Solar Harvests, 239 Main Street, Ste 103, East Greenville, PA (2026)

07/30/2023

A follow-up letter to all of our supporters,

Your support has been felt and is appreciated with all of the comments, reactions, and shares on Facebook, and showing up and ordering food at the restaurant this weekend. The bottom line is, even with all of the extra sales from this weekend, the business is not sustainable for several reasons.

Long Wait Times
Friday, we had a packed house, every one of our 24 seats was filled for a good portion of the night, and I felt the pressure in the kitchen. Orders took upwards of an hour, and that is not how I want to operate. We are a cook to order restaurant, and very few of our items are prepared beforehand or have a short preparation time. I am not willing to sacrifice on food quality, and do not know any way to resolve this issue, with the size of our kitchen and lack of staff. We are not a quick-service or fast food restaurant.

An equally big issue is how many items that can be cooking simultaneously without anything burning or overcooking. I’m only able to have about 5 or 6 items in various stages of cooking or assembly at any given point.

High overhead
We have a large monthly grocery bill; organic and gluten free goods are more expensive to purchase. I have already stated that I do not want to raise our menu prices, and Friday has proven that higher sales leads to longer wait times for customers, so there does not appear to be a solution to this issue.

Based on sales from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (some of the highest sales we have seen since March), we would still not be reaching a break-even point. I would continue to operate the restaurant at a loss and with no salary to myself and not being able to hire employees.

Operating Hours
It is very difficult to have enough volunteers to cover all tasks at the restaurant at any given time. Dishwashing, serving drinks and food, taking orders, and handling payments take priority and occupy all of the volunteers’ time, leaving little time to assist with food assembly or cooking. We need about 4 volunteers for every shift to operate successfully, and most of the time we have only 1 or 2 volunteers. We have been asking for volunteers since before opening and are thankful to all of those who have helped, but we would need a commitment from a lot more volunteers to continue operating. Realistically, and understandably, it is very challenging to be able to volunteer as frequently and for the times that we need help.

I started this nonprofit with a passion for cooking and big dreams of changing the stigma of what vegan food could be, making it both affordable and accessible to the Upper Perkiomen Valley. I faced many hardships and have tirelessly operated the restaurant with no compensation and a dwindling bank account. I have pondered how to make the restaurant successful and the answer is not selling more food or raising menu prices. There would need to be a consistent outside funding source to cover salaries of employees. I thought that this would be in the form of grants, but those have proven to be elusive. The role that I have taken on is too much for a single person, and without an army of volunteers, Solar Harvests will not be successful. For these sincere and contemplative reasons, I have decided to no longer continue operating Solar Harvests, effective immediately.

Solar Harvests

07/30/2023

It's going to be a beautiful day ❤️

We are open today from 10AM-2PM.

07/29/2023

These are some of the best pancakes around and yet 100% gluten-free and vegan. Available in plain, blueberry, strawberry, and chocolate chip.

We are open today from 10AM-2PM for breakfast and brunch.

07/28/2023

Today's post features some of our newly added menu items. The cheddar biscuits, grilled vegetables, and seasoned potato wedges can be enjoyed as a single side or as an entrée. We are open tonight from 5-8PM.

07/28/2023

We are feeling the love and appreciation from all of the comments, shares, and reactions from yesterday's post. Thank you!!

Our hours this weekend are:

Fri 5PM-8PM
Sat 10AM-2PM
Sun 10AM-2PM
Mon 5PM-8PM

07/27/2023

Dear Solar Harvests customers and supporters,

I write this letter openly and candidly, we are not able to sustain operations with the current sales that we have received. Monday we had ZERO customers and last Friday we had 2 customers. I know that we are just returning to the restaurant after operating the food truck for about 6 weeks, but sales have slowed down significantly beginning in May. In fact, we have not seen 55% of our customers since before May 1st. We rely on our existing customers in order to be able to achieve minimum sales goals.

We tried to adjust to the pressures of low sales by operating the food truck and gaining new customers by attending events and being located where large crowds of people gathered. We presented an alternative dining option, but sales continued to be low, since it is difficult to break into new markets where many people have placed a stigma towards veganism. We are doing our best to adapt to a tough market, where vegan food isn’t the norm, and is the dietary choice of such a small subset of the population. We are optimistic that even those who do not subscribe to a vegan diet will enjoy our food. In fact, many of our customers are not vegan and are just looking for options outside of the typical offerings of the Upper Perkiomen Valley, and we are grateful for the opportunity to offer those customers another dining option. Being a strictly gluten-free facility, we are also happy to provide gluten-sensitive and gluten-free customers a safe place to dine. Solar Harvests is an inclusive dining option, and we provide a mix of healthy foods as well as comfort foods, and we want there to be something to eat for everyone.

