Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/05/vegan-restaurant-serves-meat.html
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Hmm…are they going to make the meat eaters substitute critter into a vegan dish instead of expecting the vegan/vegetarian/just-don’t-want-meat-today diners to make the substitution? I would. Gets the point across that eating meat is a choice in affluent countries.
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If you’re going out with your family the likelihood that everyone is vegan is pretty low. Plenty of people will refuse to eat in a place that won’t serve what they prefer to eat and will make a fuss. So the vegans get to pick at the edges of the menu at a place that mostly serves meat. This venue tried to make it work for several years and now is trying to stay open so they can continue serving mostly vegan food and the carnivores can be accommodated.
Mind you, a huge percentage of new restaurants fail in the first 5 years, so this may be more common issues, or the food might just be bad. I’ve tasted plenty of bad food at vegan and vegetarian restaurants. Your ingredients still need care and good technique to make any venue successful.
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I think that’s an important point here. The restaurant in question is obviously trying its best to stay open, and is willing to re-work a fundamental part of its offering in order to stay in business.
That willingness to adapt to what people want is essential in such a venture, in an industry with tight margins and customers who are already feeling the pinch from increased costs,so I hope he doesn’t get any negative reactions as a result of the publicity around this change.
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A favorite vegan restaurant of ours closed their doors last year despite being really well liked and rated. Very delicious food and drinks, staff was always excellent, and had reasonable prices, but with inflation and i presume rent they struggled a lot in 2023 and just couldn’t stay in business. So i really get this place’s choice to offer a broader selection of food that would appeal to non-vegans, if that’s what it takes to stay in business then have at it. I’m far from judgemental when it comes to that if they need to bring in more folks.
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Great idea. And hopefully they’ll have a special little section in the kitchen where the animal products are prepared, away from the main offerings.
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Counterexample: About | Apteka
People be lining up outside to get a table here. Though I’m sure the cocktails help. I miss the days when it first opened and was much quieter!
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It appears there has been a backlash in the form of upset online reviews. The reviews I saw about the food seemed very positive overall.
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It seems like their menu was standard pub fare made with fake meats, so even if the food is fine, it’s probably not going to meet the expectations of non-vegan diners.
Making tasty vegan food is much easier if you aren’t trying to make it pretend to be meat. Same with getting non-vegans to eat it.
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I’ve been to a few restaurants like that in different countries, where there’s five or so sets of sauces, sides, and similar options, and then you tell them which protein to put in it. It’s usually tofu, chicken, fish, pork, sometimes beef, and other common food substrates. The only real problem is that the seasonings tend to be a bit meh as they have to go with everything, not bad mind you but nothing exciting.
When I was at University, the social engineers in the Student Society decreed that half of all pizzas sold in the Student Union Building had to be vegan. This mandate didn’t last long, since they had to throw out almost half of the pizzas made daily by the end of each day.
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I mean, that’s also often how I end up at vegetarian restaurants, at least for work lunches. Us carnivores aren’t actually against eating veggies, vegetarian food is (often?) kosher, etc. That’s university faculty though and this place’s fake-meat-and-cheese pub food isn’t going to hit that market very well.
Nothing about vegetables makes them not kosher, although obviously there are ways you can prepare them – and indeed certain places in which they are prepared – to render them not kosher.
Jewsplaining. See something new every day.
A vegetarian/vegan restaurant is a safer choice for both Jews and Muslims to eat. Even if, in their own homes, they happen to eat meat as well. Thus, for a work lunch, it’s a good choice.
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Knappa said:
“vegetarian food is (often?) kosher, etc”
I took it that Knappa asking a question about the contours of the rules here and whether vegetarian food was necessarily kosher. I thought I’d put my two cents in to expand on that point.
If Knappa is bothered by my adding some perhaps unnecessary explanation I am, of course, happy to apologize.
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Vegetarian and Vegan are different things. That’s part of the difficulty in running a pure vegan place. I think it’s 4% of the UK population are vegan and another 6% vegetarian.
Obviously anyone can go and eat at a vegan restaurant without violating their protected beliefs, but a lot of people want some options, even if they aren’t going to dive into a massive chunk of pork belly or something. Like if I go to an Italian place I might choose pasta with an anchovy sauce rather than saltimbocca. You’re paying for a meal out and want to enjoy it.
In my experience, everywhere above the level of McDonald’s has a couple of vegan (not necessarily vegetarian) options on the menu. I mean even Pizza Hut has vegan dishes.
The argument against vegan restaurants offering some non-vegan options is that there are so few purely vegan restaurants that they don’t need to be diluted with non-vegan dishes.
There are too few vegans to support a lot of purely vegan restaurants.
I had two Jewish roommates who were very adamant about which shelf in the fridge was for dairy and which for meat (and no pork, obviously), but everything else seemed to be fair game. I got the impression that anything vegetarian was probably okay.
Well, that’s the worst. A load of negativity from people who probably never bothered to support the restaurant in the first place is just what I feared would happen.
I wish a moment of sellf realisation on all of them the next time they complain about not being able to find somewhere to eat.
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I thought it a little unnecessary, but not bothered.
Not sure which emoji reaction to use for that…
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