South Phoenix comfort-food restaurant closes after 4 years. Here's what's next

Early Bird Vegan’s South Phoenix location closed in April after four years in business. The all-vegan restaurant at Broadway Road and 16th Street served sandwiches and comfort food like ribs and mac and cheese.

Owner and chef Krystal Mack opened the restaurant in 2020 because she wanted to bring affordable, healthy vegan options to South Phoenix, where she lives. It was her first brick-and-mortar restaurant after starting a vegan food truck in 2019.

Launching a restaurant right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit was incredibly difficult for Mack. But the restaurant was doing well until last year, when business started to suffer.

“There was just a steady decline where it wasn’t the same,” Mack said.

What's next for Early Bird Vegan?

Fans of Mack’s luxurious plant-based cuisine can still find it at Early Bird’s Tempe location , which opened in 2022. It recently landed on Ebony Magazine's list of their 45 favorite Black-owned restaurants in the United States.

Despite the success of the Tempe branch, which Mack said is larger and gives her room to grow, the original South Phoenix location holds a special place in her heart because of how the community rallied around her when she was sick for a long time with COVID-19 in 2021.

“We had multiple people baking for us because I couldn’t bake,” Mack said. “When I think of (the location in) Phoenix, I think of that part. We were able to get through some of the hardest times in our lives.”

What’s next for the former Early Bird Vegan space?

In a fortunate coincidence, Mack knows the chef behind the new restaurant that will occupy the space where Early Bird used to be.

“We ran in the same entrepreneurial circles, and she even guest-chef’d for me years ago,” Mack said.

The new restaurant is called Akwaaba Agyaade, and it will serve West African cuisine with — Mack made sure — vegan options. She’s excited there will be another female-owned business in the location that means so much to her.

“I always knew that it was so much more than food. It’s about community and relationships. And here's this relationship that I have from over seven years ago that came full circle. To have this person come into the space — it just really touches my heart,” Mack said.

Reach the reporter at reia.li@gannett.com . Follow @Reialirui on X, formerly Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: South Phoenix comfort-food restaurant closes after 4 years. Here's what's next