New-ish on the local food scene, Basil & Bunny actually got its start before the pandemic began, signing on with Hope & Main, Warren’s food business incubator, in 2019. Officially launching in early 2020, perhaps the worst time in memory to start a food business, owners Lyslie and Mathiew Medeiros have made it work with a lineup of unique, delicious, 100% plant-based offerings that, despite their wholesome foundations, are deliciously decadent.

“All your favorite foods, made from plants” is their tag line, and from burgers to cheesesteaks to BBQ chicken sandwiches, this is meatless, dairy-free creativity at its finest. Yes, you can get wraps and salads, but to really appreciate what Lyslie and Mathiew have created here, leave the calorie counter at home.

“Basil & Bunny started as a passion project,” said Lyslie. “It started off as a blog many years ago — both of us had regular jobs.” They are Johnson & Wales graduates who met there as students nearly two decades ago. He was (and remains) in marketing while she left her job in the beauty industry to launch Basil & Bunny.

“We both had a love of cooking that we decided to nurture,” she said.

Their first meeting at Hope & Main was in the fall of 2019.

“We figured out that a food truck would probably be the best way to showcase our menu options, to kind of do a test run to see how things would work out and see what the demand was like, and we'd be able to test different markets around Rhode Island as well too. So we had booked several breweries’ events around the city in the winter of 2020, and we did our first big event at Veg Fest in February.”

And we all know what happened after February 2020. But the young, creative business executed a quick pivot, switching to online, contactless ordering and building a following that would come to Hope & Main every week for Basil & Bunny takeout.

They continued to reach out to breweries, noting that Proclamation was one of their earliest ongoing partnerships. “They were doing takeout cans as well, and we’d bring the truck and do the same thing — people would come to get their beer, they’d get their food and it was just word of mouth. It kind of just spread and we just kept going.”

“We were just starting off, and we were able to go at our own pace and kind of figure things out,” said Lyslie.

Given their backgrounds, Mathiew handles the marketing and business end of things and Lyslie is the creative visionary, but they are both self-taught chefs. “We both love cooking so much and we are both really into recipe development.”

“When we both went vegan many years ago, we didn't want to give up our favorite foods. So we just started experimenting with things that we love, and we were getting better and better at it,” she said.

The couple would cook for friends and family and it wasn’t long before people started asking them when they were going to share their creations with a wider audience.

“We try to have a balance of a little bit for everything. We want to offer things that will appeal to people who have never had a vegan burger, so we have Impossible burgers for them — kind of like that little stepping stone to understand that plant based food can be really delicious. And then we have the mix of our house made burgers too that are full of really nice natural ingredients like beans and oats and local mushrooms, and lots of organic spices. We make all of our chicken in house of wheat proteins mixed with chickpeas and spices. We have a little mix of everything for everyone.”

That same flexibility that allowed them to successfully launch in the Spring of 2020 keeps their menu interesting. “Some of our specials end up becoming fan favorites and they just have to stay because people can't get enough of them,” Lyslie said. “We did this white barbecue sauce chicken sandwich that people went wild for, so we kept that.”

Libby Slater designed the warm and inviting interior. “I wanted it to feel like a Hawaiian or Balinese bistro, almost like a little vacation for a day. I wanted people to feel very warm and homey when they come into here,” said Lyslie.

Currently, the truck is on a little bit of a hiatus but they plan to have her back up and running at breweries later in the fall, or spring at the latest. “We’ll have our home here and then the truck will probably be more in the Providence area,” said Lyslie.

For now the hours are 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, but the plan is to add more lunch hours next month, as well as a Sunday brunch.

The location at Unity Park has been open since late August.

“It was it was always the plan to do a brick and mortar from the very beginning,” said Lyslie. “It was just finding the right time and then testing the right concept and making sure that the demand was there and that we had something special.”

Visit Basil & Bunny — and the rest of Unity Park — at the PorchFest AfterParty
The new craft companies of Unity Park are hosting Bristol's PorchFest AfterParty on Sunday, Sept. 18 from 5 to 8 p.m., with festival-goers participating in a traditional New Orleans “Second Line” dance from PorchFest over to Unity Park, where Pivotal Brewing Company, Borealis Coffee, Basil and Bunny, and O’Brien & Brough will open their doors with extended hours. The afterparty will keep the music going with three bands in three locations across the Unity Park complex.

Pivotal Brewing Company Taproom will host Jake Hunsinger, playing Powerhouse Americana (a blend of full-bodied soul with a bit of a twang).
O'Brien & Brough / Pivotal Brewing Company Patio will feature Cherry Pit, a Harmonious garage rock trio Borealis Coffee will host the Tom White Jazz Trio.

Pivotal Brewing Company will feature its signature craft beers; desserts and wine will be served in Borealis Coffee Company; Basil and Bunny will have a special Sunday opening to serve their 100% plant-based comfort foods; and O’Brien & Brough, an artisan whiskey company and Unity Park’s newest addition, will be showing off their new tasting room, in anticipation of their Grand Opening in early October.