Plant-based eaters in Charleston, rejoice! A new vegan cafe is now open on Spring Street and offers decadent plant-based versions of Italian comfort food.
Veggie-lovers and carnivores alike are sure to enjoy Three Girls on Spring’s offerings of piping hot and cheesy lasagna, “chicken” parm and eggplant rollatini. The menu ranges from lunchtime favorites like a light and fresh caesar salad with a flaxseed-based “chicken cutlet” to a saucy and indulgent meatball sub.
Plus, plant-based eaters will especially appreciate the artisanal house-made vegan cheeses and meats which are made without any animal products.
It’s the third brick-and-mortar location for the Three Girls Vegan Creamery, which is run by Tracey Alexander and her two adult daughters Brittany Guerra and Taylor Pitts. They have two stores in their hometown of Guilford, Conn., in addition to a thriving online business which ships food nationwide.
And don’t just take our word for it. Oprah, The Washington Post and National Public Radio have reported: Three Girls Vegan Creamery makes insanely delicious food.
Veganizing family favorites
Alexander said she always loved to cook but never anticipated becoming a restaurateur and recipe developer — especially one that makes vegan food. It was her mother’s cancer diagnosis that planted the seeds which grew into a blossoming business.
Twelve years ago, Alexander was co-owner of a successful healthcare technology company when her mother, Theresa, then 73, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Doctors gave her 10 months to live — a prognosis that Alexander and her sister, Kristi, a nurse, refused to accept. The family began searching for holistic ways to combat the disease without traditional chemotherapy and radiation.
Alexander said what jumped out at them more than anything else was how meat and dairy were “clearly linked” to cancer and other diseases. They cut animal products out of their mother’s diet and started replacing cheese made from cow’s milk with homemade cashew mozzarella. Standing in solidarity with her mom, Alexander and her daughters went vegan too.
“Eating vegan, she had the energy freed up in her body to heal,” Alexander said. “Her oncology doctor was like, ‘What’s going on?’ She lived another two years. At first, we started juicing, but she wasn’t going to drink smoothies every day … she’s Italian,” Alexander said with a laugh.
So Alexander had to figure out how to veganize the family favorites like pizza, pasta, pesto and cannolis. “Whatever mom wanted, I’d find a way to veganize it,” she said. Now, the self-taught chef has amassed a recipe inventory that to date has surpassed 800 dishes.
Not your Nonna’s Italian food
By 2016, word began to spread about Alexander’s plant-based goodies. She was selling at a New Haven farmers market when a reporter from Oprah’s O magazine approached Alexander to write about the cheese. Quickly, the family business began accepting orders, and when the demand outgrew her home kitchen, Alexander used the kitchen in her brother-in-law’s pizza parlor when it was closed for business to fulfill wholesale and online orders.
“I was with my mom, and I got this Google alert. I was like, ‘Oh my god, The Washington Post has named us as one of the top four vegan cheeses in the country.”
She leased a small space to open to the public one day a week. Between word-of-mouth customers and those who followed Three Girls Vegan Creamery on social media, more than 1,000 people showed up on the very first day. “We knew we were onto something,” Alexander said.
So they raised $38,000 to officially open their first counter service café in Guilford. In 2022, they expanded to a second location, and in the last months of 2023, the team launched the Charleston location, Three Girls on Spring, which is now open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
Don’t let the V-word scare you
You might notice “vegan” is not in the Charleston restaurant’s name — that’s because Alexander and her daughters are passionate about meeting others where they’re at in their individual journeys with plant-based eating.
“If you want resources, if you’re vegan-curious, I say, I’m happy to be a resource, come to me with all your questions. If you don’t wanna hear a peep about it, that’s fine too. I’ve done surveys and found that 85% of the people who come to us are not vegan.”
On the Instagram account for Three Girls on Spring, Alexander writes, “we put plants on a pedestal.” And it’s true — the menu shows how plant-based eating doesn’t have to mean sacrificing anything. Making food from plants, and always from scratch, is one of the passion points that’s made Three Girls so successful, Alexander emphasized.
“We have never, ever, ever put a commercial product in our place, ever. Every single cheese is made by us in-house, and it’s organic or non-GMO. … Our cheese has five organic ingredients, whereas a commercial vegan cheese has 27. Our pepperoni is made from organic apples.”
Don’t miss out on weekly specials, like The Godfather burger, a housemade patty with pesto and onion rings; or the pulled “pork” Bahn Mi on a baguette. Or try a menu staple like the award-winning Bellissimo, a sandwich with “chicken” cutlet, fire-roasted red pepper and mozzarella on fried dough.
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