Who Is Heidi Van Pelt? Her Life and Marriage to Taran Noah Smith

Heidi Van Pelt married former Home Improvement actor Taran Noah Smith on April 27, 2001, when he was 17 and she was 32.

Their 16-year age difference attracted widespread press attention, but their relationship also developed into a professional partnership centered on vegan food.

Together, they created Playfood, a California company associated with plant-based catering and a cashew-based alternative to dairy cheese.

Van Pelt later returned to Kansas City, Missouri, where she developed another following through Füd, a vegan restaurant that opened in 2010.

Her public story involves far more than a widely discussed celebrity marriage. It includes experimental cooking, independent restaurants, and two very different food scenes.

Heidi Van Pelt Quick Facts

Who Is Heidi Van Pelt?

Heidi Van Pelt is an American vegan chef whose work became publicly visible during the growth of raw and plant-based dining in the 2000s.

She became nationally recognizable after marrying Smith, who had spent eight seasons playing Mark Taylor on ABC’s Home Improvement.

The press often defined her through that relationship, yet contemporary restaurant reporting identified her as a chef-owner with distinct culinary ideas.

Her cooking emphasized raw ingredients, nuts, grains, vegetables, and substitutes designed to recreate familiar American comfort foods.

In Kansas City, she served dishes such as meatless tacos, vegan lasagna, and chicken-fried steak without conventional meat or dairy ingredients.

How Old Is Heidi Van Pelt?

Van Pelt was reported to be 32 when she married Smith on April 27, 2001, placing her birth around 1968 or 1969.

Smith was born on April 8, 1984, and had turned 17 less than three weeks before their wedding.

Coverage commonly described Van Pelt as 16 years older than Smith, a difference that became the dominant theme in reports about them.

She was approximately 36 when their relationship ended in 2005 and around 38 when Smith filed for divorce in February 2007.

By the time Füd opened as a permanent Kansas City restaurant in April 2010, Van Pelt was in her early 40s.

Her Kansas City Roots

Van Pelt grew up in the Kansas City area, a connection that later shaped the second major phase of her food career.

After living and working in California, she moved back to Kansas City in 2005, the same year her relationship with Smith ended.

At that time, Kansas City offered fewer dedicated raw and vegan restaurants than larger coastal cities such as Los Angeles.

She responded by organizing dining events in private homes and introducing customers to her plant-based interpretations of familiar dishes.

Those gatherings allowed Van Pelt to test recipes and build a local audience before committing to a permanent restaurant space.

Her Culinary Direction

Van Pelt’s work centered on vegan and raw-food cooking rather than conventional restaurant cuisine or formal celebrity catering alone.

Her dishes relied on ingredients such as wild rice, avocado, beets, seitan, goji berries, and cashews to reproduce recognizable textures.

One of her signature creations was a raw taco containing wild-rice “meat,” avocado, and a goji-infused cashew cheese.

For her vegan burger, beets supplied a meatlike red color, while strands of wheat-based seitan created an intentionally unusual texture.

The goal was comfort food with plant-based ingredients, including versions of meals commonly associated with meat, cheese, and home cooking.

Meeting Taran Noah Smith

Smith was best known as Mark Taylor, the youngest son of Tim Allen’s character on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement.

He began appearing on the series in 1991 at age seven and remained through its eighth and final season in 1999.

The program placed Smith alongside Allen, Patricia Richardson, Zachery Ty Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Richard Karn.

After the series ended when Smith was 16, he decided against continuing the acting career that had occupied most of his childhood.

Van Pelt entered his public story during that transition, as he was moving away from television and exploring veganism and environmental interests.

Their Controversial Wedding

Van Pelt and Smith married on April 27, 2001, shortly after Smith’s 17th birthday and before he reached California’s age of majority.

She was 32, which made the couple’s 16-year age difference a repeated subject in entertainment coverage and later retrospectives.

Smith’s history as a child actor added another layer of attention because viewers remembered him as the youngest Taylor brother on television.

The couple’s wedding occurred about two years after Home Improvement aired its series finale on May 25, 1999.

Their marriage lasted legally for almost six years, although published accounts place their separation in 2005.

Taran Noah Smith’s Career

Smith appeared in all eight seasons of Home Improvement, a family sitcom built around television handyman Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor.

The ABC series ran for 204 episodes between September 17, 1991, and May 25, 1999.

Mark began as the sensitive youngest Taylor child and later adopted darker clothing and interests as the character entered adolescence.

Smith received Young Artist Awards for his work in 1992 and 1994, recognizing his performance within the show’s young ensemble.

He also appeared in the 1995 television movie Ebbie and voiced Rat Boy in a 1997 episode of Batman Beyond predecessor The Batman Superman Movie era programming.

Their Playfood Business

Van Pelt and Smith turned their shared interest in vegan eating into Playfood, a catering and specialty-food venture based in California.

Its best-known product was a nondairy cheese made primarily from cashews rather than milk or soy.

The product received attention from vegan publications, including VegNews and Herbivore, during an earlier stage of the plant-based cheese market.

Playfood also attracted television coverage, with later food reporting noting exposure connected to programs on ABC and MTV.

The company linked Van Pelt’s recipe development with Smith’s interest in environmental living and alternatives to animal-based food production.

Their Home Restaurant

The pair served vegan meals from their Sherman Oaks residence on selected nights, creating an informal restaurant experience around Playfood.

Los Angeles authorities stopped the home operation because it wasn’t approved as a legal restaurant at that residential property.

Van Pelt and Smith continued promoting Playfood through catering, events, and retail sales of their cashew-based cheese in Los Angeles stores.

