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When Sarma Melngailis co-founded Pure Food and Wine with Matthew Kenney, she had something remarkable on her hands. Soon after it opened in 2004, the fine-dining vegan restaurant became highly famous.
Melngailis abruptly disappeared after a decade in the firm and was subsequently imprisoned for fraud. The restaurant's stock collapsed as a result of the unpaid pay incident.
Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. is a Netflix documentary that focuses on Sarma's relationship with her then-husband, Anthony Strangis, and how she diverted money from the business to him.
All of Sarma Melngailis' earnings from the Netflix show went to the employees she had wronged.
Melngailis, known as the "Queen of Vegan Cuisine," revealed the news on her website on Wednesday after the release of her docu-series, saying,
"In my case, however, and at my insistence, the producers made an exception so that I could pay the total amount my former employees were owed — amounts that accrued after my disappearance in 2015. Of all the harm and the many debts resulting from my downfall, this portion weighed heaviest."
How much money did Sarma Melngailis make?
Sarma did not begin her career in the restaurant industry. In 1990 she earned an economics degree from Pennsylvania's famed Wharton School. Her friendship with chef Matthew Kenney, who was also her boyfriend, led to the founding of the Commissary in 2001 when she realized that food was her actual calling.
Sarma and Matthew teamed up with investor Jeffrey Chodorow to open Pure Food and Wine in Manhattan, New York, in 2004, two years after that closed. The restaurant immediately gained a good reputation for its vegan raw food menu and attracted celebrities such as actors, athletes, and supermodels.
Sarma quickly expanded her business by opening One Lucky Duck, a vegan juice bar, and an online store of the same name, which sells snacks and cuisine cooked at Pure Food and Wine. The expansion was a success, with Sarma opening two more One Lucky Duck locations, one in Chelsea Park, New York, and one in San Antonio, Texas.
Sarma has authored the books Raw Food/Real World and Living Raw Food, both about raw vegan food. Pure Food and Wine used to make $7 million in annual gross sales. But by 2016, everything had fallen apart, with staff walking out over unpaid wages and Sarma and her husband being imprisoned for fraud.
After her arrest, Sarma's prosperous business was shut down, leaving her in debt. Sarma's net worth was close to $1.5 million when she went to prison. According to the show, she now owes over $6 million to her investors, employees, and others.
How much money did Sarma Melngailis send to Anthony Strangis?
Sarma Melngailis and Anthony Strangis met online in 2011 and married at the end of the following year. However, officials suspected Sarma had transferred about $1.6 million from the business to her account by the time they were captured, while Anthony had gambled away $1.2 million.
Not only that, but they both spent around $150,000 on fancy watches and travels throughout Europe. Both were eventually sentenced to short prison terms followed by probation for their actions.
