“Season 2 of “Top Vegan” is bigger and better,” said Savannah Webb, one of the show’s producers. “We’re excited to feature an impressive lineup of talented chefs and add two more episodes to the season. With new challenges and even more delicious vegan dishes, our goal is to inspire viewers and showcase the delicious potential of plant-based cooking.” The new season will premiere on YouTube on Sept. 26.

How a Dayton chef ended up on the show

Gates recalled feeling a lot of Ohio pride when watching Season 1 of the show featuring his fellow 2nd Street Market food vendor, Rhea Adkins, who owns Vegan It IZ Eats. He said he didn’t know there was going to be a second season until his friend in Columbus texted him all the information. At first he didn’t think he would have time to do it between working at Invoke and caring for his one-year-old son, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to apply. With the help of his fiancé and encouragement of his brother, they scrambled to fill out the application a day before it was due.

Gates said it took a week or two to get an interview and then there was a long wait in between finding out he was a contestant — so much so that he thought he wasn’t chosen.

Filming took place in May at Columbus State Community College.

Switching careers at 28 years old

His biggest takeaway from the show was “the validation of the choice I made all of those years ago to get into culinary arts.”

The Middletown native graduated from The Ohio State University in 2004 with a degree in Psychology and then got a second degree in early childhood education. He worked in social work for nearly three years and went on to work at preschools for seven years.

“I fell in love with cooking,” Gates said. “I started baking first just making little desserts for people at work and then that just grew the passion for it.”

At 28-years old he switched careers and moved back to the Dayton region. He worked at restaurants such as l’Auberge in Kettering, Salar and Lucky’s in Dayton’s Oregon District and the Hilton Garden Inn in Beavercreek.

Each place he worked at he learned new skills and began to see a hole in the market for those that wanted vegetarian and vegan offerings.

“At that time, I wasn’t even personally vegan yet or plant-based, but I was up for that challenge,” Gates said. “I wanted something to push my career.”

Invoke at 2nd Street Market

In 2018, the brothers opened Invoke at 2nd Street Market to bridge the gap between the standard American diet and plant-based and vegan cooking. Prior to that, he was doing pop-ups at different places around the city for about two years.

Customer favorites at Invoke include:

Gates said customers love the Invoke Red Sauce. The red pepper based sauce is so popular that they’ve started bottling it and selling it at 2nd Street Market. He confirmed the sauce was a favorite on the show.

Reigniting his passion for cooking

Gates said he felt “very honored” to be around the other contestants on “Top Vegan.” He saw many other new, creative ways to serve plant-based food.

“It was a very valid feeling to be chosen and then to cook with my peers and see so many people from so many different places that were also just as passionate, if not more, about what plant-based food is,” Gates said. “Vegan food, plant-based food has come a very long way. It is not boring. It is just as exciting as any other style of cuisine and food out there.”

The hardest part of the show for Gates was cooking in a 75-minute window. He said it’s something he does all the time, but being in the TV setting with a clock was more difficult that he expected.

Being a showman in the kitchen

The premiere of the show will give Gates a taste of what it’s like to be in the limelight — something that he saw with his father, music legend Roger Troutman.

Troutman, a singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, was well known for his use of the talk box ― a device that allows a musician’s voice to be vocalized through an instrument via a plastic tube ― on Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre’s song “California Love” (1995). He also appear on Snoop Dogg’s “Doggystyle” (1993) and Kool Keith’s “Master of the Game” (1999).

He and his brothers, along with other musicians, created the band that would become Zapp. The band released four gold-selling albums, and several funk and R&B hits. Troutman and his band helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenced West Coast hip hop due to the scene’s heavy sampling of his music over the years.

“I miss him a lot,” Gates said. “He was very influential on me cooking because growing up I got to see him perform (and) be a showman. While I didn’t take to playing instruments like he did or my brother, I think the showman side is what I really got from him and that’s what I really bring to cooking.”

At Invoke, “we want to give you this experience that you leave feeling like you didn’t just have good food, you had an awesome experience.”

MORE DETAILS

Season 2 of “Top Vegan” premieres on Sept. 26 and will be available for free on Top Vegan’s YouTube channel (@topvegan).

The show is hosted by Chad Goodwin, the owner of 4th & State in Columbus. Goodwin is also hosting a new show called, “Industry Plant” where he travels to favorite vegan restaurant across the state.

For more information, visit topvegantv.com or the show’s Instagram page (@topvegantv).