Kelley-Sue LeBlanc believes food should be fun — and she doesn’t want dietary restrictions or allergies to limit the possibilities.
When she and her partner, Trafton Hanscom, founded The Sleazy Vegan in 2021, they did so with the intention of feeding everyone, regardless of what they could or couldn’t eat. Now, they’ve moved into the State Street Kitchen and opened a small eatery in the front, bringing their culinary creativity to Concord.
“I want to nourish their spirit with some fun,” LeBlanc said. “I want to nourish their brains by letting them try something that maybe they’ve never tried before, and diversify some foods, you know; and their soul, give them that comfort food, soul-satisfying bite to eat and something reliable.”
After struggling with illness and chronic pain, LeBlanc turned to a plant-based diet as a last resort for managing her symptoms. Within a few weeks, some of the pain began to recede. LeBlanc felt like she had struck gold.
But her knowledge of vegan food was limited, and eating the same few meals quickly got old, so she signed up for classes to expand her repertoire.
“In learning these fundamentals of cooking, I learned that there’s a life cycle to food and to plants, and so then the process for how to get one grocery trip to be five different meals over five different days with different cooking techniques and different flavors, that was just like fireworks to me,” she said.
Once she began experimenting, she couldn’t stop. LeBlanc joked that if she worked for anyone else, she’d be fired for constantly churning out new menu items. Instead, she turned her constant innovation into one of the defining features of her business.
She and Hanscom broke away from their respective industries during the pandemic — he was a machinist and she worked in technology. They began operating out of a commercial kitchen in Manchester and selling meals before launching a food truck. When Pembroke City Limits opened in 2024, they hopped on board and began serving up dishes at the music bar.
But in the fall, it came time to reassess. They learned they could no longer stay in the commercial kitchen they’d been using to prepare food — the space in Pembroke was only large enough for serving. At the same time, their partnership with the bar was coming to an end.
They already knew State Street Kitchen owner Alex Stoyle, who also owns Revelstoke, and they had previously used the space a few times. It quickly became their new home while they finished out their time at Pembroke City Limits and began building clientele in Concord.
“We decidedly went after the breakfast/lunch crowd, partly because I really wanted to bake again, because I love breakfast, and it’s hard to get breakfast out as a vegan, to get anything that isn’t covered in dairy is so difficult,” LeBlanc said.
For her, it’s provided an opportunity to bake again, from cookies and cinnamon rolls to sourdough loaves, muffins and more. And with the cozy eatery attached to the front of the kitchen, all of her culinary operations happen under one roof.
Throughout the first few years of the business, LeBlanc said she felt pressure to build the brand. This year, though, she’s letting the food take the lead.
“We’re just thinking about doing what we’re good at and strengthening our community,” she said.
Part of that entails hosting cooking classes, tasting room events and seated multi-course dinners.
Hanscom, who handles provisioning, largely sources ingredients from Fresh Start Farms and the Concord Food Co-op.
While the word “vegan” is in the eatery’s name, LeBlanc hopes customers will continue to come in and discover that no one has to be vegan to enjoy their food. It’s a laid-back, “sleazy” form of veganism, one accepting of eaters who may not even fully stick to plant-based diets.
For Greg Audet, who first discovered the Sleazy Vegan several years ago at the Manchester Taco Tour, having an entire eatery dedicated to vegan food continues to feel novel.
“The best part is that most of the dishes you wouldn’t even know are vegan if the name wasn’t vegan in it, like if you’re blindfolded, you wouldn’t even know it’s vegan,” he said.
Audet has been a loyal customer throughout the business’s stint at Pembroke City Limits and, as a Concord resident, he has already begun to frequent the new location. He hopes more people will broaden their culinary horizons and stop in for a bite.
“It’s going to open people’s eyes that, you know, vegan food isn’t scary. It’s actually good,” he said.
Beyond serving up nourishing meals, The Sleazy Vegan hosts monthly wellness meet-ups as part of a series called “Food as Medicine: Secrets and Lies.”
“Food was, and has always been, the first medicine, so it’s just a matter of, let’s go back and learn the things we’ve forgotten, and let’s find the people who know those things and get them to teach us,” LeBlanc said.
These discussions aim to puncture myths around plant-based eating and shine light on little-known facts.
With their last day in Pembroke, Feb. 1, behind them, LeBlanc and Hanscom are now full-time in Concord, where they’ll be serving breakfast, lunch and dinner several days a week, with special Sunday brunches each month.
“I want to feed people as much as I possibly can, as often as I possibly can,” she said. “I want to use a product that’s as local as it possibly can be, especially the stuff that people don’t know what to do with. And I want to find something fun and flavorful to do with it.”
The Sleazy Vegan is located at 205 N. State Street. The eatery is open on Wednesday from 7 a.m. – 3 p.m., Thursday from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m. – 8 p.m. For more information, visit https://thesleazyvegan.com.
