Vegan Grocery Store Opens Inside Ohio Cake Shop

All-vegan Cleveland, OH grocery story AVE MKT recently opened inside of The Cute Little Cake Shop. The bake shop—which offered limited vegan cupcakes and pastries—was founded in 2011 by mother-and-daughter duo Marcia Rehak and Janet Yurcik. For the previous six months, the duo has been building the inventory of the AVE MKT and recently began to stock the grocery store more aggressively due to surprising customer demand. “It was a risk doing this back in May,” Yurcik told local media outlet Cleveland.com, “but we just keep adding more and more and more. When we first started carrying their [doughnuts], we realized they were bringing in a lot of different people because they were following them. That made us see there was a market for unique vegan products and how excited people got.” AVE MKT is filled with vegan cookies, marshmallows, and caramel popcorn, and features refrigerators stocked with vegan cheeses, meats, and more. The pair supports the growing vegan community in the Midwest by stocking vegan products from a number of companies, including plant-based pierogies by Pierogies of Cleveland, lunch options (such as chickpea wraps, seitan burritos, and peanut butter cookies) by restaurant Cleveland Vegan, catering service Metro Croissants, and vegan meats and cheeses from Minneapolis-based vegan shop The Herbivorous Butcher. Several all-vegan markets opened this year, including Orchard Grocer in New York City, three vegan shops called Naturalia in Paris, and Vegan Aisle—the first vegan grocery store in Melbourne, Australia.