Behind Vegan Chef Matthew Kenney’s Empire, an Ugly Actuality

Josie Duran overheard Matthew Kenney’s pitch many instances.

As a lead server at Plant Meals + Wine in Venice Seaside, Calif., Ms. Duran typically waited on Mr. Kenney, the restaurant’s chef and proprietor, as he entertained potential buyers on the restaurant’s fig-tree-shaded patio, persuading them to belief him with their cash for his formidable culinary tasks.

At a time when adopting a plant-based weight loss program has develop into an environmental and moral trigger all over the world, Mr. Kenney, 59, is among the many world’s most well-known vegan cooks. Plant Meals was the flagship restaurant of Matthew Kenney Delicacies, a sprawling, health-focused firm that till not too long ago operated, managed or invested in additional than 50 restaurants throughout the globe, from Los Angeles to São Paulo to Dubai.

However Ms. Duran grew to resent Mr. Kenney’s visits — partly, she stated, as a result of she believed she was serving to the chef domesticate a deceptive picture of success.

“I simply knew the buyers had been investing in a misplaced trigger, and I couldn’t say something,” stated Ms. Duran, who labored on the restaurant from 2021 till she stop early final 12 months. “I might have my examine bounced for the fifth pay interval in a row, and Matthew Kenney can be presenting to them how wonderful Plant Meals + Wine is doing.”

In actual fact, Plant Meals, which simply relocated to the 4 Seasons resort in July, closed in January, the most recent of not less than 17 eating places related to Mr. Kenney which have shuttered since late 2021.

Ms. Duran is certainly one of greater than 60 former workers, jilted buyers and pissed off enterprise associates who informed The New York Occasions of a 30-year sample of chaotic and reckless administration by Mr. Kenney, marked by companies that opened to optimistic press after which closed, typically shortly and amid a flurry of lawsuits, unpaid payments and bounced paychecks.

They stated Mr. Kenney has been in a position to persist, regardless of repeated failures to fulfill his monetary obligations, partly due to his outstanding position for the reason that mid-2000s in selling vegan cooking. Many buyers and workers stated they had been keen to miss monetary warning indicators and excuse his previous failures due to their devotion to animal rights and conscious vitamin.

In response to questions on his enterprise practices and private conduct, Mr. Kenney known as The Occasions’s reporting “despicable,” saying it lacked “a primary understanding of precise details” and was “not primarily based in actuality.”

Mr. Kenney’s enterprise woes had been no secret. The chef and his firms have been named in dozens of lawsuits in not less than 9 states, alleging quite a lot of misdeeds together with unlawful labor practices and stiffing collectors, landlords and workers. In response to public data, Mr. Kenney owes $1.2 million in again taxes in New York State alone.

But Mr. Kenney maintained what seemed to be a glamorous way of life — together with renting a $20,000-a-month home in West Los Angeles — paid for partly by his firms.

Different elements of Mr. Kenney’s conduct appeared to be at odds with the holistic, empathetic ethos his model espouses. He was sued for harassment and discrimination by a Black worker, as an example, and in graphic textual content messages with a co-worker, considered by The Occasions, he ceaselessly used racist and misogynistic language.

And though Mr. Kenney turned a outstanding determine in veganism, championing its virtues to each buyers and the general public, he conceded to The Occasions that he had eaten seafood a “few instances,” although he claimed to have performed so “brazenly” and to not have eaten “land-based flesh” in additional than 20 years.

As well as, workers felt strain to run interference for Mr. Kenney’s romantic relationships, together with two with younger girls who labored for him.

“We had been all particularly informed to not inform the ladies he introduced that he had a girlfriend,” Ms. Duran stated. “And we additionally knew when the girlfriend would come, to not point out the dates he would convey to the restaurant.”

Peter Cassell, a restaurant business veteran who was common supervisor at certainly one of Mr. Kenney’s New York Metropolis eating places within the early 2000s, was blunt in his estimation of Mr. Kenney. “Checks bounced on a regular basis,” he stated. “No one that I do know that has ever handled Matthew has ever gotten away clear.”

For the Trigger

Information articles about Mr. Kenney’s failure to pay payments (including to Donald J. Trump, his first restaurant’s landlord) have appeared for many years, beginning in New York, the place he started his profession within the Nineties, and following him as his companies expanded to Maine, Oklahoma, Florida and California.

Pure Meals + Wine, the uncooked vegan restaurant he opened with Sarma Melngailis, his ex-girlfriend and enterprise associate, was featured in “Bad Vegan,” the hit 2022 Netflix sequence. Mr. Kenney was pushed out of the restaurant by Jeffrey Chodorow, the restaurant’s monetary backer, who described Mr. Kenney within the sequence as “a really proficient chef who had a foul monetary historical past.”

