This month in Philly restaurant history: A suburban vegan restaurant moved downtown and sparked Philadelphia’s plant-based revolution

Twenty years ago this month, chefs Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby opened what they hoped would become Philadelphia’s signature vegan restaurant.

Horizons debuted in Bella Vista in February 2006 in a former nightclub called Goosebumps on Seventh Street near South Street. It was a reboot of their groundbreaking Horizons Cafe, which Landau opened in a Willow Grove strip mall in 1994.

“At the time there was no signature upscale vegan dining experience in Center City, so we decided to go to where our crowd was and make the move downtown,” Landau said last week.

From the start, Landau and Jacoby signaled that Horizons would not resemble the plant-based restaurants many diners expected. It was not meant to be a manifesto or a niche experiment.

“There will be no granola, alfalfa sprouts, or wheat germ anywhere on the menu,” Landau said in 2006. Instead, the kitchen focused on globally influenced, technique-driven dishes, such as spicy red chili-cauliflower rolls and Caribbean udon with caramelized chayote and hearts of palm.

Horizons, which served vegan beer and wine, enjoyed a solid five-year run at 611 S. Seventh St. — earning a three-bell review from Craig LaBan out of the gate — before the couple closed in 2011 to open the far more exclusive Vedge in the grand former rowhouse at 1221 Locust St., which used to house Deux Cheminees.

Landau and Jacoby went on to open and close other restaurants, including the casual V Street and Wiz Kid in Rittenhouse and Fancy Radish in Washington, D.C. Last June, they sold their well-received Vedge spinoff, Ground Provisions, in West Chester. (Ground Provisions was on the inaugural edition of The 76, The Inquirer’s list of the area’s most essential restaurants.)

A 2012 Inquirer article by Vance Lehmkuhl, director of the American Vegan Center, credited Horizons alumni with launching some of the region’s most notable vegan restaurants. That piece cited Nicole Marquis (HipCityVeg, Charlie was a sinner. and Bar Bombon), Mark Mebus (20th Street Pizza), Ross Olchvary (the now-closed Sprig & Vine), and Rachel Klein (Miss Rachel’s Pantry) as examples of the couple’s reach. (Disclosure: Rachel Klein is my daughter).

Landau is a six-time James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic (2015 to 2020), while Jacoby was a semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2014, 2015, and 2016, and also a semifinalist for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic in 2014. In November, Vedge was added to Michelin’s list of recommended restaurants.

“Twenty years later, it’s hard to not look back and smile and feel so much gratitude that the city of Philadelphia embraced us and vegetable cuisine,” Landau said. “It’s amazing to see how much it’s taken off. Sure, there’s lots of new vegan restaurants.

“To me, the most remarkable thing is the change in mainstream restaurants,” he said. “Back in the ’90s and early 2000s, you would go to a restaurant and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the menu, where you would see the gnocchi or the pasta primavera. Nowadays, there are original and creative vegetable dishes in every mainstream restaurant in the city. That was our goal — to have what we do be taken seriously.”

(Horizons’ Seventh Street location became a branch of Nomad Pizza and later became the home of Kampar, now undergoing repairs from a fire in February 2025.)

February 1996: Martini Cafe opened at 622 S. Sixth St. on the Queen Village-Bella Vista line, replacing Ristorante Mona Lisa. It closed in the early 2000s. (The building’s most recent occupant was Isot, which closed in December.)

February 2001: Capital Grille opened at Broad and Chestnut Streets, replacing a concept called Heritage that lasted nine weeks. Capital Grille was Center City’s seventh chain steakhouse at the time, following Ruth’s Chris, Morton’s of Chicago, the Palm, the Prime Rib, Smith & Wollensky, and Davio’s. ... Chef Yong Kim, previously at August Moon in Norristown, opened Bluefin in a strip center on Germantown Pike in Plymouth Meeting. He moved it in 2012 to its current quarters in East Norriton.

February 2006: Chestnut Grill in Chestnut Hill turned the entire restaurant, including its bar, smoke-free – a bold move at the time. … Flo’s Diner opened at 20th and Arch Streets; it lasted a little over a year. That site (1939 Arch St.) had housed St. George Restaurant/St. George’s Diner in the 1960s before shifting into nightlife mode — Tom Hagen’s Tavern, the Bamboo Lounge, and Cascamorto Piano Bar. After Flo’s, it became the simply named Indian Cuisine. Since 2018, it’s been Thanal Indian Tavern.

February 2011: Chef Pascual “Pat” Cancelliere, formerly of Butcher’s Cafe (where Alice is now, at Ninth and Christian), opened 943, an Argentine-Italian BYOB, in an Italian Market storefront at 943 S. Ninth St. (Paesano’s is there now). Cancelliere, who closed it a year later, shortly after heart surgery, worked at other restaurants (Morgan’s Pier and Route 6) before he died in December 2023.

February 2016: Downey’s, which opened in 1976 at Front and South Streets, closed amid tax problems. … The posh Le Castagne at 1920 Chestnut St. (now Veda), closed after 14½ years; executive chef Michael DeLone now owns Michael Coastal Italian Grille in Collingswood.

February 2021: “Ty” Bailey, who hosted countless romantics over 28 years at the Knave of Hearts on South Street before it closed in 2003, died of complications related to heart surgery at age 69. … The month’s roster of openings included the food hall at Live! Casino & Hotel in South Philadelphia and Stove & Tap’s location in downtown West Chester.