We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chenelle Bragg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chenelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I think the biggest risk I’ve taken is opening up a business during the Covid pandemic, while businesses were closing, I’m over here with the bright idea to open a business, a food industry business at that, we all know food industry businesses usually fail within the first year, I was fortunate enough to be able to make it longer than that and I was also able to transition from a restaurant to a food truck.

Chenelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Chef Chenelle, I am a self taught Chef and I’ve been cooking since I was little and for 5 years professionally. In 2018 I was blessed to be able to cook for a few NFL and NBA athletes., from that I was able to build long lasting networking relationships. In 2019 I chose to change my diet to a Plant Based diet due to some health issues I was having, after that I found it very difficult to find really good vegan or plant based foods in the city of Charlotte, so in 2020 I chose to open a Ghost Kitchen Restaurant that was all Vegan, I closed the restaurant at the end of 2022 to rebrand and reopened a Food Truck named The Rooted Vegan.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

95% of the capital from my business has come from my savings and the fact that I still work a full time job on top of my business. Not having enough capital was a challenge that I faced and it has made my journey more difficult however I continue to keep pushing because I see the end goal of my vision.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

My business started as a side hustle, I’m 2008 I started selling plates out of my sons fathers Barber shop to begin with, the feedback I received was so positive, I decided to start catering, from me catering I was able to pick up more clientele, I did end up pausing my hustle once I relocated to North Carolina, however about 6 months later I started back up and the rest is history.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Therootedveganphx
• Facebook: Therootedveganphx