How far has the Veganization of America Come?
In late 2017, my husband was offered a job in San Diego, which not only meant no more suffering through cold DC winters but, almost as good, a 3000-mile road trip to get his car across the country! We would leave from our home just outside DC in Bethesda, Maryland, an area that has become vegan-friendly over the years, and drive first to Buffalo, New York, for a short visit with his family, and then drive through a number of states that might not be as vegan-friendly.
Taking the southernmost route, south from Buffalo to Nashville, Tennessee and then due west on 1-40, I was curious to see firsthand how far the availability of vegan food had progressed (or not) as we crossed the middle of the country. Would vegan food be harder to find along our route? This article is about our experience finding vegan food choices.
Our secret weapon for locating restaurants where we could find vegan food, no matter where we were, would be the HappyCow app. For anyone not familiar with HappyCow, I encourage you to download it. I still use it all the time, even living in vegan-friendly San Diego! We also brought a cooler filled with things like fruits and vegetables, hummus, vegan deli meats, almond milk (for our morning cereal), and snacks like Clif Builder bars and dried fruit and nuts. If we really couldn’t find vegan food at restaurants, we could always stop at grocery stores along the way to pick up more car food. It’s easy to find vegan food in a grocery store, no matter what city you are in, as long as you’re not looking for prepared food. Breakfast would mostly be cereal and coffee at Airbnbs, and lunch would mostly be leftovers or snacks or skipped altogether to save time. Our Veganization of America exploration would, mostly, take place at dinner time.
Day 1
Our first stop was Louisville, Kentucky, on our way from Buffalo to Nashville, Tennessee. Even though my father is from Cincinnati, Ohio, right on the Ohio-Kentucky border and where I still have a lot of extended family, I had a misperception of Kentucky being a backwards state where we’d be lucky to find the 1990s version of a vegan meal: a dry baked potato, flavorless steamed vegetables, and an iceberg lettuce salad without dressing at one of the many envisioned Cracker Barrel restaurants we would surely pass.
Thanks to HappyCow, we found a local brewery in the downtown part of Louisville called Against the Grain which was far from being exclusively vegan but had a few delicious imaginative options for us to choose from, as well as a fun and lively ambiance. I had a cup of the “Vegan Bean Chili” to start and their delicious chick pea-based Sloppy Jo. My husband had a hearty vegan burger, fries, and a shot of Kentucky bourbon. Our server was from California, as we found out through our surprise at how capable she was in helping us navigate the menu.
Then onto Nashville for the night.
Day 2
Nashville is a vibrant, progressive city home to the University of Tennessee, a city that was bound to make vegan eating a breeze. We rented bikes and rode through the city to the Sunflower Vegetarian Cafe, one of the most well-known and popular restaurants in Nashville, for lunch. Much of the food is vegan with the exception of Udi’s gluten-free bread (contains egg white) or if you choose to add dairy cheese to your meal.
This cute little café with the vibe of a vegetarian restaurant was hoppin’, and the food was worth what turned out to be a two-hour bike ride. Along the way, we stopped at a local coffeehouse, which offered several non-dairy milk options.
Sunflower is set up cafeteria style. You start at the head of the line by choosing a salad, burger, wrap, or bowl, filled, topped, or wrapped with yummy goodness such as a curried chickpea salad (I’m a big fan of the humble chick pea), sautéed garlic mushrooms, caramelized onions, sriracha aioli, Asian slaw, smoky southern collard greens, and many, many more choices, as you walk down the line. Gluten-free options are also available. We sat outside to enjoy our pumpkin soup, portobello mushroom tacos, and the all-American veggie burger bowl.
That night we had a short drive to our next stop in Memphis, Tennessee, to have dinner with friends and stay the night. Known for its barbecue, Memphis isn’t high on the list of vegan-friendly cities. HappyCow told me there was a Mellow Mushroom pizza chain, one of my favorite non-vegan yet vegan-friendly chain restaurants, but we decided to try something new and less obvious: A burger joint called Belly Acres at Overton Square. Yep, even burger joints in the heart of Memphis have vegan options! At the end of 2017, when we took our journey, it was tough to find the trendy Beyond Burger in restaurants and pretty much impossible to find the equally-trendy Impossible Burger. But Belly Acres’ beefless burgers, made from plant-proteins like lentils and peas, did not disappoint. Combined with French fries and beer.
As I document our journey more than a year after our road trip, it’s amazing to see how successfully plant-meat burgers have been mainstreamed in such a short period of time. Today, the Beyond Burger can be found in hundreds of restaurants, including chains such as TGI Fridays, Carl’s, Jr., and Burger Fi, and the Impossible burger can be found in White Castle, Dave & Busters, Houlihan’s and Hard Rock Café, to name just a few.
Day 3
We had a long drive from Memphis to our next destination in Amarillo Texas, by way of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Our only stop in Arkansas was for gas. Our dinner destination along the way was in Oklahoma City. Neither of us had ever been to Oklahoma, where we expected to find dust bowls, cow pastures, and lots of steakhouses.
