How it started

Pinky Cole relocated to Atlanta and came up with Slutty Vegan during a late-night craving for plant-based fast food in the city. The brand grew out of that idea into a Black-owned Atlanta business with a national following — one of the clearest recent examples of an Atlanta food brand becoming a culture brand.

Putting ownership in other hands

In 2022, Cole delivered the commencement address at Clark Atlanta University and gifted an LLC to every member of the graduating class — a business entity for each graduate rather than a gift. It is the kind of gesture that says something specific about what she thinks Atlanta should do with its platform.

Why she sits in this index

Black Atlanta's food economy is enormous and mostly invisible to national finance. Cole is one of the people who made it visible, and who turned a single restaurant into a brand that could be scaled from here instead of somewhere else.