Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/676896
ByChristineArmario TheAssociatedPress LOS ANGELES At the Cafe Gratitude restaurant chain in California, waiters serve plates of vegan rice bowls, vegetable pizzas and tem- peh sandwiches with names such as "Gracious," "Warm- Hearted" and "Magical." The last two weeks, though, have been anything but kind. Angry patrons and ani- mal rights activists are call- ing on vegans to boycott the restaurants after learning that owners Matthew and Terces Engelhart have be- gun eating meat and con- suming animals raised on their private farm. "The brand has betrayed my trust by turning around and killing the animals that trust them on their prop- erty," said Anita Carswell, a communications man- ager for In Defense of Ani- mals who says she won't eat at Cafe Gratitude again. Though the restaurants continue to serve only plant-based food, the cou- ple's decision has provoked a heated backlash in a state where vegan restaurants and juice bars can be as easy to find as burgers and barbecue. Death threats were left at the couple's Be Love Farm in Northern California and demonstrators gath- ered outside a Cafe Grati- tude restaurant in Los An- geles last week. Meanwhile, groups such as In Defense of Animals are calling on the couple to turn their farm into an animal sanc- tuary. The Engelharts them- selves declined an interview request, but Terces Engel- hart's son and Cafe Grati- tude's chief operating of- ficer said the feud against Cafe Gratitude has unfairly cast his mother and stepfa- ther as deceptive animal killers. "I personally feel it's a lit- tle illogical to require my parents to remain vegan for the rest of their lives just because they created a vegan restaurant at a point in time that they were vegan," Cary Mosier said. The family's chain in- cludes six Cafe Gratitude restaurants and two Mex- ican vegan eateries called Gracias Madre in Los An- geles and San Francisco. Matthew and Terces Engelhart were vegetari- ans for nearly 40 years, but decided to return to eat- ing meat after leaving San Francisco and starting a farm about 55 miles away in Vacaville. They started with eggs and cheese from the farm's chickens and cows. Then, after one old cow had to be put down, they decided it made sense to incorporate meat into their diets as well. In a blog post, Terces Engelhart wrote the tran- sition was a "necessary and important part of our own growth as well as the sustainability of our farm." The entry was posted in February 2015 but went largely unnoticed until a few weeks ago, when it was shared and went viral on vegan and animal rights websites. The couple is now being inundated with mes- sages on Facebook and so- cial media forums criticiz- ing them as "flesh eaters" and calling them hypo- crites for owning vegan res- taurants but eating meat at home. "If they market them- selves on ethics, they should follow through on that," Carswell said. Mosier said his parents have "literally two cows," and his mother dotes on them, even rubbing them regularly with coconut oil. While the restaurants are vegan, he said the company has never promoted a "meat is murder" viewpoint. "I understand people can disagree with eating meat or killing animals," he said. "But to put those beliefs on another person and call them a liar if they don't do it, I think, is heading in the wrong direction. "And if you're a vegan, why would you want to close and boycott, frankly, the largest vegan restau- rant group in California?" 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