October 14th 2008
Chrissie Hynde Wants To Open Vegan Restaurant In NY’s Freedom Tower
But they way she phrases that interest is truly in bad taste.
Filed under: food & drink — Michael Andre d'Estries @ 12:04 pm

Chrissie Hynde of the rock group The Pretenders is making plans to expand her vegan-restaurant empire with potential interest in NY’s new Freedom Tower. The development, currently under construction on the site of the World Trade Center, is looking for interested restaurant owners. In an interview with PETA, Hynde said how the success of her vegan hotspot Vegeterrannean is causing her to eye new locations. Here’s a highlight (emphasis in bold is mine):
“I’d like to expand to Las Vegas so tourists from all over the world can see how great vegan food can be,” she said, “and of course in LA I’ve read that Freedom Tower in New York City, the new development where the World Trade Center once stood, is looking for a notable restaurateur. I’d like to throw my hat into the ring. There’s been so much horrific blood and guts and violence there that it’d be fitting to open a cool restaurant where no mangled, burnt bodies are on the menu.”
Um, yea. Look, I’m all for more vegan restaurants, but comments like that are not going to win points. I don’t know if she intended it to come across that way, but talk about poor taste.
Check out the rest of the interview here.
via SuperVegan
Photo credit: INFphoto.com



It is what it is. She is a member of PETA, you know. They aren’t always the most tasteful.
I’m sure she never meant to come across as insensitive, but unfortunately, a comment like that can definitely sting a wound-even after 7 years.
Pretty tacky, I have to say.
I didn’t find it untasteful at all. It’s nothing but the truth, if you can’t handle it just close your eyes and ears like the rest of the world. Go Chrissie!
i’m all for Chrissie expanding the line all over the country (if only there were more veg restaurants near me!!!), but it definitely could’ve been stated more tactfully. i mean, nothing promotes a restaurant like “no mangled corpses here!”
J — Really? You find nothing distasteful about comparing a vegan restaurant to those that died on 9-11? I’m all for expanding vegan and vegetarian options everywhere — but this comment, to me, is not the best way to go about promoting it. At least, not when we’re talking about the World Trade Center site.
That was a very poor, tactless phrasing. Might a better way of saying it be “In a place tragically associated with violence, I would like to see a restaurant with a menu that promotes peace”?
Chrissie Hynde said something in bad taste? Of course, she did. She always has. She is one of the reasons people are put off of veganism: she is very crude about the whole thing. I love her music, but her words have been in bad taste for a long time.
Chrissie Hynde rocks!!!
Here’s an interview (fan Q&A actually) that she just did…talks a lot about Akron.
http://www.blender.com/DearSuperstarChrissieHynde/articles/42233.aspx
Rock on sister!
I like the idea - hopefully she’ll hire a good marketer!