Plow Burger, one of Austin's top spots for vegan burgers in three locations across the city, plus one in Denton, has closed most of its physical doors, opting instead to operate as a ghost kitchen. The last physical location closes on January 15. Plow Burger's sister brand, Brunch Bird, has also closed.

An Instagram post says, "We will be launching a digital kitchen soon after, but our physical location will be no longer after January 15. We will give more updates soon." A spokesperson told CultureMap Dallas that the closure was predicated on a variety of factors that included the pandemic and an unsustainable increase in the cost of goods.

Plow Burger was founded in 2018 by Isaac Mogannam and partner Jason Sabala, founder of Buzz Mill Coffee in Austin, where they set up their first food truck location. It's been called "a vegan and meat-eater's food truck heaven," with burgers so flavorful that meat-lovers might fail to notice the difference, and won an award in 2018 for "Plant-Based Burger Supremacy" from the Austin Chronicle. (We even named it in our top 10 meals of 2022.)

The menu includes burgers, wings, and fries that are all plant-based, such as the Campfire burger, with vegan American cheese, pickles, mayo, shoestring onions, and barbecue sauce.

Over time, Plow Burger branched out to include other trucks outside Nadamoo! and Hyde Park Market, and a brick-and-mortar on East 7th Street. The expansion to Denton was initiated in July 2021 by Ed Soto, a veteran chef and manager who'd worked with Mogannam and was also a Plow Burger regular in Austin.

The Nadamoo! location closed in March of 2020, with a short announcement attributing the closure to "recent news," but redirecting customers to the other two existing trucks. In August of 2022, the Hyde Park truck closed, but the company softened the news with the opening of the East 7th Street location less than two weeks later. However, on October 1, 2022, Plow Burger announced that the same brick-and-mortar was broken into, but it did not go into detail about the damages. The Denton location closed in December.

This news comes close on the heels of the closure of one of Austin's most unique and established vegan restaurants, Counter Culture. Owner Susan Davis told KVUE that she had been looking for new building for three years, and eventually ceded to unsustainably high prices.

The most recent update from Plow Burger has the Riverside (Buzz Mill) truck closing January 15. The company confirmed in one comment that by "digital," it means it will operate as a ghost kitchen. It mentioned in another that its menu will continue to be available in Austin through Uber.