Our assumption might have been true, but we also found The Loaded Bowl, a vegan restaurant just a short drive off the interstate, for what turned out to be by far the best meal of our trip. Just looking at the menu made us feel like kids in the vegan candy store – things like their signature cashew mac ‘n cheese, a mashed potato bowl with corn and homemade fried “chik’n”, and sweet potato lentil chorizo enchiladas.
We couldn’t decide what to get, so we ordered three of the “loaded” bowls ($3 more than the regular sized bowls for those who want A LOT of food) to share. We had the lasagna layered with marinara, tofu ricotta, cashew cheese, spinach, and squash and served with thick flavorful delectable garlic bread; the spaghetti okie, grilled spaghetti squash covered in marinara, broccoli, spinach, and peas, topped with cashew parmesan; and the spring bowl, made from rice vermicelli noodles tossed in a creamy peanut sauce, topped with riced broccoli, shredded Napa and purple cabbage, shredded carrot, crushed peanuts, and sriracha (hold the sriracha). The “loaded” portions sizes lived up to their name, giving us a couple meals’ worth of leftovers. They also some decadent desserts, but I’ll never admit to whether or not I had any. Everything was so good! I highly recommend a visit to The Loaded Bowl if you ever find yourself in Oklahoma City.
We ended the night in Amarillo, Texas, in the Texas panhandle, and part of what is considered, sadly but expectedly, cattle country. We wouldn’t be eating any meals there, a good decision confirmed by the lack of options for vegan food in Amarillo found on the HappyCow app.
Day 4
Today was a relatively short four-hour drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we would stay the night with relatives, Patti and Log. First, we spent the afternoon on our own wandering around Santa Fe, stopping in the Santa Fe Healing and Oxygen Bar. Despite its name not giving any clue that they were also a café, they served a nice variety of mostly vegan foods, including the vegan acai-bowls we ordered.
Later, Patti and her husband Log made us a fantastic homemade Indian vegan spread that included lentil dal, Chana Masala, basmati rice, chutneys, and more. They also gave us some snacks to eat during our next day’s drive to Joshua Tree, California, an 11 hour drive from Santa Fe.
Day 5
To get to the northern part of Joshua Tree, we drove through a lot of small unknown towns – except for Winslow, Arizona, which is a very small town but made famous by the Eagles song Take It Easy. Our dinner destination city was Kingman, a town along Route 66 in northwestern Arizona, population 28,000. Kingman was our only stop where we tried in vain to find vegan food, only to end up at Denny’s. Seriously, who knew you could get vegan food at Denny’s! Ok, maybe you did, but I didn’t. We had a really great – relatively, considering our options – meal there from their Fit Fare menu. The Veggie Sizzlin’ Skillet was made from seasoned red-skinned potatoes, fire-roasted bell peppers & onions, mushrooms and broccoli. We did have to make a slight modification by asking them to hold the eggs with which the dish is supposed to be topped. We also encouraged them to offer tofu as an option to the eggs.
Day 6
After driving late into the night to Joshua Tree, we awoke to another small town that looked like it hadn’t changed in decades, with old buildings that hadn’t been renovated still providing the main architecture of the city, local businesses that hadn’t been replaced by chain-store filled strip malls, and a sense of quiet and calm, even amidst the hubbub of tourists on their way to Joshua Tree National Park. We walked from our Airbnb to the Natural Sisters Café, “A Healthy Foods Eatery” serving vegetarian food in a shop reminiscent of a 1960s hippie health food store. For breakfast, we shared a smoothie, tofu scramble, and mouth-watering vegan muffin. After hiking in Joshua Tree, we went back to Natural Sisters Café for lunch, before hitting the road for a three-hour drive to our final destination in San Diego. We had the Eggless Tofu sandwich and the warm curried rice wrap. The portions were generous and presented nicely, but the food could have used a little more flavor. Nevertheless, the place was very busy as people waited in line and jockeyed for a place to sit.
After leaving Joshua Tree, we drove three hours to San Diego and the end of our trip. We still had some veggie burgers and chili in our cooler, so we just heated those up in the microwave and called it a week.
All in all, our Vegan Exploration of America was a success. I would return to every place we ate, and I unequivocally recommend all of them to vegans and non-vegans alike. I’m not quite ready to drive across the country again, but maybe if we were to do it again five years from now, even Kingman, Arizona and Amarillo, Texas will have jumped on the vegan bandwagon.
About the author: Mindy Kursban is the Chair of the Board of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit health advocacy group led by Dr. Neal Barnard that focuses on prevention and compassion in medicine. Before that, Mindy worked at the Physician Committee for eight years as general counsel and then as Executive Director. Since moving to San Diego, she has enjoyed getting involved with the vibrant San Diego vegan scene.
