April 2, 2025
Pinky Cole On The ‘Final Destination’ Accident That Caused Her To Overhaul Her Life And Business
After admitting she 'wasn’t the operational person,' Cole learned the hard lessons of what happens when other people handle things you created.
Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole opened up to People about a life-changing accident that caused her to reevaluate her business.
Cole was driving 70 m.p.h. on an Atlanta highway last year when a mattress flew into her windshield and smashed. “It was like Final Destination,” Cole said. “I’m not the person to get in accidents, and I wasn’t on the phone. I wasn’t texting.”
The mother of three said she took it as a sign from God for her to rest “so he threw a damn bed on me,” she said. “In life, we always worry about the things that really don’t matter until your life is on the line. I have a newfound perspective on the things that I prioritize now after that accident.”
However, other issues lurked in the shadows that almost cost her Slutty Vegan. Cole learned the hard lessons of what happens when other people handle things you created.
“Our corporate overhead was about $10 million,” the fast-food chain founder said. “I was chasing something that I couldn’t catch for so many reasons.” The restaurant was famous for having hours-long queues, but the entrepreneur said it was “a situation where something is just too far gone.”
Cole decided that “the best thing that you could do is let it die so that you can rebirth it.” She put her business through a restructuring process, forcing her to relinquish control and ownership of the company. Cole admitted that she was fearful of the change, cringing at having “to face the opinions of others.”
She said she thought about confessing her struggles on social media but didn’t want to be a “victim.” Instead, she worked with a headhunter to find new leadership for the company. But Cole recently bought back the company for an undisclosed amount under the new name of “Ain’t Nobody Coming to See You, Otis,” a popular quote from The Temptations biopic.
She even trolled fans with a seemingly emotional video posted to Instagram teasing the “new owner” and announcing her focus to what she calls “Slutty Vegan 2.0.”
Slutty Vegan 2.0 aims to hyper-scale the food chain in the way Cole intended.
“Global expansion is big for 2.0. We’ve been talking about Dubai and Africa and just really scaling Slutty Vegan beyond the U.S.,” Cole revealed. “There’s some great opportunities for other people to get invested in the brand by way of having their own Slutty Vegan, which I’ll be able to share [more about] that in the future.”
During her time of expanding Slutty Vegan to more than a dozen locations, including her hometown of Baltimore, Cole told TheGrio that it is important to keep the quality and experiences in her restaurants as a top priority. “You can create something great. But if it ain’t consistent, then they’re not coming back,” she explained. “What I’ve learned as I’ve evolved as an entrepreneur is hospitality and consistency and quality are the things that will make for a thriving and scaling brand.”
While restructuring may be a scary idea, the business owner encourages other entrepreneurs to take a step back and take a deep dive into the business assets.
In her book, I Hope You Fail, she opens up about her ideologies and how certain moments that feel like failures should be looked at as paving roads to success. “There’s going to be a couple of left turns that you’re going to make, you’re going to make a couple of U-turns. There’s going to be some speed bumps in the road,” Cole wrote. “Somebody’s going to throw a mattress at you — but that is not reason enough to give up.”
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