Love Again Local is a new sandwich shop located in the borough of West Chester. However, it’s not just any sandwich shop; all of the menu items are 100 percent plantbased, a.k.a. vegan!
All of the sandwiches are delicious, cruelty-free and satisfying. If that isn’t enough to make you want to stop by, then maybe knowing that the owner, Elena Mascherino, is a WCU alumna will! Mascherino stopped eating meat around 20 years ago, graduated from the art department in 2000 and has stayed in the area ever since.
“When I moved here, I fell in love with the town instantly,” she said when asked about why she chose West Chester for her restaurant. “It had everything you needed, the one thing that it lacked was a vegan restaurant.”
Despite being an art major, Mascherino dreamt about opening a vegan restaurant in the heart of town. “I used to write menus all the time… I would look at ‘for rent’ signs in store windows just dreaming about it.”
In order to dip her feet in the food business, Mascherino started working at the Artisan Exchange in West Chester, PA. She started in the cookie wholesale business, making and selling the mouth watering Love Chunk Cookies which are also entirely vegan. She spent a year and a half building up her cookie business and selling to local restaurants and Whole Foods. When her lease was up at the Artisan Exchange, she decided to pursue something further.
It took Mascherino nearly 20 years to fulfill her dream because she didn’t know anything about the field, or how to even open a restaurant. After waiting long enough and seeing that no one had done it yet, she “got up enough nerve” to open a vegan restaurant herself.
“I had no idea how it would all happen, but it did,” she told me.
While there are other restaurants in West Chester with vegan options, Love Again Local is the only 100 percent vegan restaurant. Not only does Love Again Local attract vegans and vegetarians, but they also cater to meat eaters.
“A lot of people are looking for an option, even if they don’t want to go fully vegan or vegetarian, to have a meatless meal,” Mascherino said and she wanted to make sure it’s a satisfying meal too.
Other vegan options in town are primarily vegetable-based, which isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t entice meat-eaters in the same way. We live in a world that is very meat centered, so providing people with something similar is a way to get them to eat less animals.
“You need somewhere to start,” Mascherino said regarding the vegan “meats” on her menu. “A vast majority of people eat meat, it’s what they know, but the fact of the matter is that what we serve isn’t an animal.”
However, that isn’t the only thing that makes this restaurant unique. The atmosphere is incredibly welcoming and friendly and Mascherino worked hard to make it that way.
People have gone up to Mascherino and told her how comfortable the atmosphere is. She attributes a large part of this to her staff. “They’re awesome, they’re everything,” she said regarding her employees. The staff is happy because they want to be there, and that makes the customers happy. As Mascherino called it herself, “it’s an all encompassing, loving experience.”
What’s important is that everyone is welcome. When you walk through the door it doesn’t matter if you eat meat, are a vegan or fall anywhere in between. “It’s all about getting some good food and having fun.”
Check out Love Again Local at 18 S. Church St., Tuesdays through Sundays!
Paige Baselice is a third- year English major with minors in theater, linguistics, and Spanish. She can be reached at PB853173@wcupa.edu or on her twitter @paige_margo.