Pinky Cole Hayes was involved in a freak car accident in Atlanta where a mattress flew into her car windshield while she was driving 70 mph on the highway. The accident occurred after the business owner lost her multi-million dollar business, Slutty Vegan, due to exorbitant corporate spending. After buying back her business, Pinky is looking to revamp Slutty Vegan and lean further into the hospitality space through a joint venture with her husband, Derrick Hayes, owner of Big Dave's Cheesesteaks.

Pinky Cole Hayes was thinking of her master business plan when life (literally) forced her to slow down and reflect on her path.

During an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the Slutty Vegan owner, 37, revealed that amid all of her business endeavors, she experienced a life-threatening car accident. While she was driving at 70 mph on the highway in Atlanta, a mattress flew into and smashed Pinky’s windshield. “It was like Final Destination,” she said. “I'm not the person to get in accidents, and I wasn't on the phone. I wasn't texting.”

The unique experience resulted in the restaurateur having to go to the hospital and, begrudgingly, take a much-needed break from her business pursuits. “In life, we always worry about the things that really don't matter until your life is on the line,” she explained. “I have a newfound perspective on the things that I prioritize now after that accident.”

Pinky, who shares children D Ella, 3, Derrick Jr., 2, and David, 1, with her husband, believed the freak accident was somewhat of a message from God telling her to rest — “so he threw a d--- bed on me,” she joked.

A Rocky Year and Hard Business Lessons

“Right now in this moment, I've really been in a place of peace, but I had a really rocky 2024,” she shared. Following a few financial setbacks with Slutty Vegan, Pinky lost her business and needed to find a way forward.

“Our corporate overhead was about $10 million,” Pinky stated. “I was chasing something that I couldn't catch for so many reasons.” Though she knew the fast-food chain was special and connected to a large audience—famous for consistently having hours-long queues—the corporate spend was too much for the entrepreneur to catch up with. She called it “a situation where something is just too far gone,” in which “the best thing that you could do is let it die so that you can rebirth it.”

She admitted that she “wasn’t the operational person” and had people in place to run Slutty Vegan from a business perspective, but she learned that as a business owner, “You can never take your hands off the wheel.”

On Feb. 13, Pinky had to make the difficult decision to put Slutty Vegan through a restructuring, relinquishing control and ownership of the company. “I fought it for a long time, to be honest, and I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to face the public scrutiny,” she confessed. “I didn't want to face the opinions of others because I know I built something that's so doted by so many people. I could have easily gone to social media and did a rally cry for help, but I didn't want to be a victim.”

Although her business looked like a failure on the surface, it's just the type of situation that Pinky encourages entrepreneurs to embrace and find inspiration through in her ironically titled book, I Hope You Fail. In the book, she shares her ideologies about life’s ebbs and flows and how moments that feel like failures are actually stepping stones on the road to success.

“There's going to be a couple of left turns that you're going to make, you're going to make a couple of U-turns. There's going to be some speed bumps in the road,” she said of her business journey. “Somebody’s going to throw a mattress at you—but that is not reason enough to give up.”

The Rise of Slutty Vegan 2.0

After losing her first restaurant in a grease fire in 2016, then having her car repossessed and getting evicted from her apartment shortly after, Pinky calls herself “an expert at failing.” But resilience is what has driven her path, and she fought hard to win her company back.

Pinky went into “strategy mode” to figure out her next moves following the restructuring of Slutty Vegan. She hired a headhunter to find new leadership for the company, and on March 28, 2025, she proudly bought back her company (for an undisclosed amount) under the name Ain't Nobody Coming to See You, Otis LLC—a purposeful nod to the famous quote from The Temptations film.

“People love Slutty Vegan because they love me, and I used to not tap into that. But I [now] know I have a superpower with people,” she explained. “People love me, so I know that people are going to support and back me in whatever it is that I authentically do.”

Currently, Slutty Vegan has eight locations—five in Georgia, one in Alabama, one in Maryland, and another in New York. The chain previously had additional locations that have since been permanently or temporarily closed during the restructure.

Now Pinky is turning her focus to what she calls Slutty Vegan 2.0, which she says will have “new rules and new intentions.” The reimagined Slutty Vegan will retain “the same essence but with a new flow,” as she describes it. “My last investors, they brought value for what they brought value to, but when you think about elevation and growth, I'm elevating and growing with a new set of folks, and I'm excited about it.”

A Vision for Global Expansion

Slutty Vegan’s future looks bright as Pinky aims to hyper-scale the food chain in the way she originally intended. “Global expansion is big for 2.0.” she revealed. “We've been talking about Dubai and Africa and just really scaling Slutty Vegan beyond the U.S. There are some great opportunities for others to invest in the brand by way of having their own Slutty Vegan, which I’ll be able to share more about in the future.”

Besides Slutty Vegan, Pinky also owns its spinoff brand, Bar Vegan, a tapas and cocktail bar with a modern flair. She is now looking to expand further into the hospitality space alongside her husband, Derrick Hayes, who owns Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks. Together, they are launching The Hayes Hospitality Group to build a larger food empire.

“The goal is to build this big food empire,” Pinky shared. “Between me and my husband and his projects and my projects—I just love to connect people and community. And if I can do that by way of food, it's a win-win for everybody.”

With her recent business and life hurdles behind her, Pinky is looking ahead and staying focused on success: “I just want to sit back and watch all of the great brands that I build and create be successful.”