Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Couple opens plant- based restaurant
HAVERFORD » Amid the bright, vivid decor and the fabulous fun food beckoning the best of the Jersey Shore, Boardwalk Vegan has emerged from the depths of anguish.
Wanting to continue to bring people joy, Kris and Randy Sumey opened the plant- based eatery at 28N. Manoa Road last week after COVID- 19 all but wiped away their award- winning special events business, Event FX Productions Inc.
“So thiswas sort of something that was built, was inspired and born out of despair,” Kris Sumey said.
Of Event FX, she said, “We started in our house, in our bedroom 18 years ago and consistently every year, we grew and we grewandwe grew. Thewhole thing was about making people happy. That was the one thing about our job, about our events.”
They eventually moved from their bedroomto a 7,000 squarefoot space to a 40,000 square- foot that included their own in- house florist and printmaking shop and housed everything they needed for special events from lighting to linens to props in a corporate development in Sharon Hill.
Challenges began to surface last year for the two when Kris’s dad and dog died, then Randy was diagnosedwith colon cancer.
Even as the business continued to produce 800- person events at the Borgata andVIP events for the ThanksgivingDay parade, Randy had his surgery in November. Up through Valentine’sDay, Event FX didahugeevent for theHardRock Casino on Valentine’s Day. Then COVID- 19 hit. “The whole industry, it’s devastating,” Sumey said. “The whole entire industry has literally had the bottom drop out. All the events are canceled for the whole year, $ 1 million. We had to furlough everybody.”
For twotothreemonths, Sumey said she was extremely depressed and couldn’t even get out of bed.
Then, she and Randy tried to launch EFX at Home as they tried to save it somehow. “There’s just no business,” she said as her eyes teared up.
She saidEvent FXstill exists although everything’s up in the air, especially with $ 14,000- a- month for their Sharon Hill facility.
“We go in there, it’s nothing but crickets right now,” she said. “It’s really depressing. It’s one day at a time. We’re trying to work with the landlord but it’s not looking good.”
Sumey explained how she and Randy became vegans.
Three years ago, their health was different — Randy had diabetes and she had high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
“We were both much more overweight thanwe are now,” she said. “We watched this documentary called ‘ Forks Over Knives’ andwewoke up one day and he’s like, ‘ Let’s go shopping.’ We just stocked up things and we went completely plant- based.” The results were dramatic. “It was great… ourbloodpressure and our cholesterol and our diabetes sort of went away in two months— just fromfood,” Sumey said. “We were blown away by it.”
Over the COVID quarantine, they missed being at the shore and the boardwalk, so they started creating some of their favorites at home, making plantbased versions of the foods that used to make them happy, including funnel cake and waffles and ice cream. Then they had a thought. “People can’t get away, people really want to go to the shore, people don’t want to be around crowds, got it,” Sumey said. “We lovemaking people happy. We love being at the shore. We were dual residentsofOceanCityandHavertown. Thanks to COVID, we only have one home now. We’re living on 30 percent of our incomewith 100 percent of our bills.”
Kris said for months, they received no unemploymentmoney and she’s still having difficulties accessing her funds.
Living nearby on Park Avenue, she was driving past the location on Manoa Road and thought about opening up the vegan eatery.