3 Twisted Vegans plan to take vegan fast food to another level in D.C.

After many years of eating an assortment of junk and fast food, Washington, D.C. natives Rhoneika, Rhoni and Rhone’t Jacobs, 23, decided they wanted to adapt to a healthier lifestyle. First, they started by eating “clean,” which is the process of eliminating processed food from one's diet and replacing it with whole foods, but after a few months Rhoni had a dream that would affect the triplets lives in a way that was unforeseen to them all at the time.

“One day, at like four or five o’clock in the morning, I woke up out of my sleep and something said ‘Go Vegan!,’” Rhoni said. “I told Rhoneika first ... I said, ‘Rhoneika, when we go shopping this weekend we’re going vegan--no more meat, no nothing.’”

Rhoneika and Rhone’t were not too happy to hear Rhoni’s declaration. After a two-hour-long argument between the three sisters they officially agreed to leave animal products in the past and begin their vegan journey in mid-2015. Almost immediately, they began to notice different changes in their health--changes that were both positive and negative.

“We started to notice, little by little … her asthma started to go down, and I had like indigestion problems every Thursday after school that started to decrease and then gradually everybody’s weight started to go down. So, it started to benefit us in the long run,” Rhoni said.

Despite the health gains the sisters were making, Rhoneika and Rhoni suffered from adverse effects due to a lack of education on the practice of veganism. “When we first started, we were eating certain things, but we were also missing out on certain things,” Rhone’t said. “We thought that a salad would cover everything, but after six or seven weeks into it I noticed their hair started falling out.”

This inspired the sisters to change their overall eating habits to something more nutritious and fulfilling. Rhoneika, who says she “loves to cook” and primarily cooks the majority of their weekly meals, began experimenting with everything under the sun--from fast food favorites, like hamburgers and pizza, to Southern-inspired soul food and Caribbean food, using mostly unprocessed, all-vegan ingredients.

Eventually, these changes led the sisters to create their own “all-vegan” fast food restaurant concept, 3 Twisted Vegans, which stresses the importance of healthy eating with a side of convenience.

“We’re putting a spin on things that vegans normally wouldn’t eat. A lot of vegans eat tofu, and we don’t … It’s just like a twisted or different mindframe than a normal vegan would have,” Rhone’t said. “It would be nice if we had a way to help people who were traveling have like our own version of McDonald’s.”

Although their dream of having 3 Twisted Vegans’ drive-thrus on every other corner in the District is in the works, the sisters first featured their food to D.C. metropolitan area residents at their very own all-vegan pop-up restaurant last October. There, they sold vegan hamburgers, milkshakes and french fries to a large and eager following, which they mostly gained through social media. They say for their first pop-up, their main goal was to offer a healthy alternative to other vegans.

Their second pop up, which will be held at EatsPlace on Georgia Avenue in Petworth on May 14 from five to nine-thirty at night, will offer vegans and non-vegans-alike a chance to try the sisters own spin on vegan “street-food.” They plan to feature tacos, milkshakes, hamburgers, fries and other “street-food” items.

“You’ll get good quality, it’s going to be enough time and it’s going to be an experience that people never had before,” Rhoneika said.