Additionally, what sets Solar Harvests apart from other restaurants, vegan or otherwise, is that we are a nonprofit, which means that we have always been focused on DOING GOOD for our customers and our planet, and not on filling our bank account with money. Our mission is to make the world a better place, and we do this by promoting veganism, organic agriculture, renewable energy, and land preservation.

One way we support our customers is by not upcharging them for gluten-free and vegan foods, as we want these to be accessible to the public. We also strive to purchase organic items such as condiments, produce, fruits, beans, grains, and pastas. These organic items come at a premium price, but we do not pass these higher costs along as a mark-up. For profit restaurants typically use a 300% multiplier to determine their menu prices, meaning that if it costs $5 to make a menu item in the cost of raw ingredients, then they would charge $15 to the customer. While this may seem high, since sales are the only source of revenue for restaurants, the menu prices are very important, and must cover all expenses of a restaurant, including rent, utilities, employee salaries, supplies, marketing, and food ingredients. After calculating all of these expenses, a successful restaurant only has a small net profit margin of 3% to 5%. At Solar Harvests, we are trying to compete with non-vegan, non-gluten-free restaurants, and we price menu items to be competitive with these local restaurants. Since these other restaurants don’t pay premiums on gluten-free and vegan items, or buy organic ingredients, when we calculate our multiplier, we are charging closer to 225% mark-up for menu items. For example, the Beyond cheeseburger served with a bag of chips costs us approximately $5.50 in raw ingredients, and we only charge $12 to customers, which is a 218% mark-up. However, using a 300% mark-up like other restaurants, that same meal would cost the customer $16.50. This $4.50 savings passed onto the customer means that Solar Harvests doesn’t receive these additional funds to help pay for our operating expenses. Historically, this has come as a sacrifice by not being able to hire employees; and we have been working with volunteers since opening in order to keep the restaurant going.

Ideally, we would be able to afford to hire employees while maintaining low costs, by obtaining additional funding that would subsidize these higher food costs for the vegan, gluten-free, and organic ingredients that we use. We are seeking grants to offset these costs, but the grants seem to be limited to Federally registered nonprofits such as those registered as 501c3, and Solar Harvests is a state-registered nonprofit, so we have been unable to find any grants. If grants are unavailable to offset the costs, and we do not want to raise our prices, that means that we need to sell more items to offset the cost savings passed onto our customers, in order for us to be successful.

I am writing to you all with the hope that we can turn things around before it is too late and Solar Harvests meets the same demise as many other local vegan restaurants of recent years and is forced to close. We will evaluate sales figures through the end of August and make an appropriate, informed decision at that time. We have decided to assess sales in determining whether Solar Harvests can continue to operate rather than doing crowd-funding, because we are looking for continued long-term support by our customers to remain in business, and not a single short-term donation that would only cover operating costs for a short period of time. We thank all of customers for their support since we began operating, but we need you all now to come out and make purchases at the restaurant on a regular basis.

With Gratitude,

Joshua Hagadorn
Solar Harvests

07/24/2023

Don't let the start of a new work week bring you down. Let us help you worry about one less thing that you need to do, and come in for dinner at Solar Harvests.

We are open for dinner service today from 5-8PM.

07/23/2023

Good morning! The sun is shining and it's another beautiful day in the Valley. We are open for breakfast and brunch from 10AM to 2PM. ☀️

07/22/2023

It's going to be a gorgeous weekend! Start it off right with healthy breakfast or brunch from Solar Harvests.

Open 10AM-2PM for dine in, pick up, or delivery.

07/21/2023

Running a vegan, nonprofit restaurant in a challenging economy isn't easy. Each week seems to bring new obstacles and heartbreak. We are so appreciative of the love and support that we have received since opening in February. In order to continue operations, we NEED your continued love and support. The restaurant is open today for dinner service. We hope to see tonight or over the weekend ❤️

Our hours this weekend are:
Fri 5PM-8PM
Sat 10AM-2PM
Sun 10AM-2PM
Mon 5PM-8PM

07/17/2023

Happy Monday! Solar Harvests is open today for dinner service from 5PM-8PM. Dine in, pick up, and delivery options are available.

Check out our new menu and try one of our new menu items today.

https://www.solarharvests.com/menu

07/16/2023

One of our new menu items is the beloved breakfast sandwich! It still contains the ingredients that you loved; Just egg patty, cheese, hash brown, and sausage patty (optional), but it is now featuring our house-made biscuits. YUM!

We are open today from 10AM-2PM.

Solar Harvests

07/30/2023

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