Plant-based Grill’d stores in Sydney and Melbourne flip back to serving meat

When Grill'd converted a store in Sydney and another in Melbourne last month into exclusively plant-based venues, Good Food pondered if a meatless burger store wouldn't exclude some of its customer base?

Grill'd founder Simon Crowe didn't seem too concerned, telling The Sydney Morning Herald: "We know and expect that we're going to hurt our top line and our bottom line for these two restaurants."

Perhaps it hurt a little too much. When we visited the Darlinghurst store last week, it had jettisoned the Impossibly Grill'd branding and was once again a traditional Grill'd store. The company confirmed the Melbourne outlet had also reverted.

Grill'd, which maintains they were only ever pop-up concept stores, concedes it did receive some negative feedback from regular customers.

"We now think the way forward is not to convert existing restaurants but to open brand new locations with this concept," a Grill'd spokeswoman says.