Tucked away on 48th Street among Broadway shows and throngs of tourists, P.S. Kitchen has been serving up innovative vegan cuisine in a refreshing, modern setting since 2017. The mission of the restaurant does not stop at supporting and encouraging vegan alternatives, as they also donate all of their profits to sustainable charities. Members of the Manhattan Sideways team sat down with one of the owners involved in the restaurant during the summer of 2019, to talk about the unique goals of P.S. Kitchen and to sample some of their refreshing takes on vegan fare.
“It’s hard for people to change, so they need to really eat differently or be shown that there’s different food you can eat in order to try to change… that led me to wanting to do this kind of work,” Jeff shared with us, adding that he has been vegan for about twenty years. He recalled that, growing up in New Jersey, there were only one or two vegan restaurants around. “It was a weirdo diet. People thought it was strange. The big thing I’ve seen change in those twenty-two years is that people have gone from thinking that veganism is not healthy to realizing that it’s the opposite.”
We quickly found evidence of this realization through a taste of P.S. Kitchen’s menu. A vegan caesar salad was rich and flavorful, an avocado and potato soup was delightfully creamy, and a pea protein burger tasted so close to the real thing that we found ourselves dissecting it in disbelief.
Although Jeff's passion for veganism is clear, P.S, Kitchen’s aim goes beyond the impact of a plant-based lifestyle. Notably, a portion of the restaurant’s staff comes from backgrounds of adversity. “We work with a couple of different partner programs that are also the charities we donate to.” Jeff went on to explain that depending on the month, 10-20% of P.S. Kitchen’s staff is sourced through these organizations, which provide job training and placement to individuals who would otherwise encounter obstacles in the job search. “We have partnered with Defy - which works with previously incarcerated individuals [and] helps them with job placement - and, we work with Restore, which does something similar - they work with previous sex traffic individuals and victims of domestic violence.”
There is no doubt that PS Kitchen is having an impressive community impact, and, how fortunate that many theater goers are discovering them on a daily basis - they are located only a few steps from both the Walter Kerr and the Longacre Theatre.
