The owner of the “Slutty Vegan” plant-based fast food chain is accused of failing to pay rent for two properties on Edgewood Avenue. Aisha “Pinky” Cole made headlines after launching Slutty Vegan as a food truck in 2019, but financial problems caused her to sell her business in February this year.
Even though she was able to buy Slutty Vegan back a month later, the business that once ran 14 locations across four states now only operates five, according to its website. Plans to open a Slutty Vegan location at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in June were also scrapped.
In a new lawsuit filed in Georgia last week, Cole and her company are being accused of owing more than $87,000 in rent, late fees and interest on two of her Atlanta locations. Cole’s landlord, Asana Partners LCC, claims that it has not received rent payments for her restaurant sites Slutty Vegan and The Morning After on Edgewood Avenue.
RELATED STORIES
According to the lawsuit, Cole is behind $40,000 in rent in both properties, which is compounded by a five percent late fee and an interest rate on past due amounts of seven percent, Fox 5 reported.
“As a result of Tenant’s breach of the Leases for failure to pay rent and other monetary charges due, Landlord has suffered damages in an amount to be proven at trial, but in no event less than the total sum $87,312.65, exclusive of late fees and interest, plus additional rent and other charges that accrue under the Leases at the rate of $13,665.34 per month, subject to regularly scheduled adjustments reflected in the Leases,” the lawsuit states.
Cole reclaimed ownership of her company in March following a challenging period in 2024. The entrepreneur, who previously saw her business valued at nearly $100 million, faced significant financial and operational hurdles that temporarily led to her losing control of the brand.
In an interview with People this year, Hayes described the past year as one of the toughest in her career, citing a $10 million corporate overhead and struggles with operational management. “I was chasing something that I couldn’t catch for so many reasons,” she admitted.
On February 13, 2025, Slutty Vegan underwent a global restructuring that removed Hayes from ownership. She shared her emotional journey in an Instagram video, saying she experienced grief, sadness, and uncertainty but maintained faith ahead of her eventual comeback.
On March 28, 2025, she successfully repurchased the company under the entity “Ain’t Nobody Coming to See You, Otis LLC,” a nod to a quote from the 1998 film The Temptations.
The journey to owning a vegan business for Hayes started as a side hustle. A vegan for a decade, she named her venture “Slutty Vegan” and ran the business for four months in a shared commercial kitchen before being subsequently fired from her day job for focusing too much on her new business.
She then expanded Slutty Vegan to include a food truck, and then to her first brick-and-mortar location in January 2019. Over 1000 people patronized her restaurant when it opened.