In January, The Los Angeles Occasions published an investigation detailing the collapse of not less than 12 of Mr. Kenney’s companies, together with allegations that he owes tens of millions of {dollars} in hire and $1 million to a former investor.

However by means of all of it, Mr. Kenney has continued to win over new buyers.

Cindy Landon, an actress, producer and widow of the Hollywood star Michael Landon, stated she determined to develop into an investor in Plant Meals + Wine when it opened in 2015 regardless of being warned by her enterprise supervisor and others that Mr. Kenney shouldn’t be trusted, due to his earlier failed enterprise ventures.

“He’s charming, he’s brilliant, he’s passionate,” Ms. Landon stated. “I believed, You already know what? I’m going to maneuver ahead on this.”

Ms. Landon is amongst seven individuals who informed The Occasions that they had invested in Mr. Kenney’s companies in recent times and felt he took benefit of their dedication to veganism. They stated Mr. Kenney offered unreliable monetary knowledge about their investments, if any in any respect, and that they now assume their cash is gone.

“On this planet of veganism and animal rights, there are plenty of extraordinarily rich folks,” stated Richard Weintraub, a outstanding Los Angeles-based actual property developer and an investor in Plant Meals. “We actually need to belief, and we actually need to consider that these folks have the identical pursuits at coronary heart.”

Mr. Kenney painted a rosy financial image of his companies in a March 2022 electronic mail to an investor that was considered by The Occasions. “We hope to be producing greater than 100M system huge this 12 months and 250 subsequent 12 months,” he wrote, including that his firm was valued between $50 and $100 million.

Six months later, New York State auctioned off the contents of his Manhattan restaurant Sestina for unpaid taxes.

Even some enterprise associates who stated they really feel wronged by Mr. Kenney categorical admiration for his skills as a chef. Kyle Saliba stated he has opened 5 companies with Mr. Kenney prior to now 25 years, together with a Double Zero pizzeria in New York. He known as Mr. Kenney a “visionary” and a “genius.”

However he additionally stated the chef had “no entrepreneurial expertise,” and he’s suing Mr. Kenney and two of his companies, alleging fraud and looking for damages of greater than $25 million.

Shifting Cash

Chaotic monetary operations had been attribute of Matthew Kenney Delicacies, in keeping with greater than 30 former workers.

In the summertime of 2022, Rebecca Rubel was put answerable for human assets for Matthew Kenney Delicacies, which then operated about 12 eating places in the US. She stated she routinely responded to workers complaining that their paychecks had bounced.

Ms. Rubel recalled conversations she had with Matt Bronfeld, the director of hospitality for Matthew Kenney Delicacies. “It was all the time the identical factor: ‘We’re simply ready for some cash from an investor after which it must be wonderful,’ ” she stated. “It by no means actually ended up being wonderful.”

Mr. Bronfeld’s job gave him operational oversight of Mr. Kenney’s eating places in the US from 2018 to 2023. Mr. Bronfeld had an uncommon background for such a job, having been convicted in 2015 of grand larceny and sentenced to 5 years’ probation for embezzling greater than $400,000 from former enterprise associates.

He stated Mr. Kenney knew of the conviction when Mr. Bronfeld was promoted to the director position after only a 12 months with the corporate.

Mr. Bronfeld turned the principle company contact for managers of the person Kenney Delicacies eating places in recent times. A number of workers stated he was amiable and responsive beneath tough circumstances, and essential to addressing the numerous monetary issues that arose on the eating places.

Mr. Bronfeld stated he would generally reply to the inadequate funds at one restaurant by transferring cash from one other of Mr. Kenney’s enterprise entities, an assertion corroborated by dozens of emails and textual content messages amongst workers and administration that had been considered by The Occasions.

“Matt Bronfeld would say, ‘We’ve got to rob Peter to pay Paul,’ ” Ms. Rubel stated in regards to the transferring of funds between enterprise entities.

“That’s the way it all the time labored,” Mr. Bronfeld stated, including that managers who had been within the job earlier than him had performed the identical factor. “There may be nothing new that occurred after I labored there.”

He added, “Matthew was apprised of every part occurring within the firm.”

In written feedback, Mr. Kenny sought to position the blame on others, claiming that he was the sufferer of embezzlement by unnamed executives inside his firm and that he had reported the matter to the F.B.I. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles workplace stated, “We can’t affirm or deny an investigation.”

In a lawsuit filed in March 2021 towards Mr. Kenney, his firms and Mr. Saliba, a former government for Mr. Kenney’s firms stated he had made formal complaints about “unethical and unlawful monetary practices,” together with Kenney’s “receiving investor money and utilizing it for private functions.”

