What’s Going On With Vegan Nom and Barrett’s Coffee’s North Loop Restaurant Split

North Loop vegan restaurant, bar, and coffee shop Double Trouble’s partners, Vegan Nom’s Chris Rios and Barrett’s Coffee’s Travis Kizer, have split. As of late September, the restaurant is now under the helm of Barrett’s Coffee, and Vegan Nom has left the business.

The partners opened Double Trouble in June, serving Vegan Nom’s vegan tacos alongside Barrett’s coffees, with cocktails. Signs that the partnership was on the outs began in September when a Double Trouble Instagram story revealed that the once only-vegan restaurant was now serving non-vegan tacos. In response, on Monday, September 25, Vegan Nom shared with followers in a post on its Instagram account that it was “no longer affiliated” with Double Trouble. Vegan Nom owner Chris Rios added in the same post that he was “ousted by our Double Trouble business partners and [was] no longer working with this group. We’re working out the details for a full buyout.”

In an email to Eater, Barrett’s owner Travis Kizer wrote, “We have decided to part ways with Chris, but the concept is moving forward and growing.” He and the team decided to add non-vegan dishes as a way of expanding the restaurant’s customer base, as well as to give chef Octavio Granados the space to play around with more types of dishes. The vegan portions of the menu is still important, Kizer added, noting that Double Trouble is “staying serious in our commitment to making delicious vegan food,” and confirmed that there is no cross-contamination in the kitchen between vegan and not-vegan items.

Kizer posted something similar on Double Trouble’s Instagram two days later on September 28. There he noted that, “yes, we have decided to split from our partnership with the owner of Vegan Nom” and that “in respect to the Vegan Nom, we are leaving it at that.” He also wrote that “part of moving forward is to ensure that we can continue a healthy, sustainable work environment that provides a livable income.”

Double Trouble is now serving non-vegan breakfast tacos and foods alongside vegan breakfast tacos and other dishes. While the current team is aware that this menu shift isn’t what vegan seekers might be looking for, “we assure you that we are still committed to offering bomb ass vegan food as well,” the operators wrote in a post to Instagram last week. “We 100 percent value transparency and would like to apologize if there was any confusion or potential misleadings during this transition.”

Rios started Vegan Nom as a food truck in the North Loop neighborhood in 2012, and moved it to East Cesar Chavez to open a vegan food truck court with his other vegan truck Nom Burgers in 2020.

Barrett’s began as a coffee roasting company in the 2010s, and opened the physical cafe in 2017.