Published by Ryan Hajek.
While most restaurants offer vegan options or dishes that can easily be made vegan, some restaurants are lagging behind. Knowing what to do if vegan options are limited at a restaurant can help you eat well without paying for someone else’s suffering.
Call or Message the Restaurant in Advance
If you know where you’re headed, call or message the restaurant in advance and ask if they have vegan dishes or if the kitchen can remove meat, dairy, and eggs from a menu item.
Restaurants are often asked about vegan options, and many are glad to help once they know what you need. This small step can spare you guesswork later—and it spares an animal, too. Every vegan meal you choose is a refusal to pay an industry that reduces living, feeling individuals to products and menu items.
Ask Your Server at the Restaurant
If you didn’t get a chance to call or message the restaurant ahead of time, ask your server when you arrive about vegan options or dishes that are easy to adjust.
If the restaurant serves dishes that contain vegan staples like beans, rice, legumes, and vegetables, they may also be able to make you a custom dish.
Chickens are curious, social individuals who form friendships and recognize up to 100 faces. Their eggs and flesh belong to them, not to the industries that exploit them.
Hot Tip: Vegan food prepared in shared fryers or cooking surfaces is still vegan. You’re still helping animals by not buying their body parts.
Build a Meal From Vegan Side Dishes and Appetizers
If there aren’t vegan entrees or main dishes that can be made vegan, appetizers and side dishes can make a meal. Look for common sides such as:
- Starchy sides like fries and baked potatoes
- Side salads without cheese or dressings made with milk, eggs, or fish
Remember that being vegan is doing the best you practically can. If you find a veggie burger somewhere and later find out the bun wasn’t vegan, don’t sweat it! You’re still vegan.
Eat Before You Get to the Restaurant
If you know a restaurant has few vegan options, eat something before you go. This takes the pressure off finding a full meal at the restaurant and lets you relax and focus on the people you’re with instead of stressing over the menu.
Pack a Snack
Keep a vegan snack in your bag or car—nuts, dried fruit, a granola bar, or anything shelf-stable works well. This way, even if a restaurant’s vegan options fall short of a full meal, you still have something to eat ahead of time or fall back on.
Focus on the Social Experience
If you’re dining with friends or family, remember that a restaurant meal is often more about the time spent together than it is about the food. A smaller vegan meal alongside a good time is still a good night out.
If your friends or family ask about you being vegan, let them know why you’re vegan and how pigs, cows, chickens, and fish are individuals who value their own lives. Offer to recommend the next restaurant—there’s lots of vegan-friendly restaurant chains for dining out with friends and family.
Be Polite and Patient with Restaurant Staff
Some restaurant staff, especially new servers, may not be familiar with vegan requests. Stay patient and polite, even if a server seems unsure how to help. A friendly approach makes staff more willing to help you and more open to vegan requests from the next person who asks.
Every positive interaction can make restaurants more willing to prepare meals without meat, dairy, or eggs—helping the next vegan diner and the next animal.
Ask the Restaurant to Add Vegan Options
Leave a polite comment on a receipt, send a message online, and speak to a manager to ask the restaurant to offer vegan options. Restaurants offer what people want, and your request could lead to a new vegan dish on the menu that helps other diners make compassionate choices, too.