Different former workers who helped Mr. Kenney together with his monetary transactions described comparable monetary exercise — together with paying for Mr. Kenney’s hire, pool cleansing, housekeeping and tens of hundreds of {dollars}’ price of dental work — and their accounts had been backed up by textual content messages from Mr. Kenney considered by The Occasions.

“The cash was taken out of the working cash for eating places,” stated a former accountant for Matthew Kenney Delicacies, who was allowed to talk anonymously as a result of they feared their title can be related to Mr. Kenney’s. “Due to this fact distributors weren’t getting paid and workers weren’t getting paid.”

“There didn’t appear to be any sense of this isn’t the way in which to do issues.”

‘A Harassing Work Surroundings’

In the identical lawsuit, the previous government, who’s Black, additionally claimed that he was the goal of harassment and discrimination due to a speech obstacle and his race, together with “being subjected to using the ‘N-Phrase,’” whereas employed at Mr. Kenney’s firm, the place “a harassing work surroundings permeated with racist phrases for Asian enterprise companions, and Jewish workers.”

Finally, the case was settled, and the previous government was awarded $80,000 and greater than $20,000 in legal professionals’ charges.

In dozens of textual content messages with Mr. Bronfeld considered by The Occasions, Mr. Kenney commonly referred to workers and enterprise associates in racist, misogynistic and profane phrases. In a single change from 2020, Mr. Kenney requested in regards to the lawyer representing his personal aspect of the harassment case, “Is she black?,” including, “If she is I’ll kill you.” He went on to recommend that the lawyer was performing intercourse acts on the plaintiff, whereas mocking the plaintiff’s stutter.

In a 2022 textual content, he wrote, “All Latin males are crybabies,” including, “Hate to be racist nevertheless it’s my expertise.” In a 2018 change, he described South Asian enterprise house owners as “grocery retailer Indians.” In one other, from 2021, he requested in regards to the intercourse lifetime of a feminine worker of shade and criticized the private hygiene of earlier sexual companions in graphic phrases. He added that one other girl was engaging “till she turned 21.”

Mr. Kenney informed The Occasions, “These phrases don’t even sound as if they’re written or spoken by me.”

Plenty of workers at Plant Meals + Wine additionally stated they had been uncomfortable that Mr. Kenney, then in his mid-50s, had a short sexual relationship with a 19-year-old hostess on the restaurant. (The hostess declined to be interviewed.)

It wasn’t the primary time that Mr. Kenney had been concerned with a youthful subordinate. Within the mid-2000s he dated a private assistant in her early 20s. And there was the connection with Charlotte MacKinnon, Mr. Kenney’s former girlfriend, whom he met when she was a pupil on the College of Miami in 2016. Ms. McKinnon finally moved in with Mr. Kenney in Los Angeles and have become artistic director of Matthew Kenney Delicacies.

4 former Plant Meals workers stated that when Mr. Kenney introduced different girls to the restaurant, managers instructed workers to misinform Ms. McKinnon, a process made extra uncomfortable by the truth that Ms. McKinnon was a colleague. (Ms. McKinnon declined to reply on the document to written questions from The Occasions.)“Individuals had been caught in center of bizarre stuff like that,” stated Yvette De Vito, a former Plant Meals server, who additionally knew of Mr. Kenney’s relationship with the hostess. “I acquired the impression that this individual had no ethical code or compass and solely cares about himself.”

Covid Increase and Bust

Because the pandemic introduced mass closings and chaos to the restaurant business, Mr. Kenney’s firm continued to broaden. “It was actually, actually aggressive development, with no plan in place,” Mr. Bronfeld stated.

Throughout that interval, 22 entities related to Mr. Kenney acquired $3.5 million in Paycheck Safety Program funds, of which not less than $2.7 million was finally forgiven.

In late 2020 and into 2021, Matthew Kenney Delicacies opened plant-based eating places in Culver Metropolis and San Francisco, and partnered in vegan drive-through eating places in California and Rhode Island.

Liora, which opened in Baltimore in the summertime of 2021, was a part of this growth. Workers noticed a singular alternative within the upscale vegan restaurant.

“Many people had been coming from different eating places the place we had been feeling exploited and had been feeling burned-out due to Covid,” stated Karishma Avari, a sous-chef. “Liora felt like one thing we may make our personal,” she added, “to alter the issues that we noticed within the business that we didn’t like.”

They succeeded, in some methods. Liora made Baltimore Magazine’s listing of town’s high eating places two years in a row. The staffs at Liora and Double Zero, the vegan pizzeria that operated in the identical area, had been predominantly girls and other people of shade.

“We actually made a distinction within the vegan group,” stated Natalie Carter, the top chef at each eating places. “We drew energy from one another.”

