Walking into Nikki Green, a new restaurant located on E. State St after Ithaca Rev Startup Works, you’re greeted by the homey wood floors and tables situated against the wall. The open space features a kitchen stretched along the side wall, open enough that you can almost watch as your food is being made.

The showcase next to the register features Red Jacket juices and house-made desserts. Each wooden table is decorated with a small, green potted plant. In the front, a small couch and pair of chairs donned with plush cushions offer an alternative eating space. Without knowing the restaurant and its owner, there’s no way for one to know it’s vegan.

“We try to stay away from those kinds of signs,” Jacky Falkenberg, owner of Nikki Green, says. “Like you won’t see ‘fresh’ or ‘healthy’ on our walls ever, because you can look at the food and tell it’s fresh and healthy. If you ask us, we’ll tell you that we partner with local farms and it’s gluten free and everything.”

The choice to not advertise that all the food is vegan and gluten-free comes from the negative stigma around those labels. Falkenberg, who has been vegan for about two and a half years, says she’s frequently had people lose interest in the food she’s serving once they find out it’s vegan.

Falkenberg, 22, graduated from Cornell with a bachelors in Hotel Administration just last May. Originally from the Bay Area, she says it’s always been her dream to have her own restaurant.

“Growing up, I had told a lot of people I wanted to own a restaurant,” Falkenberg says. “My parents obviously heard me telling people that. So every time we would go out to eat, my dad would have the chef come out and say ‘My daughter wants to do what you do and wants to open a restaurant. Do you have any advice for her?’ Every single time the chef said 'Don’t do it.'”

Falkenberg was frequently told that starting her own restaurant was not a good idea, but she continued to tell people she would do it.

“One guy, I’m never going to forget this, he said, ‘Do you like holidays?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, of course I love holidays!’ And he said, ‘Do you love spending time with your family?’ and I was like ‘Yes! I love spending time with my family!’ And he was like, ‘You can forget about that, because when you want to go and have fun is when people want to eat, and you have to be there at all times.’ I was probably 13 or 14 when he said that.”

The detterring comments from the chefs pushed her parents to suggest that Falkenberg try working in the food industry. So she worked in fine dining for a while, learning what it was really like to work at a restaurant.

“I loved food that was plated beautifully, so I was like 'If it’s fine dining it must be better for you — especially because everyone’s paying more for it!'” Falkenberg says. “After working for a few of them I realized that’s not the case, so I transitioned more to the health side of it… [The companies] were showing me that you can have beautifully plated to-go food and have it be good for you and get people to eat more plant-based foods just because it looks pretty or tastes good, rather than marketing it as vegan.”

During her summers at Cornell, Falkenberg interned with Veggie Grill, a vegan “fast-casual” restaurant located along the west coast, and with Project Juice, a plant-based juice company located in San Francisco. She says that working under the founders of these companies and watching them make adjustments to the brand was what kept her inspired.

“I just loved the idea of owning my own business around food, so what really kept me going was watching them work,” she says.

The concept for Nikki Green came from the joke that Falkenberg wanted to get her sister to eat more vegetables. She said that she would send the menu and recipe ideas to her sister for approval. If her sister said she would eat it, they kept it; if her sister said she didn’t like it, it was out — hence their Instagram handle @makenikkigreen.

A lot of the restaurant’s outreach has been through social media. Falkenberg says that her own Instagram following -- of over 11 thousand people -- helped drive traffic to her restaurant’s page. Cook Avery McGuire found the out about the restaurant, and their need for new hires, through Instagram.

“I think either I posted a photo, or someone I knew posted a photo, and @makenikkigreen liked it,” McGuire says. From there, she found the job opening and applied.

Nikki Green is the second-ever complete plant-based restaurant in Ithaca. While most restaurants have vegan options, the only other all-vegan establishment locally is Ten Forward Cafe above Autumn Leaves Books.

“I think when you go out to eat, your food is covered in butter,” says McGuire, “because it’s an easy way to make things taste good. But I think if you can let ingredients speak for themselves and you’re using good quality ingredients, you’ll feel really satisfied… You’re eating delicious, nourishing food here. You’re going to feel satisfied.”

The restaurant had its soft opening from December 7 to the 12, and again from December 17 to the 20 to test out a shortened version of their menu. They featured a variety of their salad bowls, and a selection of smoothie bowls premiered at their opening on January 4.

“Seeing people sitting here, and not even looking at the food, but enjoying each other’s company -- that’s the best feeling,” says Falkenberg. “I would do it a million times over again to get people to have that feeling.”

Falkenberg says this restaurant is her “proof of concept” -- an example that the restaurant can launch and do well. But her plan doesn’t stop with Ithaca. From here, she plans to make Nikki Green a country-wide chain.

“Eventually, I was to open 100 Nikki Greens across the country,” she says. “The next one will probably be in California, and then we’ll spread inward from there.”

“I think Nikki Green is really really great,” says McGuire. “[It’s] what Ithaca needs.”