East Austin Vegan Bar Can No Longer Afford to Be Fully Vegan

A vegan sandwich from Sunny’s.

An East Austin vegan bar closed down its food truck this month, making the business no longer vegan. Sunny’s Backyard shuttered its namesake food truck in the Govalle neighborhood at 3526 East Seventh Street on Sunday, February 11.

Sunny’s food truck had to close because “it was simply losing money,” as co-owner Merritt Vaugh writes to Eater. “It had been for years, but we borrowed and borrowed and held on hope that it would turn the corner eventually.” That didn’t happen, and when it became the case of the truck probably “tak[ing] the bar down with it,” Vaugh and co-owner Charrissa Vaugh had to close the food truck, which had served vegan comfort foods like takes on fried chicken sandwiches and wings.

To make up for the food loss, Sunny’s will be hosting food pop-ups at the space through the end of South by Southwest (SXSW), which will serve non-vegan and vegan dishes. That expansion was intentional. “The past three years has shown us that, unfortunately, fully plant-based food menus seem to scare off a lot of what would be bar customers for whatever reason,” Merritt writes. “If we are going to keep the bar and live music venue alive, we’re going to have to have meat options available.”

However, the new Sunny’s food vendors will need to have at least one vegan food option available. And Sunny’s bar — cocktails, wines, beers — will still be vegan.

The first pop-up will be the brand-new Easy Burger starting on Friday, February 16. It’ll serve burgers with meat or vegan patties, in options like the Juicy Lucy (stuffed with cheese) and the Oklahoma Onion, plus fries. And starting sometime in March, the SXSW food pop-up will be pizza-geared Slice Society with its wood-fired pies.

After the pop-ups, Sunny’s will have some permanent food trucks (which will also have to follow that at-least-one vegan dish rule). That includes a location of the growing New York-style pizzeria Pedroso’s Pizza, which will open sometime in early April. The Vaughes are also open to having an actual vegan food truck on the premises too.

The Vaughes opened Sunny’s first as the food truck in March 2021, serving vegan pub food. They opened the bar portion later that May. It had taken over what was dive bar Hard Luck Lounge. Before that, they worked at Los Angeles vegan bar Beelman’s.

In recent months, several Austin vegan food businesses have closed. There was the Austin location of El Paso-based vegan Mexican truck Lick It Up; Counter Culture’s second food truck iteration (still with the hopes of opening a physical location); and New American-ish vegan restaurant Citizen Eatery.