However checks started bouncing shortly after Liora opened. Kari Naked, its supervisor, stated that if the payroll was $10,000 for a given pay interval, Matthew Kenney Delicacies would put $2,000 into the account. This occurred sufficient instances that many native banks began refusing to money checks from Mr. Kenney’s firms, in keeping with a number of Liora workers. Ms. Naked stated staff “would all combat to go to the financial institution to see who would receives a commission first. It was simply actually unhappy.”

On the identical day she found {that a} Liora server was subsisting on canned beans due to unpaid wage and suggestions, Ms. Naked stated she noticed on Instagram that Mr. Kenney and Ms. MacKinnon had been in Dubai, attending the opening get together for a luxurious resort the place Beyoncé performed a non-public live performance.

After discovering that the eating places’ liquor license couldn’t be renewed due to unpaid taxes, Ms. Naked requested the corporate’s lawyer to assist. In response to Ms. Naked and one other supervisor, the lawyer declined to assist, saying she was additionally owed $7,000 by Matthew Kenney Delicacies.

Ms. Naked, who estimated that Liora and Double Zero took in $1 million to $1.5 million in 2022, recalled a FaceTime name she demanded with Mr. Kenney shortly earlier than the restaurant closed in April 2023 to debate the numerous unpaid payments.

“He stored saying that he’s not likely fearful about being profitable. He’s fearful in regards to the greater image and bringing plant-based meals to the world,” Ms. Naked stated. “I informed him, nobody will work without cost.”

Touchdown in Court docket

In response to a class-action lawsuit filed in December 2021 in U.S. District Court docket in New York, pay practices at Mr. Kenney’s New York Metropolis eating places violated federal and state labor legal guidelines. The swimsuit, filed by former workers towards Mr. Kenney and greater than a dozen of his companies and companions, alleges partly that Mr. Kenney, his companions and firms unlawfully stored staff’ suggestions. The defendants have denied the claims, and the case remains to be pending.

The kitchen staffs at two Kenney eating places walked off the job as a result of they weren’t getting paid, in keeping with former workers — in 2022 at Sestina in New York, and final 12 months on the Double Zero in Venice, Calif.

“I had a dishwasher name and threaten to kill me as soon as,” stated Kara Knowles, the previous common supervisor at Althea, in a Saks Fifth Avenue retailer in Chicago. “That’s how excessive tensions had been.”

Earlier than that restaurant closed in October 2022, Ms. Knowles stated the shop’s managers grew so distrustful of the accounting at Matthew Kenney Delicacies that they put in their very own money registers within the restaurant, “so they might simply get the cash straight.”

Mr. Kenney described Althea’s employees as “lazy” in profanity-laced textual content messages to Mr. Bronfeld in 2022. Mr. Kenney was upset that the restaurant’s 11 workers, three of whom had autoimmune-related well being points, refused to work till they had been all examined for Covid, in keeping with the texts. “So sickening,” Mr. Kenney wrote.

On the Double Zero in Boston, sheriff’s deputies arrived throughout a meal to shut the restaurant due to unpaid hire quickly after Anthony Williams turned common supervisor in November 2022. In lower than two years, the vegan pizzeria had greater than $1.3 million in debt, together with unpaid hire and taxes, in keeping with chapter filings.

As bounced paychecks triggered Mr. Williams to fall behind on his hire and automotive funds, Mr. Kenney’s different Boston restaurant, Plant Pub Fenway, racked up accolades — The Boston Globe named it the top restaurant opening of 2022 — and unpaid payments.

Pat McAuley was a neighborhood associate in Plant Pub Fenway, however he stated Mr. Kenney’s firm owned the enterprise and managed its funds. The restaurant was evicted by its landlord, who claimed about $230,000 in unpaid hire, in keeping with an eviction discover filed in October of 2022, three months after it opened. Mr. McAuley stated he has been left answerable for about $46,000 in unpaid wage claims.

Mr. McAuley stated that within the 12 weeks it was open, the restaurant made a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} in income. “We don’t know what occurred to it,” he added. “They didn’t pay distributors aside from the very naked minimal.”

“You could have all of those folks, from weak communities, not getting paid in the midst of a world pandemic, and Matthew Kenney resides a really glamorous life,” stated Greta Herrin, a sous-chef at Sestina in New York, which closed in 2022 after the state seized the property for nonpayment of taxes. “It was insane.”

Mr. Kenney’s struggles haven’t stored him from beginning new ventures. He nonetheless holds an curiosity in a Double Zero location that opened in Occasions Sq. final month. In February, a Canadian firm announced a partnership with Mr. Kenney to assist develop recipes for its plant-based seafood.

For Cindy Landon, who stood by Mr. Kenney for years, the choice to talk out got here solely after listening to from so many buyers and workers who had, like her, been burned by him.

“All of them inform me these tales,” she stated, “they usually inform me this man must be stopped.”

Susan Beachy contributed analysis.