This Boise restaurant closes Saturday, leaving only one like it in — wait, all of Idaho?

Last year, a vegan restaurant mini-boom seemed to be brewing in Boise.

But after this weekend, only one will remain.

Ending a run that lasted just shy of two years at Chow Public Market and Eatery at the Boise Spectrum, 7709 W. Overland Road, Vegan Soul will shutter after a final “grand closing” brunch Saturday.

Offering Southern-style dishes, Vegan Soul has been a familiar brand in the Boise area for a few years. In 2020, it was highlighted in a PETA list of best vegan soul food restaurants.

Vegan Soul’s exit from Chow leaves High Note Cafe, 225 N. 5th St., as the only exclusively vegan restaurant in Boise. Not counting juice bars, acai bowl spots and the like, High Note appears to be the lone plant-based restaurant in the state of Idaho. (It’s always dangerous to deal in absolutes; I’ll update this article if that assumption turns out to be mistaken.)

Vegan Soul owner Mae Gaines wrote on social media that it was time “to embark on a new journey, focusing on building something even more impactful and profitable for our community and my brand.”

In other words, Vegan Soul isn’t just being tossed onto the compost pile. “In the next chapter.” she wrote, “I will focus on product placement in stores locally, creating late-night pop-ups downtown and building more relationships through catering events and traveling to other states to grow my brand. So understand that this is not the end … it’s a new beginning!”

Still, customers will miss the familiar Chow eatery tenant. Yelp reviewers give Vegan Soul 4.4 out of 5.0 stars, while Google awards it 4.7 out of 5.0.

Responses online to the closure news ranged from “Nooooo!” to “Oh Mae, I am so sad, I love your food!”

As for High Note Cafe, which went meatless in 2019? It has shown brick-and-mortar staying power in a market that otherwise hasn’t sustained similar concepts for long.

Two vegan restaurants opened downtown last year before quickly folding. Alchemist Plant Pub lasted less than five months. (It reopened as a similarly short-lived Alchemist Coffee cafe.) And Frondescence, which offered late-night vegan food, didn’t last much longer several blocks away. It’s now Don & Charly’s sandwich shop.