Columbus group tries to build community around vegan fare

Cam Williams is a hugger.

Tall, thin and lightly bearded, he welcomed people to his just-launched communal eating event Thursday by grabbing them and pulling them to his chest. He warned stragglers like me that the food was getting cold — but was still good and plentiful.

Stainless steel bowls laid out on a storage-room table held roasted pumpkin, quinoa and arugula, shredded beats, braised kale and lentils. The meal was vegan, which sort of set the tone for the evening — or at least the expectation that the crowd was one with a similar way of thinking. 

Cam was nothing but attentive and eager to bring people together, and the best way he knows how to do that is through food.

“I want people to eat like I eat,” he said, referring to the many years when he would eat out at bars so he could make friends and socialize.

Creating a community is the idea behind Pink Flamingo, a membership-based restaurant where people can go and know that they’re bound to see a familiar face. It’s like a Cheers based around food rather than alcohol (though at the launch even there was that too).

Cam realizes that creating such a space has its challenges. The first pop-up was packed but most attendees fit the same demographic: white, young, middle class. He would like the initiative to be more diverse and inclusive but admits the plant-based focus draws a certain clientele. And getting people of different socioeconomic statuses together can be challenging in a city where dividing lines are well defined. Cam says he’s hoping to work with addiction recovery services to provide meals for those in treatment. But then hosting it at a brewery, as he did on Thursday, would be off limits.

Cam is one of 18 people behind Pink Flamingo. They source their vegetables from a community-supported agriculture organization (basically farm-grown food for delivery) and cook it together. Despite the crowd at their first event (about 80 people attended) leftovers were abundant, a sign of how driven they are to draw a following.

Over the next few months the group with hold eight pop-up dinners to see if the community dining concept works here. The next dinner is already in the planning stages, Cam said.

If it does take off, it would be another initiative in Columbus drawing on similar innovations launched elsewhere. Businessman Paul Sipil founded a farm-to-table community dining and wellness group in Chicago in 2015 that pivoted to smaller, more affordable events at member’s homes after the price of attendance drew controversy. 

Pink Flamingo’s plan is to offer $60 memberships, some of which it hopes to have subsidized so people of all incomes brackets can attend. It’s message — “FUN in the world of seriousness, COMMUNAL in the world of capitalism, PLANTY in the world of meat” — is still unlikely to appeal to a wide demographic. But there may be just enough people in search of farm-fresh gatherings to keep Cam doling out hugs in the year ahead.