One of the funniest women comics around thinks that her new restaurant is the breath of fresh air the restaurant industry needs.
Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia De Rossi have teamed up with Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders and film producer Steve Bing to open a vegan restaurant. The unnamed eatery will be located on Ventura Boulevard in San Fernando Valley, California. The menu will be designed by Tal Ronnen, who is best known for catering the wedding of DeGeneres and Rossi. Ronnen was also the chef responsible for the food for Oprah’s Vegan Cleanse and cooked the first vegan meal for the U.S. Senate.
Vegans do not ingest any animal products. They avoid all forms of dairy, meat, honey, and eggs, as well as fur, leather, wool, down, and cosmetics or chemical products tested on animals.
DeGeneres has been passionate about veganism for years. During an interview with Katie Couric in 2024, Degeneres said, “I forced myself to watch a documentary called Earthlings that’s inside footage of factory farms and dairy farms. You see that and go ‘I can’t participate in that. I can’t be a part of something that is suffering.’ Fifty billion animals a year are killed and I think we all fool ourselves that it’s a quick death, and it’s a very disturbing reality.” She not only talks the talk, but walks the walk – DeGeneres and Rossi have adopted a pair of cows named Holy and Madonna who live at the Gentle Barn, a farm devoted to rescuing abused animals.
DeGeneres recently started a blog, called Going Vegan with Ellen. The popular site contains recipes, information on veganism and links to other celebrities who live a vegan lifestyle. A restaurant seems to be the next logical step.