The Bay Area’s roster of vegan restaurants is shrinking even further, as Oakland’s Malibu’s Burgers will flip its last vegan smashburgers this weekend.
Malibu’s Burgers, located at 326 23rd St. in Uptown Oakland, will close after service on Saturday, June 6, ending the latest chapter for the Uptown Oakland restaurant that grew out of a successful food truck operation.
The shutdown follows a string of setbacks for vegetarian and vegan businesses in the Bay Area.
Oakland vegan restaurant Millennium temporarily closed in May to restructure, Amy’s Drive Thru shuttered its last Bay Area location in March, and the plant-based vision behind downtown food hall Saluhall had largely collapsed by the end of last year.
“I wish I could say it was a hard decision, but it was actually pretty easy,” owner Darren Preston told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lourdes “Lulu” Marquez-Nau, Preston’s mother and the chef at Malibu’s Burgers, said running a vegan restaurant can be difficult due to the high cost of plant-based ingredients and inconsistent sales.
“Vegan restaurants are closing left and right,” Marquez-Nau said. She added that Preston “did everything possible to try to stay open. It’s just not in the cards.”
Marquez-Nau experienced those challenges firsthand. Her vegan Puerto Rican restaurant, Casa Borinqueña, was among several concepts that closed at Saluhall last year.
He believes lower sales are partly due to the rise of meat-focused high-protein diets.
These diets have been heavily promoted in recent years by influencers and advocates such as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., even though many of their claims lack scientific support.
Preston told the outlet that he himself had stopped following a vegan diet for health reasons.
In January, he introduced meat and cheese to the menu, hoping it would give the restaurant new life.
However, the change was not enough to rejuvenate the restaurant, he said. For its final days, Malibu’s has returned to the vegan menu on which it originally built its reputation.
Saturday’s final service will end with a comedy show by vegan comedian Steven Marcus Releford.
Malibu’s first opened as a restaurant in December 2020 after several years as a food truck. Its Tasha Grande burger, modeled after a Big Mac, earned praise from former Chronicle critic Soleil Ho, who described it as having the “ample greasiness of an animal-based product.”
The restaurant closed three years later, only to reopen in 2025.
Preston said he’s exploring opportunities to bring some of Malibu’s menu items back in the future. For now, he plans to spend time with his two young children, whom he said are the primary reason he is stepping away.
“I had a moment with my daughter that made me realize that the business is really affecting me,” he said.