hart House and excited to serve the food.” 

This will be a 100% meat-free zone.  The menu will have some usual standards like burgers, chick’n sandwiches, fries, tots, salads, and milkshakes, but they are all plant-based. And no artificial colors, preservatives, hormones, and high fructose corn syrup, according to the story in Los Angeles mag. 

Hooper said his concept requires more than a commitment to meat-free menu items.  The food better taste good, or the doors won’t be open for long. 

“If you were to just come out and say to folks, ‘Come to my vegan restaurant,’ automatically, there’s two thirds of the country that just won’t go because they’re thinking to themselves, ‘Oh, vegan food doesn’t taste as good as other food.’ I think it’s important for us to be a restaurant that first and foremost serves a crave-able product that people go out of their way to consume and then at the end, we’re like, ‘Hey, by the way, this just happens to be all plant-based.”

Who was one of Hart’s first hires? Chef Michael Salem, the former head of culinary innovation at Burger King. That had to be an interesting first meating. 

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