Ashaad Emamdee is nothing if not persistent. “Wanna try a vegan brat?” he asks a couple hurrying down Half Street SE in coordinating Washington Nationals gear. To two passersby in sweatshirts, he says, “You look like you want a vegan brat.”

“No offense, but you’ve gotta be kidding,” mutters a man in a navy Nats cap and a KN95 mask who declined to give his name.

None taken. Emamdee is just waiting for customers who have an open mind.

Emamdee is a regional manager for HipCityVeg, a vegan fast-casual restaurant out of Philadelphia. The Latina-owned, women-led company just opened its third D.C. location, and 11th overall, in Navy Yard. And on Monday, HipCityVeg debuted something new: a plant-based hot dog cart for game days.

Emamdee and teammate Olivia Jacocks parked the cart dead center on Half Street’s pedestrian walkway as game time for the Nationals’ matchup against the Los Angeles Dodgers approached. Under cloudy skies, as retro hit “The Boys of Summer” blared from nearby speakers, they set out to convince people to buy a meatless version of a ballpark classic.

Jackpot. “I’m obsessed with HipCityVeg,” says Emily, who lives in Foggy Bottom and did not give a last name. She happily taps her phone to pay for the $10 Beyond Meat brat sausage —which is vegan, soy, gluten, GMO and nut-free — on a vegan bun.

The hot dog cart wasn’t in the initial plans for the Navy Yard location, says HipCityVeg founder and CEO Nicole Marquis. The outpost was originally going to open in March 2020, but the pandemic scuttled the opening. That gave Marquis and her team time to consider how best to use their future location.

“We wanted to capture the essence of a traditional baseball outing with the Nats’ stadium right there. You can literally throw a baseball at it, it’s so close,” she says. “People who take the Metro walk right past us. So when I saw that I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be fun if we sold hot dogs?’”

The Beyond Meat brats are a new menu item exclusive to the cart, but it could end up on the HipCityVeg menu if fans like it, Marquis says. Nationals Park allows fans to bring a serving of food into the park, and with limited plant-based food options inside the stadium, Marquis sees the cart and the brick-and-mortar location as fulfilling a demand for meatless foods that provoke nostalgia. She’s undaunted by stereotypes that ballpark food must be meaty. “I just think the stereotype is outdated,” she says, citing a January 2020 Gallup poll that concluded nearly one in four Americans has cut back on eating meat.

HipCityVeg provided this reporter with the cart’s $15 meal deal: a brat, a refreshing fresh-pressed kale lemonade, and savory Snacklins barbecue plant crisps. I topped the plump brat with generous squirts of ketchup, mustard and relish from the on-cart pumps, and it delivered in the flavor department. Although the bun is vegan, it is not gluten-free. Marquis says the team is working on alternatives. More condiments are in the works too, like pickled onions or organic quinoa bean chili.

By 6:30 p.m., about half an hour before game time, all of the restaurant’s seven outdoor tables are filled. Most of the seated patrons have bought their food at the brick-and-mortar restaurant. Meatless chicken sandwiches (under $12) and sweet potato fries ($5.29) are popular selections. Season ticket holders Alicia and Chris, who did not give their last names, say they’d have bought from the cart if they hadn’t noticed the storefront first. Chris is vegan, and Alicia largely keeps to plant-based foods too. Nats Park has some vegan options inside its gates, Chris says, but “this is still better.”

Emily, now wearing a Mets cap, has come back to the cart for seconds. Her roommate, who is vegan, introduced her to HipCityVeg four years ago. Emily says the first brat she bought was a taste test before buying more to share. “It was amazing,” she says. Several other ballpark-goers say that they bought other food but make plans to come back another time.

HipCityVeg marketing and communications director Aviva Goldfarb says that the team prepared 40 of the plant-based hot dogs for opening day and they sold about 20.

“The first couple of weeks is learning,” says Goldfarb. “Like any small business, you launch, you learn, you test.” The Nats have home games every day through Sunday this week, so there will be plenty of time to experiment. In the coming months, the team will add local celebrities and influencers as guest hot dog slingers, with proceeds going to charities of their choice. The first guest to be confirmed is WAMU Morning Edition host Esther Ciammachilli, who will work the cart on August 13. The company also plans to work with local animal shelters and animal rescue organizations to host dog adoption events at the cart this summer.

If the first cart is successful, “maybe there will be some more hot dog carts in our future. It’s a fun way of getting more vegan food in front of people,” CEO Marquis says. “Right now, our plan is to hit a home run with this one.”

HipCityVeg is located at 1201 Half Street SE. Open 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. seven days a week. The cart will be out 2 hours before games and events and stay through the first inning or until “hot dogs” run out. It will also be at the Half Street Central Farm Market on Saturdays from 9am-1:30pm.