When they wound up as roommates in Edmonton during university, Megan Pope and Ali Magee never would have thought they’d end up opening their own vegan restaurant. But after an unexpected turn of events, the pair wound up in Calgary opening Raw Eatery & Market.
When they first met, Ali was studying broadcasting at NAIT while Megan was taking nutrition at the University of Alberta. They both had a passion for plant-based eating and often found themselves developing recipes in their kitchen. “Megan was creating really healthy, cool recipes from what she was learning in school and they were all plant-based,” Ali says. The girls undertook a vegan lifestyle at home but found themselves struggling to find options to eat when they went out. “We always felt ripped off eating out vegan with our friends. They’d get a huge meal and we’d get some veggies or a dinky dull salad. That’s not fair," Ali says.
After university, Ali moved to Toronto and started to explore the city’s growing raw and vegan scene. And as much as she loved the variety of options in Toronto, she liked Megan’s creations better. That’s when she had the idea to go into business. “As I was eating things I thought, ‘That tastes like what Megan makes – but hers is better, so she should do it!'" Ali says.
Megan soon moved out to join Ali in Toronto and the pair started developing more recipes. After travelling abroad in Europe to work at an eco-lodge and a vegan food truck, the girls returned to Canada and opened Raw Eatery & Market on July 9, 2016. “We chose Calgary because we thought the market is a lot less saturated here,” Ali says. “We thought we could impact change on a pretty large scale because there wasn’t much going on in terms of the vegan scene,” Megan adds.
