New Vegan Eatery Shares Profits with Employees

New vegan eatery Red Lunchbox opened this week in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Resident Michael Grove founded the restaurant with a vision to treat his employees well. “I’ve had plans, not even of having a restaurant but having an egalitarian business model,” Grove told media outlet The Coast. “That is my passion that I’ve been trying to get out of the bowels of my mind for a really long time. I studied philosophy in school, and I was always interested in capitalism and why there’s such a huge gap between the haves and have-nots.” Red Lunchbox gives employees 30 percent of the company’s profits in bonuses and dedicates 15 percent of its profits to provide employee benefits such as travel allowances, yoga or gym memberships, and child-care assistance. The eatery serves a whole-food, plant-based menu that does not contain meat substitutes and instead focuses on vegetables and grains in dishes such as gnocchi served with kombucha chimichurri, bánh mì sandwiches, and smoked cashew cheese-based cheesecake. “The idea is to show that vegetables can be comforting and warm and filling,” Grove said, “and you could have every meal and really never think about the meat or animal component.”