Unity Diner: Earthling Ed’s Popular Vegan Restaurant in London Announces Closure

Frequently named one of London’s best vegan restaurants, Earthling Ed-owned Unity Diner is set to close after Veganuary due to rising costs.

While Veganuary is usually a celebratory month for plant-based businesses, it spells a bittersweet end for one of London’s most beloved vegan restaurants.

Unity Diner, an eatery and cocktail bar veganising fast-food classics, will close its doors on February 1 after more than six years of operations, becoming the latest casualty in the UK’s embattled hospitality sector.

Co-owned by animal activist and vegan influencer Ed Winters – popularly known as Earthling Ed – the restaurant’s news has been met with an outpouring of grief from customers and fellow restauranteurs.

Post-Covid struggles and increased rent lead to closure

Founded in 2018, Unity Diner was located at a smaller spot in Hoxton in east London, before moving to a larger site in nearby Aldgate to keep up with popular demand.

The restaurant serves classics like vegan lobster mac and cheese, prime flank steak, double bacon cheeseburger, and its flagship beer-battered tofish and chips, alongside desserts like tiramisu and crème brûlée. Its cocktail menu includes Vegan Propaganda (inspired by Winters’s 2022 book), Piers Morgan’s Tears, and Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned.

The restaurant says it uses plastic-free, fully biodegradable straws, takeaway containers, and coffee cups, while staff uniforms are made with 100% organic cotton and chemical-free vegan ink.

It has over 40,000 followers on Instagram, demonstrating its popularity in the London vegan ecosystem. But in a statement posted to the social media platform on December 30, Unity Diner confirmed it was closing after price hikes in a hospitality environment still reeling from the effects of Covid-19.

“Sadly, we’ve not been spared from the economic situation affecting the hospitality sector here in the UK, and with soaring costs since Covid and our landlords now wanting to increase the rent, the time has sadly come for us to call it a day,” it wrote.

Part of Unity Diner’s profits go directly towards animal rights work, and led to the creation of Surge Sanctuary in 2020. It will remain open during Veganuary 2025 to “celebrate everything we’ve achieved” and continue to raise money for the animal welfare charity, and urged fans to support it if they can by becoming a monthly donor.

A troubled time for British restaurants

Unity Diner’s decision to shut comes amid a turbulent time for the UK’s hospitality sector, where restaurants are closing at the fastest rate in over a decade. According to accounting firm Price Bailey, over 1,400 eateries shut their doors in the year ending September 30, 2024, a 19.4% increase from the period 12 months prior.

Meanwhile, a fifth of all UK restaurants have negative net assets on their balance sheets, while more than 10% are at an “imminent” risk of closure, thanks to soaring ingredient, utility and rental prices.

It has impacted several vegan eateries in the UK. In the last 12 months, Clean Kitchen Club shut its Notting Hill location in London, just as The Vurger Co closed all its sites. The same was true for Harmonium in Ediburgh, Frost Burgers in Liverpool, Donner Summer in Sheffield, and JJ’s Vish and Chips in Manchester, among others.

Flower Burger, meanwhile, exited the British market in September, and Neat – the plant-based burger chain backed by Lewis Hamilton – shut five of its nine locations in London. And following its acquisition by Hero Group in September, Deliciously Ella closed its upscale Mayfair eatery Plants by DE, despite the restaurant not being part of the deal.

The announcement by Unity Diner – whose sister eatery in Brighton, No Catch, remains open – has left many of its customers heartbroken. “I’m so sad,” wrote one Instagram user. “But thank you so much for being here for the last six years. You have brought to much to the London vegan scene and we will miss you enormously.”

Fellow vegan restaurant owners echoed the sentiment. Dauns, the Scandinavian eatery across the street from Unity Diner, called it “very sad news”. And Alexis Gauthier, owner of Gauthier Soho and 123Vegan, offered to help. “This is so so sad! You are doing so much for raising awareness in animal welfare. Surely something can be done,” he wrote.