Devoted fans flock to NoButcher for vegan delicacies

Even with the deli counter bare and the tables empty, NoButcher feels like the kind of place where customers would want to sit and socialize.

The large, communal tables in the center of the room beckon. Counters along three walls offer a setting for singles and smaller groups to enjoy a meal. A trio of cartoon animals — a pig, a cow and a chicken wearing a tie — look on under a sign expressing their love for the only meatless butcher/deli in Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, customers haven’t been able to enjoy that atmosphere recently. Just months after they opened their doors in October 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic forced owners Alecia Ghilarducci and Sebastian Mueller to limit NoButcher’s operations to drive-thru sales.

Though they have done their best to make that experience as inviting as possible, it isn’t the type of customer interaction they envisioned.

“When we started, it was a real deli experience, and that’s obviously what we want to go back to,” Mueller explains of the pair’s dreams for the quaint shop tucked into a corner of the Rainbow Springs shopping center at Spring Mountain Road and Rainbow Boulevard. “When you come in, you can take time, you can mingle, you can sample.”

Even without that opportunity, takeout business remains brisk. Patrons line up at the drive-thru to order sandwiches made with faux meats and cheeses.

Tender, falling off the bone

The Italian Cold Cut sandwich is packed with NoTurkey, NoPepperoni, lettuce, tomato, onion and a smear of Garlic & Herb NoCream Cheese. The BLT features strips of crispy NoBacon, while the NoRib sandwich comes topped with Buffalo sauce. The Mediterranean vegetable sandwich is finished with crumbles of NoFeta.

NoButcher offers a rotating selection of 10 faux meats and a half-dozen nondairy cheeses, all made in-house by Ghilarducci, Mueller and their team. While they may not be exact replicas of the originals, their products have been welcomed by a wide array of people.

“You’d be surprised how mixed our customers are,” Mueller says. ”I would say at least a third of the people who order here at the drive-thru are not vegans. They’re flexitarians, or veg-curious, or groups where you compromise a little. The vegan or vegetarian sometimes joins you at the steakhouse, and sometimes the meat eaters join the vegans (here).”

Gary Costa is among those nonvegan fans. Raised on a dairy farm, he says “milk substitutes and fake meat (go) against everything I was taught and raised to believe about food.” He began visiting NoButcher to buy lunch for his office because some of his co-workers are vegan and was surprised to discover ribs that “tasted like the real tender meat, falling off the bone.”

“The texture was a little different,” concedes Costa, who now visits several times a month. “But the flavor was there, and everything else was just perfect. From there, I’ve tried to eat everything on the menu.”

Amazing mock meats

The restaurant’s core customers, however, are people living a plant-based lifestyle, forgoing all meats and animal products. Joni Marie Newman, food editor for VegNews magazine, says businesses such as this one are particularly appealing to those who have recently embraced a plant-based diet.

“The majority of vegans didn’t go vegan because they didn’t like the way meat tasted,” she explains. “They’re usually doing it for another reason, whether it be for animal rights, for the environment or for their health. We all know that a cheeseburger and bacon tastes good — we just don’t want to eat the real thing anymore.”

Newman is aware of about eight to 10 vegan butchers nationwide, and she says they’re giving those newcomers to the vegan lifestyle exactly what they’ve been missing.

“With places that are creating these amazing mock meats — out of wheat, out of soy, out of pea protein, out of all these incredible ingredients — they’re getting the flavors, they’re getting the textures that we crave and that we’re used to, especially if you’re new to trying to cut back on meat consumption,” Newman says.

Mueller can relate.

“I had liver problems and was looking for different ways to eat,” he says of his own journey to veganism, which began in 2015. “Then I got introduced to plant-based eating, and my health improved so much.”

As he adjusted to the new lifestyle, the former IT pro began watching YouTube videos on how vegan meat is produced and experimenting in his home kitchen.

Plant-based butchers are rare

When he began considering the idea of turning his hobby into a business, he looked to the internet for potential partners. That’s where he found Ghilarducci, who had been introduced to vegetarian cooking while working in the cafeteria of a California hospital run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church (which promotes a vegetarian diet), and having her children return from college with a no-meat philosophy.

“I think around 2016, 2017, I saw a spread in VegNews magazine that talked about nut cheeses: cashew cheese, almond cheese. And I think I made them all and was serving them to my family. Then it kind of took off from there, and I started venturing out and experimenting on my own.”

When her husband’s career brought Ghilarducci to Las Vegas, she and Mueller began collaborating. Their first professional venture was selling pulled NoPork sandwiches at a vegan food festival in March 2018.

“Before the festival started, there were already people lining up,” Mueller recalls. “And every other person (asked), ‘Do you have a store?’ ”

They resisted that idea for a while, preferring festivals, pop-ups and other one-off events. But, Mueller says, “at some point you realize you’re getting older, and a festival and pop-up business is nothing that’s sustainable for 10 years.”

While the concept of a completely plant-based butcher or deli isn’t new, it is relatively rare. Yet Mueller says they had no trouble finding an audience in Las Vegas, thanks primarily to the tightknit local vegan community.

“It’s a matter of trust,” he theorizes. “We’re a typical mom-and-pop kind of thing, and people know us personally. They know we’re passionate about it, and I think that shows.”

Open for drive-thru sales every day from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Most sandwiches and salads cost $9.90 to $13.90; deli items start at $4 per half-pound. Place orders for pickup or delivery at nobutcher.com.