Gretchen and Logan Needy are all-in on their vegan street food concept. Just click on their Deathless Food Truck homepage and you shall see. I’ll wait while you check it out for yourself…

…I know, right?

Take that, all those who unfairly stereotype the kumbaya-singing hemp-wearing meat-freers. Maybe that kind of in-your-face herbivory is exactly what we all need, especially when the edict and the eats come from such sweet and passionate people.

Exactly two years ago, the Needys relocated to Savannah, bringing with them their vegan brand aboard a fully equipped food truck, but their wheels have yet to roll out. There were his cheffing stint at Folklore, the customary red tape, and the want of a commissary kitchen, all sizable hurdles.

Enter James and Liz Massey of Two Tides Brewing Co. to breathe life into Deathless.

“Liz reached out to us on our Instagram page,” Gretchen Needy explained. “It just went from there.”

The ‘it’ is what she called a “little buddy partnership” born in our aptly nicknamed city: when the Masseys open The Laundry Diner later this year, the Needys will park their food truck outside and use the restaurant’s kitchen as their base of operations.

“Our timeline is mirroring their timeline,” Gretchen Needy added.

A food friendship that effectively gives the city two new restaurants in the space of one.

BEGIN THE VEGAN

Neither Needy has been a lifetime vegan or even vegetarian. He made the meatless leap eight years ago, and she “joins in here and there.”

“I do my best to eat a plant-based diet,” Gretchen Needy said.

How refreshing that someone whose livelihood is based in vegan cuisine understands the ‘other side’ and is not thumping The Herbivore’s Hymnal.

Having been in professional kitchens for seventeen years now, Logan Needy researched and read up on the impact animal husbandry has on our environment.

“It pushed some justice buttons for him,” said Gretchen Needy. “He’s just very passionate about doing what he can do not to contribute to that.”

“Being a chef,” she continued, “he’s been disappointed over and over again with what is available for him to eat when he is out.”

“He’s so intentional with it. Everything that he cooks is completely through-and-through vegan,” down to the sugar he uses is sourced to standards. “Everything that we put out to eat is 100-percent vegan.”

One night a week on three different occasions, the first back in November of 2023 followed by a few more this past spring, they cooked their vegan menu at Crispi truck pop-up “takeover.” This past Sunday, Deathless ended a five-week weekend dinner residency at Origin Coffee Bar.

SOUTH BY NORTHWEST

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, the Needys moved cross-country five years ago, originally landing in Gainesville, Georgia, where Logan Needy helped open up Harvest Kitchen as its head chef.

That two-tined enterprise offered catering services and “really beautiful dinners,” Gretchen Needy recalled, from a menu that her husband had created. After two years, the owners abridged the business, shutting the restaurant to become Harvest Catering Co. exclusively.

“That’s why we came down to Savannah,” said Needy, who has experience on the “beverage side of hospitality,” though the bulk of her career has been spent in health and fitness, working as a personal trainer as well as several years in mental health, including a stint as a technician for Northeast Georgia Health System.

“We love taking care of people,” she added, clearly an ethos in the couple’s vegan food foray.

Before leaving Gainesville, Deathless was born because “Logan wanted to do his own thing.” They made a little “mock menu” for their friends and asked them if they thought the concept was possible. They even bought the truck.

“That was our first purchase before we moved down to Savannah,” Gretchen Needy shared and then laughed. “We’ve just watched it sit there.”

At the time, returning to the Great Northwest was on the table along with moving to another city in Georgia. They “threw the paint against the wall,” she said, and came down to Savannah.

“We have loved it,” she said of their newish hometown, “but after we moved here, we realized that there are not a lot of vegan plant-based options. That just gave us more inspiration.”

Open exactly two years, The Haunt closed in July of 2023, and Fox & Fig closed a year ago December, leaving Savannah with a grand total of zero vegan-by-design restaurants. Google ‘Savannah vegetarian restaurants’ and see for yourself.

Soon after connecting with the Masseys, the Needys shared the tale of their process and how challenging it all had been, and the quartet began the brainstorming that will soon become reality.

Once Folklore closed, Logan Needy went to Two Tides Crispi, his ‘kitchen away from kitchen’ until the permanent cooking home is finished.

“We’re so thankful because they have provided us a space to do some pop-ups and gave Logan a job, of course,” Gretchen Needy said of the Masseys.

“It has been a blessing,” she continued. “Liz and James have gone through so much, and they have been a huge help for us in figuring out how to get our truck up and going in the city.”

“They’ve been able to help us greatly and take us under their wings in that sense.”

For two years to the day, that truck has been fully outfitted, but “jumping through all the hoops” and “finding the base of operations was our biggest challenge,” said Gretchen Needy.

MEATLESS MEALS WITH GLOBAL ROOTS

In their early twenties, both Needys traveled extensively around the world, including stops in Africa, Central America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, and their Deathless fare is fashioned after global dishes and flavors that they have longed wished to have in their every day.

“He fuses a lot of different cultures together,” Gretchen Needy said of her husband’s alimentary alchemy which is rooted in recreating “dishes he’s had in the past that weren’t vegan that he wants to make vegan.”

“We have a spicy basil fried rice burrito, so that takes a Thai dish mixed with a Latin dish mixed with American because we put french fries in it,” she gave just one example.

Their biggest selling item so far, which she admitted was still a surprise to them, are the Noodz, am noodle bowl featuring Swampy Appleseed’s (Reidsville, Georgia) oyster mushrooms, bok choy, fermented mustard, and plenty of savory and spicy lubricant.

“Logan has an incredible brain, full of so many ideas of different dishes he wants to do,” continued Gretchen Needy. “This massive hodgepodge of cultures and flavors and styles of cooking that he throws together and ends up making beautiful art with food.”

Another favorite has been the Birria Crunchwrap with jackfruit supplying the texture of shredded chicken, complemented by Chao cheese, plenty of mushrooms, avocado, cabbage, cilantro, and onions, using produce “from as many local farmers as possible.”

The Deathless plan is to have events and offsite locations on the calendar as soon as The Laundry Diner opens its doors. At the same time, they hope to provide vegan meal kits, available for order on the website.

“If a family wants to get meals delivered to them once or twice a week, we’d be able to supply that to them,” she explained. “Ready-to-go dinners, like Vegan HelloFresh.”

Only way better.

Deathless Food Truck will operate out of The Laundry Diner (1401 Paulsen Street), which will open later this year. Follow Deathless Food Truck at www.deathlessfoodtruck.com, @deathlessfoodtruck, and on Facebook.

This article appears in Connect Savannah I July 2024.