The Entirely Plant-Based Food Hall and Marketplace is Launched by Chef, Author and Wellness Entrepreneur Matthew Kenney
The raw vegetarian lasagna at Plant City’s Double Zero restaurant is made with heirloom tomatoes, zucchini noodles, macadamia ricotta and pistachio pesto.
Republished from Rhode Island Monthly.
By Jamie Coelho
Plant City Opens Today with Four Vegan Dining Concepts Under One Roof.
Today is the day that four concepts open under one roof at Plant City, Providence’s new vegan food hall. The two-story, 10,000-square-foot building at 334 South Water St., formerly known as Barnsider’s Mile and A Quarter Restaurant,? is the latest project by Matthew Kenney Cuisine, led by chef, author and wellness entrepreneur Matthew Kenney. The entirely plant-based food hall has four restaurants with a total of 225 seats and an outdoor patio, and it’s located right across from the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge, which should open this spring, making the East Side more accessible by foot and bicycle from the city’s bustling Jewelry District.
The food hall is home to Double Zero pizzeria, Latin cuisine-based Bar Verde, casual American fare at New Burger and the fast casual Make Out takeout counter. It also boasts a retail marketplace including fermented nut cheeses, plant-based desserts, boutique packaged goods, cookbooks and to-go foods and juices.
Last night, we got a sneak peek and tasting at Double Zero, the food hall’s Michelin-rated pizzeria that is an extension of the New York City flagship location. In fact, it was Kenney’s New York City-based East Village restaurant, Double Zero, that inspired bringing this project to Providence. Plant City’s Rhode Island-based investors, the all-vegan Anderson family, would run to New York City to dine at Kenney’s restaurants, but longed for that type of cuisine in Rhode Island. So they approached Kenney to bring this cuisine to their home state.
“We would go to New York on business, and we would run to Matthew’s restaurants in New York and order the lasagna at Double Zero, and we kept coming home and saying, we miss that food. We reached out to Matthew and said we want to take all of your favorite concepts of ours and put them all under one roof,” says Kim Anderson at last night’s sneak peek opening. “And he said, I’m in.”
Plant City i?s just one of many Matthew Kenney Cuisine restaurants arriving to new cities this spring. “This is the first project we’ve done on time in over two years,” says Kenney with a laugh at last night’s opening. “Over the years, we fought and stayed alive for many years so we could be here today. After a lot of years of challenges and setbacks and all sorts of fun, we now have restaurants on five continents and we will have forty-five or fifty restaurants next year.”
Some of the more recent openings include Plantmade, an all-day restaurant in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Make Out, Kenney’s Los Angeles-based juice bar and all-day cafe in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica, and two locations of Humbl, a ?chef-driven fast-casual concept coming to the Orlando area.
