Do you remember all the best of vegan Fitzroy back in 2016-17?
You know how sometimes you don’t realise you’re in a golden era until it’s well and truly gone?
Yeah... that.
Back when vegan food was still a little weird, a little DIY, and a little too reliant on nutritional yeast… Brunswick Street was the unofficial capital of the movement.
It wasn’t polished or corporate but it was alive.
And if you were into vegan dumplings, vegan cupcakes, vegan chai, vegan shoes or just vegan community vibes, you could wander a few blocks and bump into at least five people you knew, someone you recognised from Facebook groups, and at least one person who would say “Have you tried jackfruit yet?”
So here’s a little walk-through of that time, before things changed, before everything became a brand, and before half the vegan businesses disappeared (including ours… but then didn’t… but sort of did… long story).
Smith & Daughters
The first stop on the pilgrimage. Always loud, always packed, always worth it. If you didn’t wait for a table, were you even doing vegan Fitzroy properly?
Kindness House
The spiritual centre - activism and that one smell that only old community buildings have.
Radhey Chai
The food was comforting and the vibes were immaculate.
It felt like someone wrapped you in a blanket and gently whispered:
“Don’t worry, dairy wasn’t good for you anyway.”
Still here. Still a blessing.
Finas2
Just three doors down. Vietnamese vegan comfort food before it was a trend.
If you never ordered something with lemongrass there at least 20 times, were you even part of the neighbourhood?
Vegan Style - Our Little Part in the Chaos
And then… there was us - 345 Brunswick Street.
A tiny window full of vegan shoes, boots, and bags, run with equal parts passion, sleep deprivation, and hoping the rent cleared.
People would pop in, chat, ask where to eat next, and sometimes buy something — but mostly it was community. The kind of community you don’t realise is rare until it's gone.
You'd be greeted by our friendly team, they'd suggest all the good places to eats along the strip.
Madame K - Flavours That Linger
Madame K’s existed in that special niche of:
“I could make this at home… but not like this.”
It was bold, flavourful, and slightly mysterious — the restaurant equivalent of eyeliner that always looks good but smudges in a cool way.
Lord of the Fries + Cruelty Free Shop: The Duo
Right next door to each other - dangerous.
The Cruelty Free Shop was where you went when you wanted:
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vegan marshmallows
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hard-to-find chocolate
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weird international vegan snacks
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or to have a heated conversation in the aisles about whether oat milk foam was “still a phase or officially superior”
And then there was Lord of the Fries, the late-night carb salvation.
Chips and burgers at 11pm? - Yes.
Did you regret it? - Also yes.
Would you do it again? - Of course. Immediately.
Vegie Bar - The Original Elder
Then, of course, Vegie Bar.
Old enough that nobody really remembers when it opened; it just felt like it had always been there, like a cultural landmark, or a stubborn tree.
You could walk in any night and see:
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a tattooed punk eating a Buddha bowl
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a family with kids sharing nachos
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a date going extremely well or extremely badly
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three people who absolutely did not order dessert but definitely ended up eating one anyway
Still here. Still iconic.
Yong Green Food - The Wizard
Ah, Yong’s.
The kind of menu where you could order raw food, macrobiotic food, and something deep-fried… and somehow it all made sense.
There was an unspoken rule among regulars:
“If someone is sad, take them to Yong.”
They would leave full and spiritually repaired.
Meetings, Mingling, and Micro Cultures
This tiny stretch of street somehow held:
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goth vegans
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punks
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barefoot yogis
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queer kids
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straight edge anarchists
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rescue-dog parents
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food bloggers
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and that one person who always wanted to talk about raw food being the future - (It wasn’t.)
Our Little Shoe Shop in the Middle of It All
Vegan Style.
345 Brunswick Street.
Where people stopped in not just to buy shoes, but to chat, laugh, borrow recommendations, and sometimes just recover from a too-big Vegie Bar dessert.
Some days it felt like running a shop.
Other days it felt like hosting a living room with a front window display.
And honestly... both were perfect.
A Quiet Pause
Sometimes I walk past Brunswick Street now and it feels different - not worse, just… quieter.
A lot of the places that made that era what it was are gone, or changed, or hanging on a little more tightly than before.
The pandemic hit Melbourne harder than most places — especially small, values-driven businesses.
Lockdowns, uncertainty, cost-of-living, rent hikes - all the things that don’t care how much heart a shop has.
And maybe that’s why this memory hits as both warm and a little maudlin.
Because for a moment - just a moment - it really felt like vegan culture had found a home, built a neighbourhood, and was growing into something unstoppable.
Then life happened. The world shifted. And the landscape changed.
But the thing about eras like that is: you don’t measure their value by how long they lasted, but by how deeply they were lived.
The Part That Stays
Even if the signs changed. Even if some doors are shut. Even if the energy is softer now.
The conversations, the activism, the friendships, the experimentation, the absolute chaos, the late-night chips, the first vegan lasagne, it all mattered.
Because it helped shape what came next.
Even now, vegan options are everywhere. Supermarkets stock things we used to smuggle home in suitcases. People don’t ask “But what do you eat?” anymore - they ask for recipes.
So maybe what we had here wasn’t lost, just absorbed into the mainstream. A little less niche. A little less punk. But still here.
And part of me misses those wild, formative years, but another part is grateful I got to be there at all.
Why Write This Now?
Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s grief. Maybe it’s gratitude.
Or maybe it’s that quiet feeling that something meaningful happened here — something bigger than any single business.
So if you were around:
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What do you remember?
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What did we forget?
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What stories haven’t been told yet?
Drop a memory in the comments - serious, funny, messy, emotional, mundane - all of it matters.
Because places change, shops close, eras end… but the people and the stories - those stick around.
Your turn.
🖤
What was your Brunswick Street vegan moment?
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