 The first Cranks opened at 22 Carnaby Street, London, in 1961.There were very few vegetarian restaurants in the United Kingdom at the time, and wholefoods were hard to get.Although by no way the first vegetarian restaurant in the U.K. - Sir George Newnes, 1st Baronet opened a successful vegetarian restaurant in Manchester as early as the 1880s -  Cranks has been seen as a major factor in the spread of vegetarianism in recent decades.