After serving the community for the last ten years, Strong Hearts will be moving to a new location. The local all vegan street has grown out of its location on East Genesee Street in Syracuse.
Strong Hearts came to be after the two owners, Joel Capolongo and Nick Ryan, thought of the idea on the way home from a concert in New York City. Since the two have been vegans for the majority of their lives, they have found it difficult, along with other vegans in Syracuse, to find vegan food.
Now that Strong Hearts has been open for 10 years, vegans across Central New York know that they have a reliable restaurant that welcomes them. Syracuse students, like sophomore Cailey French, can visit Strong Hearts’ other location on University Hill.
Even though the restaurant makes all vegan food, the majority of customers aren’t vegan. That is one of the reasons why Strong Hearts’ menu isn’t made of your typical vegan food.
Strong Hearts will be moving to East Fayette street next year. The new building will be four times the size of the current café. Capolongo hopes that the bigger area will lead to less wait time for customers. In the past, it has taken up to thirty minutes for a sandwich to cook.
The two owners were able to learn from their predecessors. Prior to Strong Hearts, there have been all-vegan restaurants, but they did not last for long. They usually failed due to a poor location or too limited of a menu.
When the store first opened, Nick and Joel were barely able to look ahead to the next ten days. However, the café is celebrating its tenth year and it has never been better. The fact that the café has to expand is nothing but good news. In fact, people from different states have even heard of Strong Hearts and often stop by on road trips to Niagara Falls.
As vegan diets continue to spread across Central New York, Strong Hearts has left its mark on the community. Syracuse University has even been considered one of the best schools for their wide variety of vegan food.
