Four years after closing his acclaimed vegan kitchen, chef Rahein Jones is back in Delray Beach with an enduringly noble goal: to make vegan comfort food taste better than regular comfort food.
This time, though, the plant-based food pioneer is bringing his approach to the highest-profile perch of his career — buzzy restaurant-row Atlantic Avenue.
True Vegan by Chef Rahein, which soft-opened Nov. 15 at 123 E. Atlantic Ave., a short block east of Old School Square, is a reboot of his fan-favorite eatery, The New Vegan, which shut in late 2021. It touts a refreshed, familiar menu of VFC (that’s vegan fried chicken for you carnivores) and a new roster of soft-serve ice cream, pasta fagioli soup and pizza flatbreads that Jones describes as “the menu everyone remembers, plus more of it.”
Jones, 49, tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel he felt “humbled” as 300 prebooked reservations streamed in and out of his modest 850-square-foot cafe over the weekend, swapping old memories with the chef.
“This mother and son who came on Saturday was the same mother and son who came on the very first day I opened my restaurant [The New Vegan in 2013], and I couldn’t believe it,” Jones says. “The mom was like, ‘You had no freaking clue what you were doing back then — now look at you! And I said, ‘It’s been over 2 million meals that I’ve made just to get me here.’ ”
He has a new backer in business partner Billy Koorse, a Palm Beach County-based investor and customer-turned-friend who dined at Jones’ old restaurant “two, three times a week,” he says. Koorse and Jones linked up last year as the chef was scouting potential storefronts in Wellington.
“I said, ‘Forget Wellington,’ ” Koorse recalls. “Atlantic Avenue is ready for Rahein. I’ve always found his scratch proteins so unique. Most vegan food I eat is either too spicy or too dry. But with Rahein, there’s just an explosion of flavor.”
Jones’ True Vegan is small — 65 seats between its dining room and sidewalk patio — yet its recipes have a mighty reputation. His mushroom burger, a porcini-ground chickpea blend topped with lettuce, tomatoes and housemade sauce, won the Boca Burger Battle in the “Best Alternative Grill Master” category twice, in 2015 and 2016, and online hub HappyCow once ranked Jones’ last restaurant among its top-rated vegan eateries worldwide.
Everything is gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free and non-GMO, but Jones is quick to insist the menu is approachable and never preachy about converting carnivores to a plant-based lifestyle.
“We’re not trying to convert anyone. It’s not like you’re in my restaurant and there are fists in the air,” Jones says. “The idea was always to create better options for [the] elderly, for children, for people with celiac [disease] or other health issues, and have better options in this food desert.”
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
This award-winning mushroom burger is served with a side of house rice at True Vegan by Chef Rahein in Delray Beach. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
“Food desert” may sound like a stretch for cuisine-rich Delray Beach. Health-conscious eateries Ripe Delray, Whole Green Cafe, Wild Celery and others abound. But Jones’ True Vegan, for now, is the only all-vegan restaurant in the city.
“I wanted to make vegan food great again,” Jones explains, adding that he mimics the flavor and texture of meat using only fruits, vegetables and spices. “If you’re not in control of the product from the bottom up, you’re not really in control.”
Jones is a true vegan now, but it wasn’t so long ago that he considered himself a new one. He became a vegan 12 years ago, he recalls, after an uncle’s friend visiting from New York “who looked 30 but was really 50” described his a “weird diet” that somehow excluded eggs and meat proteins.
True Vegan By Chef Rahein / Courtesy
Falafel pasta salad includes quinoa pasta, sundried tomatoes, spring mix greens and a chopped falafel patty. (True Vegan By Chef Rahein/Courtesy)
“I was like, ‘Where did you get your protein from?’ because I’d never met a Black vegan before,” Jones says. “And he says, ‘I get my protein from broccoli and nuts and seeds.’ Then he turns the question around: ‘Where do you get your protein?’ And when I list the animals, he says, ‘All the animals you’re eating are vegan, too.’”
For Jones, that eye-opening moment — along with researching the health benefits of veganism and cattle industry abuses — caused a radical lifestyle change. Then came the 2013 opening of The New Vegan in Delray Beach’s Pineapple Grove Arts District, where Jones cooked dishes as simple as they were delicious.
At its peak, there was also an outpost in West Palm Beach’s Northwood Village, then a food truck on a patch of farmland off Lantana Road near Florida’s Turnpike. All closed due to flagging sales as South Florida emerged from the pandemic.
Jones grows mushrooms and a pungent herb named black turmeric, the key ingredient in most True Vegan dishes, on his 5-acre Loxahatchee farm, while sourcing other fresh produce from nearby Gratitude Garden Farm. That’s where he spent “a very difficult” five months inventing an all-vegan pizza ($19-$20 per 10-inch flatbread) that mimics the lactose-heavy cheese, zesty sauce and “wood-fired taste,” all without a wood-fired oven.
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
True Vegan had a soft opening on Saturday, Nov. 15, on Delray Beach’s Atlantic Avenue. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
“Great-tasting pizza is one of the most difficult items to get in the vegan community,” Jones says. “It was a lot of trial and error.”
Count Sean Russell, the Miami-based blogger, podcaster and plant-eater behind the social-media handle SoFlo Vegans, as a fan of Jones’ flatbreads, which include Margherita, mushroom, sausage and veggie styles.
“The cheese on the pizza was probably the closest I’ve had to the real thing in a long time,” says Russell, who visited True Vegan on Saturday.
Other new vegan dishes include soft-serve ice cream ($10, chocolate or vanilla), protein bowls ($16) and wraps ($17.50) like the Mediterranean, a black turmeric patty with broccoli, scallions, diced tomatoes, peppers, garlic, red onion, lemon and house rice. There’s also an expanded menu of new soups ($10-$13) include split pea (dried split peas, vegetable broth, yellow onions, celery carrots, crispy mushroom patty crumble); and pastas ($19-$20), including mushroom bolognese and lasagna.
True Vegan By Chef Rahein / Courtesy
Chef Rahein Jones says he spent “a very difficult” five months inventing his all-vegan pizza, whose styles include plain (bottom left) and sausage. (True Vegan By Chef Rahein/Courtesy)
That’s in addition to old New Vegan favorites like Vegan Fried Chicken ($13), a protein that’s actually made with jackfruit and cauliflower; a creamy tapioca-based mac ‘n’ cheese with quinoa pasta ($13); and a tuna melt on sourdough ($18) made with hearts of palm instead of fish. For dessert, there are all-vegan cheesecakes and carrot cakes ($12 per slice).
Jones says a breakfast menu is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2026 with “chickn ‘n’ waffles,” though it is far from finalized. Because the restaurant closes at 2 a.m. on weekends, there will also be “night bites,” late-night fixes for Atlantic Avenue carousers emerging from the clubs.
“I love that we’re taking care of folks at all hours who need a bite to eat,” Jones says. “We have to take vegan food to places it’s never gone before.”
True Vegan By Chef Rahein, at 123 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach, is now open. Call 561-266-3399 or go to True-Vegan.com.
True Vegan By Chef Rahein / Courtesy
True Vegan by Chef Rahein’s mushroom bolognese with onions, carrots, celery, tomato sauce, fresh basil and penne pasta. (True Vegan By Chef Rahein/Courtesy)