They also planned a restaurant location in Studio City, although reporting in early 2007 said the space had remained unopened for an extended period.

The unfinished location showed the practical difficulties of converting a specialty food idea into a stable, full-service restaurant business.

Why Their Marriage Ended

Published accounts place the couple’s separation in 2005, four years after their wedding and amid their work on Playfood.

Smith filed for divorce on February 2, 2007, formally beginning the legal end of the marriage.

The breakup became entangled with disagreements over Playfood, which both spouses had helped develop during their years together.

Smith also sought a temporary injunction involving Van Pelt and the business, according to contemporaneous entertainment reporting.

Reliable coverage confirms the separation, divorce filing, and business conflict, but it does not establish one definitive private cause for the split.

Did They Have Children?

Van Pelt and Smith had no publicly documented children during their marriage from 2001 until their separation in 2005.

Their shared public undertaking was Playfood, which combined Van Pelt’s recipes with their interest in vegan and organic products.

Coverage of the divorce concentrated on control and ownership of the company rather than child custody or parenting arrangements.

The absence of children also meant that later reports followed their separate careers instead of an ongoing public family relationship.

After the marriage ended, Smith reconciled with his parents and pursued environmental projects, sailing, and disaster-relief work.

Her Return to Missouri

Van Pelt returned to Kansas City in 2005 and began rebuilding her culinary work within the city’s developing vegan community.

She hosted underground dining events at different homes, a format that let guests try complete raw and plant-based meals.

Her operation later appeared as a pop-up inside Bad Seed, a farmers market in Kansas City’s Crossroads district.

Van Pelt used the temporary venue for about four months, testing recipes and measuring demand for a dedicated restaurant.

The pop-up connected her California experience with Midwestern ingredients and the comfort-food preferences of Kansas City diners.

Her Füd Restaurant

Van Pelt and business partner Jerimiah Rozzo-Belle took over the former Sun Ray Cafe premises in October 2009.

After cleaning and repainting the space, they opened Füd in Kansas City’s Westside neighborhood in April 2010.

The opening menu included raw tacos, lasagna, meatless chicken-fried steak, and other vegan versions of familiar American meals.

Entrées initially cost between $6 and $8, giving the restaurant a relatively accessible position within specialized plant-based dining.

Füd operated for seven years before closing in August 2017 following a serious breakdown between its owners and employees.

What Happened to Füd?

On August 4, 2017, Van Pelt arrived at Füd with an attorney and police officer and ordered the restaurant cleared.

The shutdown followed employee resignations, an adverse online review, and a widening dispute over management and workplace conduct.

Former employees made several allegations about Van Pelt’s statements, which she disputed in an email published by The Pitch.

Van Pelt owned 51 percent of Füd, while Rozzo held 49 percent and disagreed with her decision to halt operations.

Although Van Pelt initially said she expected the restaurant to reopen, Füd did not resume its previous seven-year operation.

Is Heidi on Social Media?

No broadly verified public account currently provides a dependable record of Van Pelt’s audience size or regular professional updates.

Pages carrying versions of her name exist on major platforms, but identity alone does not establish that she controls each profile.

Unlike Smith, whose later environmental and disaster-relief activities received periodic coverage, Van Pelt largely left national entertainment reporting.

Her strongest accessible public record remains the archive of Playfood coverage and Kansas City reporting about Füd.

That record identifies her primarily as a working vegan chef and independent restaurant owner rather than a media personality.

Heidi Van Pelt Today

Van Pelt’s last widely documented business chapter was Füd, which closed in 2017 after seven years in Kansas City.

No comparable restaurant venture has since generated the same level of established local reporting under her name.

Her culinary record remains tied to cashew cheese, raw tacos, vegan comfort food, Playfood, and the early Kansas City dining-club events.

That work arrived before plant-based meat and nondairy cheese became common products in mainstream American grocery stores and restaurant chains.

Still, Heidi Van Pelt remains most frequently searched because of her marriage to Taran Noah Smith, not her years behind restaurant counters.

A Complicated Public Legacy

The age difference and Smith’s former child-star status ensure that their 2001 wedding remains the most debated part of Van Pelt’s biography.

Her restaurant history offers a more substantial picture, from California’s Playfood operation to Füd’s seven-year run in Kansas City.

Heidi Van Pelt’s public life resists a neat celebrity ending. It combines genuine culinary experimentation with a marriage and business disputes that repeatedly overshadowed it.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Who is Heidi Van Pelt?

Heidi Van Pelt is an American vegan chef and food entrepreneur. She became widely known after marrying former Home Improvement actor Taran Noah Smith in 2001.

2. How old was Heidi when she married?

Van Pelt was reported to be 32 when she married Smith on April 27, 2001. Smith was 17, giving the couple a reported 16-year age difference.

3. When did Heidi and Taran divorce?

The couple separated in 2005, according to published accounts. Smith filed for divorce on February 2, 2007, after nearly six years of legal marriage.

4. What was Playfood?

Playfood was the couple’s vegan catering and specialty-food company in California. Its signature offering was a cashew-based nondairy cheese that appeared in vegan publications and Los Angeles stores.

5. Did Heidi and Taran have children?

No children from Van Pelt and Smith’s marriage have been publicly documented. Reporting about their breakup centered on Playfood and the ownership dispute surrounding the company.

6. What was Heidi’s restaurant called?

Her Kansas City restaurant was called Füd. It opened as a permanent Westside establishment in April 2010 after earlier dining events and a pop-up at Bad Seed.

7. Is Füd still open?

No. Füd closed in August 2017 following disputes involving Van Pelt, co-owner Jerimiah Rozzo, and members of the restaurant’s staff.

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