John Enlow has been running his food truck, CJ’s Gourmet Mobile Deli, since 2014, and customers have steadily been asking if he had vegan food items.
In response, Enlow created a vegan menu, which debuted in January this year. Then, West County Center reached out and asked if he’d like to do a pop-up there. He decided to take the chance to feature his vegan menu.
“Boom, it hit,” Enlow says of the pop-up’s success.
In fact, it hit so hard that the mall asked Enlow to join permanently. At 11 a.m. on Friday, he’ll be hosting the soft launch of that concept, Da Picky Vegan, with an eye to a grand opening at the beginning of May. Until then, though, the restaurant will be open in the food court during normal mall hours and is also available for order through food delivery services.
Da Picky Vegan serves plant-based versions of burgers, salads, wings, baked fries and sweets. The food is all made in house except for the breads and sweets, which Enlow sources from local vegan bakeries Breadsmith and Royally Baked.
He says the name Da Picky Vegan is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the reputation vegans have for being picky about what they eat. But Enlow says that pickiness is a good thing.
“We’re also picky about what we put in our bodies,” he says. “[If you eat this food] you’re going to be able to be a healthier person, mentally, spiritually and emotionally because it’s not weighed down by all the processed foods that are still in most of our mainstream diets.”
But Da Picky Vegan isn’t only for vegans, Enlow says. It’s also for anyone who just wants a really flavorful meal. Though he says anything on the menu is a good choice, he points specifically to Da Picky Vegan’s black bean burger.
He created a specific spice blend for this burger, and he can top it with a variety of relishes. It’s barbecue-y and garlicky.
“They call me the king of the black bean burger,” he says with a laugh.
Enlow came up with that burger, and all the offerings, through trial and error, tapping into his long held passion for food that he first developed while working in the film industry. A St. Louis native who had graduated from Kennard NJROTC high school, he studied film at Columbia College of the Arts and then Clark Atlanta University before making his way to LA.
But food called his name, and Enlow returned to St. Louis and pursued it, opening up a brick-and-mortar deli that closed and getting into corporate work with Menards and Walmart. Then last May, he resigned to go all in on food. It’s a decision that has led him directly to this moment and to Da Picky Vegan.
“It’s exciting,” Enlow says. “For them to even say, ‘Hey, [we want you]’ basically after I did my first pop up and we saw the numbers — we were excited, the mall was excited.”
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