Slutty Vegan Founder Pinky Cole has made changes to her bankruptcy filing.

As AFROTECH™ previously reported, she filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Feb. 12, owing $1.2 million to the U.S. Small Business Administration and $192,000 to the Georgia Department of Revenue. At the time of the filing, she did not have an attorney, but now she has brought on Jamie Christy of Schreeder, Wheeler & Flint, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

On May 19, amendments were made to the bankruptcy filing to include debts totaling more than $80,000 in credit card debt and unpaid bills from a real estate agency, a restaurant supplier, several medical providers, and roadway toll authorities, per the outlet. According to the filing, that brings her total debt to $4 million, an increase from a previous amount of $3.6 million.

The bankruptcy filing follows Cole reclaiming ownership of her company, which raised a $25 million Series A in 2022, bringing its valuation to $100 million that year. At its peak, the business had 14 locations, with each costing about $800,000 to $1 million to open, according to her interview on the podcast “The Breakfast Club.”

She temporarily lost ownership of the company when it went under a global restructuring in February 2025, per a separate AFROTECH™ article.

“We kicking in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a time where inflation is through the roof … Supply chain is crazy. So, like there’s like[cost] is times six on everything. So, we did everything that we said that we were going to do in business,” Coleman explained on the podcast. “The problem is that when you grow that fast, right, sometimes you put basketball players on the golf course… So you got people that do an incredible job in their skill set, but then you position them somewhere else and they need to go. So as a result, we got $20 million in debt, right, and as a result of that debt, we were drowning.”

 

Slutty Vegan had been making “double-digit millions,” Cole said on “The Breakfast Club.” But hiring decisions and a high payroll were among the factors that led to high debt. In an interview with People, she said corporate overhead was estimated at around $10 million. 

“If you have all of these costs and everything is adding up, your bottom line is going to be red,” she said on “The Breakfast Club. “But what I didn’t know is when we were growing the company, everything I’m just signing my name on personal guarantee because nobody ever thinks about the business that it will fail. Nobody thinks like, ‘OK, this ain’t going to work one day, so don’t do that.’ Especially not me.”

Cole also said in the podcast interview that she filed an assignment for the benefit of creditors, which she described as “bankruptcy’s first cousin,” to restructure the business out of court. She said this cleaned her cap table and led to her losing ownership of the company and her position as CEO. The estate took control of Slutty Vegan and its assets to sell them to pay off debt. After 43 days, she regained control of the company, buying it under “Ain’t Nobody Coming to See You, Otis LLC” — named after a quote from the popular 1998 film “The Temptations.”

“Who else’s going to buy Slutty Vegan except for me? So 43 days later, I bought the company, but here’s the kicker. After I bought the company, I’m like, ‘OK, cool. Everything is good.’ Next thing I know, the creditors are coming after me personally because I’m the party responsible from the old co,” she recalled on “The Breakfast Club.” “So even though the old co is dead and I don’t have to deal with the old co no more, they’re coming after me ’cause they like, ‘All right, she’s a public figure. She got it. She can pay for it.’ But smart entrepreneurs know that you don’t really hold no assets in your personal name. On paper, I ain’t got nothing personally and as it should be. So, OK. All right. You have to file for bankruptcy ’cause I got lawsuits.”

She explained, “Now this becomes a part two of that restructure.”