CC’s Vegan Spot will move from Alton to Princeton Heights in St. Louis this summer

Plant-based eatery CC’s Vegan Spot is moving from Illinois to 4993 Loughborough Ave. in St. Louis in late June or early July, as reported by the Riverfront Times.

Owner Trezel Brown shuttered the Alton, Illinois, location on June 5 in order to move closer to her customer base, which is 85 percent Missourians. The distance has been especially challenging for her restaurant during the pandemic. 

“Winter months would really slow down because nobody wanted to travel 40 minutes to get something to sit in their car and eat when it’s cold out,” she said. “So I knew I had to move the business to Missouri.”

Brown looked at several locations in the St. Louis area before choosing the former home of Corner Bistro in South City as the new home for CC’s Vegan Spot, which is named after her granddaughter. “This spot popped up, and I absolutely fell in love with it,” she said. “When I stepped out of the car, I just felt a sense of warmth and friendliness. The neighborhood just felt so right. … I could not find anything in North County, though much of my customer base is there. I did not want to go through the process of a buildout – I’ve done that before, and I wanted something that had previously been a restaurant.”

The new 1,000-square-foot space is considerably smaller than the 2,400-square-foot Alton location, but there will be about 24 seats inside, and Brown is excited that she will now have a patio with about about 16 to 18 seats. She plans to extend her hours to add a breakfast section to the menu. Brown will offer her vegan interpretation of breakfast dishes like chick’n and waffles, biscuits and gravy, a tofu breakfast scramble, and her personal favorite, “fish” and grits. Hours are still tentative, but she plans to offer breakfast on Saturdays and possibly a Thursday and Friday brunch featuring the breakfast menu.

Along with breakfast, Brown will add several other items to the menu, including two power bowls with an assortment of veggies and five cold salads, like coleslaw and potato salad. The Beyond burger is leaving the menu, but Brown will still offer her Unbeetable beet burger and her Brinjal burger made with eggplant, both of which are house-made. Brown will also continue to offer plant-based versions of traditionally meat-based dishes, like the Chik’n Burrito and the Illy Cheeze Steak.

“I’ve been catering to the meat eaters … to get them to transition,” Brown said. “Now that I’ve got people’s attention, I want to take the menu to a whole other level. Now I want to add a section where I cater to the vegans who have been vegan for a while. They want the beet. They want the eggplant. They want some raw stuff, some power bowls.”

Brown hopes to have a soft opening for the St. Louis location on June 25, with plans to open fully by July. She's still working out the decor and vibe, but is going for a welcoming environment with pictures of seasonings, spoons and other culinary themes on the walls. 

Visit ccsveganspot.com or the hashtag #soulveganlicious on social media for updates. In addition to the move, Brown is considering changing the name to CC’s Soul Veganlicious, though nothing is set in stone yet.