Black-Owned Vegan & Plant-Based Businesses in the Twin Cities (2026)

Black-Owned Plant-Based Businesses in the Twin Cities

Minneapolis has a well-documented plant-based dining scene — the Herbivorous Butcher, J. Selby's, Reverie, and a growing list of restaurants that have put the city on the map for vegan food nationally. What gets less attention is the subset of that scene that is Black-owned and community-rooted: the restaurants and businesses that are doing the work of making plant-based food accessible and culturally resonant in communities where vegan dining has historically been framed as a luxury or an outsider practice.

This guide is a spotlight on those businesses. Some are restaurants, some are catering operations, and one is a chef-driven catering and events company. All of them are doing work worth knowing about and supporting.

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Trio Plant-Based — Midtown Global Market

920 E Lake St, Minneapolis (Midtown Global Market) trioplant-based.com | $$

Trio Plant-Based is the first Black-owned, 100% plant-based restaurant in Minneapolis. That distinction matters: Louis Hunter built this restaurant at a time when the conversation about veganism in Black communities was still largely framed by outsiders, and he built it on West Lake Street — in a neighborhood, for a neighborhood.

After six years on West Lake, Trio relocated to Midtown Global Market in March 2026. The move put the restaurant inside one of the most vibrant and community-rooted food halls in the Twin Cities — a space that already houses vendors from Ethiopian, Somali, Mexican, Latin American, and Southeast Asian culinary traditions. Trio fits here.

What to Order

Cauliflower Wings — The top pick. Crispy breaded cauliflower tossed in sauce and served with vegan ranch. The texture is right: substantial, not mushy, with enough bite to make the "wing" framing feel earned rather than apologetic.

Cornbread — Dense, maple-flavored, thick-crumbed. Served with vegan butter. This is the kind of cornbread that does not need to announce that it is vegan — it just needs to be good cornbread. It is.

Collard Greens — Smoky and savory, built with a spiced flavor profile rather than a vinegar-forward one. These greens taste like they were made with care for how collard greens are supposed to taste.

Mac and Cheese — Plant-based macaroni and cheese that holds up to the soul food tradition. Creamy, not watery, properly seasoned.

Louis Hunter has been doing this for six years in Minneapolis. The food at Trio is confident because it comes from someone who has been refining these recipes in service of a real community for a long time.

Hours: Check directly with Trio at Midtown Global Market — food hall hours are generally 11 a.m.–8 p.m. but vendor hours vary.

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Lulu EthioVegan — Elliott Park

12 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis (Elliott Park) luluethiovegan.com | $$

Lulu EthioVegan is a 100% vegan Ethiopian restaurant in the Elliott Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, led by chef and owner Tigist. With a 4.9-star Google rating built from hundreds of reviews, it is consistently one of the highest-rated restaurants — not just vegan restaurants, but all restaurants — in the city.

Ethiopian food carries deep plant-based traditions. The Orthodox Christian fasting practice, which prohibits animal products on certain days of the week and during extended fasting periods, has built a culinary heritage of vegetable dishes, legume preparations, and grain-based stews that are some of the most sophisticated plant-based cooking in any food culture. Lulu EthioVegan builds on that heritage in a fully vegan format.

What the Menu Is Built Around

The menu follows Ethiopian communal dining tradition: a large piece of injera (the fermented teff flatbread that serves as both plate and utensil) laid flat, with several preparations served in portions across the injera's surface. You eat with your hands, tearing injera to scoop each preparation. This is not a format that needs to be adapted for veganism — it is already a format built for plant-based food.

Key preparations to expect:

• Misir (red lentils in berbere spice): The anchor dish at most Ethiopian restaurants. At Lulu, the berbere is house-made and the spice level is present but not punishing.
• Gomen (collard greens sautéed with garlic and ginger): Clean, simple, properly cooked. A good foil to the heavier legume dishes.
• Tikil Gomen (cabbage and carrots, turmeric-forward): Mild and bright. Good balance on a full injera spread.
• Shiro (chickpea powder stew): Thicker and earthier than the lentil preparations. Underrated in Ethiopian cooking and well-executed here.

The injera at Lulu is made from teff and fermented correctly — tangy and slightly spongy, the right texture to hold scoops of stew without tearing.

12 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis | Elliott Park neighborhood, one block from the corner of Franklin and Park.

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Lutunji's Palate — Plant-Based Catering & Events

lutunjispalate.com

Lutunji's Palate is a plant-based catering and private events operation serving the Twin Cities. While not a restaurant with a fixed dining room, Lutunji's represents an important part of the Black-owned plant-based business landscape: bringing high-quality vegan food into events, celebrations, and gatherings where plant-based catering options have historically been limited.

For Twin Cities vegans planning events — corporate catering, weddings, celebrations, private dinners — Lutunji's Palate is a confirmed option to consider. The Vegan Catering Minneapolis guide has more on plant-based catering options across the metro.

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Why This Matters

The narrative around veganism in America has often centered affluent, predominantly white communities. The reality of Black veganism in Minneapolis — and in the Twin Cities broadly — is more complex and more interesting.

Trio Plant-Based was not built to serve a niche. It was built to serve a neighborhood with food that the people in that neighborhood actually wanted to eat. Lulu EthioVegan is drawing from a food tradition that has been plant-based for centuries. Lutunji's Palate is making plant-based catering accessible for events that do not typically have those options.

Supporting these businesses is not a charity exercise. They are making genuinely excellent food that deserves to be known, visited, and recommended by anyone who eats plant-based in the Twin Cities.

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More Twin Cities Vegan Resources

For a broader view of the Minneapolis plant-based dining scene, the Best Vegan Restaurants Minneapolis 2026 guide covers 50+ listings with neighborhood context. For vegan catering specifically, the Vegan Catering Minneapolis guide includes Trio Plant-Based, Lulu EthioVegan, and Lutunji's Palate alongside the other top catering options in the metro.