ATLANTA — Atlanta entrepreneur Pinky Cole Hayes said she met God after losing her vegan burger joint and then being able to buy it back.
The “Slutty Vegan” founder appeared on the Tamron Hall show on Monday and spoke out about losing the business.
“This truly has been a unicorn experience for me,” Cole Hayes said.
She said she was forced to give up control of the company in February because “financially, I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Mentally, I was dying on the inside,” Cole Hayes said.
Cole Hayes ended up losing her business for 43 days.
“Those 43 days had to feel like a lifetime,” Hall asked Cole Hayes.
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“In those 43 days I met God, and this situation had to take me down to my knees so that I could meet God in a whole other way, and I’m so grateful for that,” Cole Hayes said.
She said when she realized there were problems within the company, she had to start “looking under the hood” at what was going on, which was hard.
“I felt a lot of guilt,” Cole Hayes said. “I started beating myself up, at first.”
“You were able to come back and buy your company back with your own money, so you are now the owner of the company you started?” Hall asked Cole Hayes.
“I am the owner of the company,” Cole Hayes said. “It is mine, it belongs to me. And I am showing every single entrepreneur out there, sometimes this industry gets really predatory, and I’m reclaiming what’s mine, and I’m happy about that.”
The entrepreneur revealed a re-vamped “Slutty Vegan 2.0,” which includes new vegan sandwiches.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Cole Hayes’ “Bar Vegan” in Ponce City Market shut its doors on Monday, while the second location in Lawrenceville also closed.
You can watch the Tamron Hall Show every weekday afternoon at 3 p.m., followed by Channel 2 Action News at 4 p.m.
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