March 20, 2017

Meet Jessica Schoech of Vegan Street Fair in North Hollywood

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Schoech.

Jessica, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
As a native New Yorker, my transition to LA in 2009 was a bit rocky. I had grown accustomed to being around people all day long in the subways, on the streets, and anywhere to grab a bite to eat while traversing New York City’s many diverse areas. LA’s sprawl was truly an adjustment for me, so naturally I struggled. In 2011, my husband and I moved from El Segundo to North Hollywood where I could connect to my city roots a bit. That year, I decided to explore veganism after a trip to Seaworld. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it changed my life. I finally became more connected to LA by getting involved in the local vegan community while visiting animal sanctuaries, attending vegan meet ups, patronizing vegan eateries, and going to vegan events. The thing people don’t tell you when you become vegan is that you start doing this funny thing where you become a traveling foodie, searching high and low for veganized favorites like corn dogs, donuts, burgers, cakes, you name it. In 2011, I found the existing mobile location based apps designed for vegan food searching to be subpar for my vegan foodie adventures, so I set out to start a vegan food finding app. After 3 long years of lawyers, LLCs, app development, and database populating, the app took a turn for the worse and our developer skipped out on us. It was gut wrenching. My failed business swallowed up our life savings and so much of our valuable time and resources.

While I was populating data for the app before it fizzled away, I took a look at over 400 vegan friendly eateries in LA. I thought, “Hmmmm… I could live here for 10 years and never get to each and every one of these.” That was when the idea for a vegan event like Vegan Street Fair was born. If I couldn’t get to all of them, maybe they could come to me! The blessing of the app’s demise was that my resources went fully into creating this vegan food tasting extravaganza in a NY street fair style. The first and only event of its kind, Vegan Street Fair’s debut event in 2015 held on 2 small streets in North Hollywood became an overnight sensation. The idea was to emulate NYC street fairs like San Genaro and merge them with something like Taste of Chicago, vegan style. Street fairs are about celebrating culture and that’s what we wanted for VSF- a free, family friendly environment with great music, amazing food, and that sense of camaraderie that comes from being in a place with likeminded souls.

Without any events of its kind to look to for a precedent, we had no idea how many people to expect. We didn’t flyer, nor did we pay Facebook for boosted ads. We just winged it and did all of the work on the ground in a grassroots fashion. My husband has extensive background in TV production, especially live TV, so we treated this event like a production. Our staff came equipped with walkie talkies and serious production experience so we knew they’d be just as dedicated to our cause as we were. Now here’s the fun part- remember how I mentioned there was no precedent for such an event? We anticipated 3000-5000 at the high end. Instead, around 10,000 people flooded the streets on March 1st, 2015 all in search of the best vegan eats LA had to offer. It was intense. It was scary. It was exhilarating. We had a hit on our hands and by 12pm, we knew the next year had to get MUCH, MUCH bigger. No sooner did we make that call internally when LA decided to bless the vegans on the streets waiting for food with- get this- rain and HAIL. I had never seen hail in LA before so this was a shock to many of us. It was funny, awful, and a complete surprise to all of us on the streets that day. Our very first Vegan Street Fair was a mix of elation, fear, and taking our lumps. We had experienced the worst and we were determined to avoid those pitfalls the following year.

2016 was a very different animal as we grew exponentially- in square footage, vendor quantity, and 20,000 attendees at our newly expanded location. Luckily, the skies were blue and there was no hail in sight so we had a relatively successful 2016 event. Our biggest misstep in 2016 was a food ticket system that our staff simply could not keep up with. The success of the event in 2016 lead us to nix food tickets altogether to make room for more people having access to the food for future events, as that was what VSF was all about to begin with.

In September of 2016, we launched a boutique sister event entitled VSF Nights. Unlike our flagship event, entrance to Nights required a paid ticket and only boasted a small variety of food vendors CURATED BY VEGANFATKID HIMSELF for attendees to enjoy. In addition, the event took place over two nights at The Federal Bar with a beer garden, billiards, board games, and an amazing cover band- Flashpants- that wowed the crowd with their 80s inspired acts. We look forward to bringing Nights to a few new cities in 2018.

Today, VSF is currently at work planning the 3rd flagship event that will take place on Sunday, March 26th, 2017 on even more of the North Hollywood footprint. In addition to Nights which will again take place in September of 2017 at The Federal Bar, VSF is also expanding to New York City in June of 2017. With the success of the LA events, other large cities are poised for an event of this magnitude and we can only imagine the turnout for VSF NYC. The Vegan Street Fair brand is growing and we can only hope that we can keep up with it. It is a testament to the growing desire for more vegan options across the board, whether that be for ethical, environmental, health, or even part time reasons that we are growing at such a rapid pace. We are thrilled to be able to help thousands of people discover just how good the vegan lifestyle can be when we all come together to celebrate its magic.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It certainly has not been a smooth road. Our first attempt at monetization with the event came in the form of food tickets inspired by other “Taste of” events. The system was meant for the quickest possible transaction time between food service and attendee. No fumbling with change, no dealing with waiting for credit cards, and no cash exchanged meant faster transactions. The problem with this system is that people have to wait in line to buy tickets, then wait in line to buy food, so naturally, it was not a system that made everyone very happy. Many vendors loved the ease of it, some attendees expected it to be what it was, and others were just flat out angry. We nixed tickets after 2 years at attempting them and found a much better monetization structure. Way less headache!

Vegan Street Fair – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Vegan Street Fair is really special because it’s the first and only event of its kind. It’s a free vegan event dedicated to providing bite sized portions of vegan eats for $4 or less in a family friendly environment in the heart of a walkable Los Angeles city. We pride ourselves on helping catapult many new vendors onto the vegan scene. With 20,000 people walking the street during our last event, we are arguably the 2nd or 3rd largest vegan event in the country, so new businesses enjoy the immense exposure of such a turnout, both via social media and at the event itself. What sets us apart from others is that we are really a boutique, family run business dedicated to getting all of the pieces right. We aren’t volunteer run, nor are we run by a board, so we tackle each and every aspect of this event as a really small 5 person team. Vendors know they can call or text me at any time to get the answers to any questions they may have. We have personal relationships with mostly every single vendor we’ve worked with and we really feel proud to call VSF a family because that’s what it feels like.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Honestly? I work from home. I have 2 young children. They are my whole world. I mostly work when they are asleep. Some days I feel like I don’t devote my every waking second to them because I’m checking emails or taking calls during the day when I’m with them, but I know there is a balance in this mompreneur life. The proudest moment of my career so far was having my then 3 year old son tell me, “Mom… Vegan Street Fair makes me proud of you.” That’s all I will ever need in this life.

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