Ami Beach and Mark Shadle, who opened the upscale East Main Street eatery 11 years ago, said Monday that G-Zen will close its doors April 30. They’re evolving the brand, and will focus on a new fast-casual vegan concept in West Hartford, incorporating elements from both the restaurant and G-Monkey Mobile, the couple’s popular vegan food truck.
G-Monkey Plant-Fueled Fast Food will open later this year at 625 New Park Avenue, in the space most recently occupied by Citizen Chicken & Donuts and before that, Hartford Baking Company. Beach said Monday they’re aiming for a potential June 1 debut.
The G-Monkey brick-and-mortar concept will begin in West Hartford, but the intention is to open more locations, they said, including on the shoreline.
“We are aiming to do this in a scalable way, which we could have never attained with G-Zen,” Beach said. “We see it being something we can replicate, and we do want to come back to the shoreline [with this concept.] We’ve never had a concept that we could really run with, and I feel like this is why we’re doing this, to make it more accessible and just normalizing vegan [food.]”
The new restaurant will offer many of the more casual items from the truck menu, which were also featured at G-Zen. G-Monkey will serve housemade plant-based dishes like soups, veggie burgers and bowls, chili fries, “raw” tacos, vegan versions of grilled cheese and Reuben sandwiches, burritos and raw desserts.
Beach said the West Hartford menu would feature several varieties of housemade vegan burgers, including one with grilled pineapple, sriracha and coconut bacon, inspired by the couple’s second home in Culebra, Puerto Rico. She also envisions “disco fries” with mushroom gravy and vegan cheese, and plant-based milkshakes made with oat milk.
Chili cheese fries from GMonkey, which will open a brick-and-mortar vegan restaurant in West Hartford this summer.
Courtesy of GMonkeyShadle, who for years was the executive chef and co-owner of It’s Only Natural in Middletown, said G-Monkey truck customers have been asking them to bring the concept to greater Hartford for years. They have a fan base in the region thanks to frequent stops at the Billings Forge and Coventry Farmers Markets, and they have established a presence at GastroPark, the West Hartford food truck park just down the street from their new brick-and-mortar.
In the statement on G-Zen’s website, Beach and Shadle acknowledged they’d faced operational difficulties over the past two years, like most restaurateurs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and felt the fast-casual route would be a better business model for the future.
“We realized that it was a sign to make things more simple, streamlined and more approachable to bring our vision to the next level and thrive, not just survive,” they wrote. “We have always been about SUSTAINABILITY on every level. The size and diversity of our G-Zen menu, complexity of execution and the intense labor involved did not seem sustainable moving forward, especially with sourcing ingredients, supply chain issues, and rising food and labor costs.”
The Zen burger from GMonkey, which will open a brick-and-mortar vegan restaurant in West Hartford this summer.
Courtesy of GMonkey“[G-Zen] is still so well-loved,” Beach said. “But knowing that we need to [let go] of that so we can manifest what we want, which is an easier concept to run…more attainable and more approachable to run for us as business owners.”
The Branford restaurant will remain open with normal hours until April 30, and will be BYOB with no corkage fees, the couple said.
All existing gift cards that have not been redeemed by that date will be honored in West Hartford, as will all Toast G-Zen Rewards points.
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