LesbiVeggies – the award-winning, plant-based restaurant from Chef Brennah Lambert – is officially opening its doors at 39 N. Fourth Street in Downtown Camden. The move from its original Audubon location to the heart of Camden marks a new chapter for a restaurant that has quietly become one of the most culturally significant food destinations in the Delaware Valley: a Black-owned, woman-owned, lesbian-owned, 100% vegan and gluten-free kitchen built from the ground up by a Gen Z entrepreneur who started out cooking meal preps in her grandmother’s kitchen.
For the LGBT+ community across Philadelphia and South Jersey, the opening is more than a restaurant launch. It’s a rare, unapologetic piece of queer visibility on a dinner plate – in a region where Black, femme, queer ownership in the food industry is still the exception, not the rule.
A Name That Says It All
The name “LesbiVeggies” is not a gimmick. Lambert, a Rutgers-Camden alum and former member of the Scarlet Raptors women’s basketball team, built the brand around her identity from day one. “Representation, inclusivity is super important for me,” she told NJ Advance Media when the original Audubon storefront opened in 2021. “Within the vegan community, there’s not a lot of inclusivity. I’m kind of looking to include as many people as I can in this environment.”
That mission sits at the center of everything the restaurant does. Artwork celebrating Black women anchors the space. A line from Lauryn Hill’s “Tell Him” is painted on the wall. The kitchen is all-scratch, entirely vegan, entirely gluten-free – and designed, as Lambert has described it, as a space where “plant-based food is a bridge between chef and community.”
“I wanted a place where people could feel welcomed and included. I was focused on the whole experience.” – Chef Brennah Lambert to Rutgers-Camden
From Grandmother’s Kitchen to Best of Philly
Lambert founded LesbiVeggies in 2018 as a mobile meal-prep side hustle while finishing her business management degree at Rutgers School of Business-Camden. She went vegan in college to address ongoing stomach issues that doctors hadn’t been able to resolve, taught herself to cook, and started preparing meals for family members who asked for help with healthier diets. Word spread. The side hustle became a waitlist. The waitlist – funded partly through a GoFundMe campaign and years of self-financing – became a brick-and-mortar café on West Merchant Street in Audubon in February 2021, opened, remarkably, in the middle of a pandemic.
Chef Brennah Lambert in the kitchen at LesbiVeggies. Photo: Courier-Post
The recognition came fast. Philadelphia Magazine named LesbiVeggies Best Vegan Restaurant on its Best of Philly list, praising the zucchini corn fritters, blackened Cajun cauliflower sandwiches, and snickerdoodle smoothies. CBS Philadelphia, 6ABC, FOX 29, Edible Jersey, Edible Philly, VegNews, and The Philadelphia Inquirer all followed. Lambert was profiled by her alma mater as a standout young Black entrepreneur, and by TD Bank – which financed an expansion into the building next door in Audubon – as a flagship Black-owned, queer-owned, woman-owned small business client.
Why Camden, and Why Now
The move to Downtown Camden is a deliberate one. Lambert could have planted the next flag anywhere in the Philadelphia metro. She chose Camden – a city in the middle of a long, uneven revitalization, underserved by high-quality food options, and underrepresented in the national vegan conversation. It’s also, not incidentally, the city where she earned her degree.
The new location, at 39 N. Fourth Street, is a full-service BYO restaurant with a full dinner menu, space for intimate gatherings and private events, and a catering operation. Down the road, Lambert plans to launch plant-based cooking classes out of the new kitchen. It’s a meaningful upgrade from the counter-service Audubon café and signals that LesbiVeggies is stepping into its next phase.
LesbiVeggies – Downtown Camden
Black-owned, woman-owned, lesbian-owned. 100% vegan, 100% gluten-free, all scratch-made. Full-service BYO. Dinner, private events, catering, and cooking classes to come.
Camden, NJ 08102
On the Menu
The new menu reads like a love letter to Lambert’s core belief that plant-based food doesn’t need to mimic meat to feel indulgent. Standouts from the grand opening menu include:
The Birria Tacos – built on stewed jackfruit instead of beef – have been a signature dish since Audubon. The coconut curry noodles and the Cajun cauliflower, which helped earn the nod from Philly Mag, are also making the move. Lambert has said before that her secret ingredient is simply “love” – and that cooking with love can’t be taught, it has to be felt.
Why This Matters for Philly’s LGBT+ Community
Restaurants come and go. Queer-owned, Black-owned, woman-owned restaurants that manage to win Best of Philly, survive a pandemic opening, and scale into a second, bigger location within five years? That’s a different story. LesbiVeggies is not just a place to eat – it’s proof of what’s possible when a young Black lesbian entrepreneur from South Jersey decides she’s building the table rather than waiting to be invited to one.
It’s also, very practically, one of the closest queer-owned full-service dinner destinations to Philadelphia’s Gayborhood – about ten minutes across the Ben Franklin Bridge.
If you’ve been meaning to try it, now’s the moment.