{"id":92164,"date":"2025-02-07T14:03:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T14:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?p=92164"},"modified":"2025-02-07T14:03:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T14:03:41","slug":"fancy-something-different-try-the-vegan-food-truck-where-everything-is-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2025\/02\/07\/fancy-something-different-try-the-vegan-food-truck-where-everything-is-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Fancy something different? Try the vegan food truck where everything is \u00a35"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The business hopes the low prices will encourage more people to go plant-based at lunch-time<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A PLANT-BASED food truck in the centre of Cardiff has slashed the price of its entire menu to \u00a35 to encourage people to try vegan meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plant-based Paradise, based outside Queen\u2019s Arcade on Working Street, also wants to help customers struggling to eat out due to the cost of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s looking positive so far. We\u2019ve been busy pretty much every day,\u201d said co-owner Aaron Wong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve served a lot of meat eaters over the last two weeks, people we\u2019ve never even met before. All I want to do is just get people to come and try the food and if they like it, they like it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business, which opened in 2015 as Anna Loka, Cardiff\u2019s first fully vegan restaurant before turning to street food, has set its menu to \u00a35, reducing the cost of some items by over 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring January we had no money, we literally couldn\u2019t eat out anywhere and I think that\u2019s the same for everyone,\u201d said Mr Wong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe town was dead, no one was going out, they didn\u2019t have any money at all. So I thought I\u2019ll do something different. I\u2019ll put everything to a fiver, make sure people are getting money\u2019s worth and see how it gets on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business has gone from \u201cbarely scraping\u201d \u00a340 in January to seeing an average of 40 customers a day, and often selling out of food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I fell in love with the food truck the moment I saw it\u2019<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This follows a difficult 2024 for Anna Loka, which saw the plant-based business close the doors of its Albany Road restaurant after nine years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had the idea that the restaurant was going to go at some point, it was inevitable,\u201d said Mr Wong, blaming rising costs after Brexit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a precaution, the 25-year-old had bought a food truck two years earlier. \u201cI fell in love with it the moment I saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spent the 2024 festival season serving food at pop-up locations throughout the UK, but Anna Loka\u2019s future was still up in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Wong had just completed a training week at the Tesco warehouse in Newport when he got the call that the food truck had the go-ahead to open in Cardiff city centre, just in time for a \u201crammed\u201d Christmas period.<\/p>\n\n\n

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