6 ms·

As interesting as this is, it's just the takeaway sector. As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen increased demand for vegan o

As interesting as this is, it's just the takeaway sector. As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen increased demand for vegan options. It also doesn't help that many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions.

lostgame 7y ago
Huh. Opposite experience here in Toronto, where I've seen 5-10 new, very popular vegan restaurants in this city pop up over the course of 4 years or so. The statistics may present this to be takeaway only, but, for instance, the oddly named Hogtown Vegan has become one of the more popular and well-received places in the city. May I ask what city you're from? I'm curious as to whether this is a regional thing.
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Calgary. We have a few vegetarian (lacto-ovo) places that are full-service, a few vegan spots that are fast casual, but that's it. A few vegetarian and vegan spots have closed in the last few years as well. Edit - more steakhouses have opened in the last year than veg restaurants.
  - lostgame 7y ago
    All the sense is made here. Calgary, being a fairly sizeable city, may be an exception, but a lot of our beef comes from Alberta. I'd say Alberta is mostly known for beef and oil. Heck, you guys have the Calgary Stampede - the last time I travelled out there I made sure to grab myself the nicest reasonably priced steak I could - Alberta's beef is known across this country. Confirms what I was thinking about it being regional. I imagine other states and provinces with similarly agriculture focused behaviours would see the same result.
    - Mikeb85 7y ago
      Of course, we do still have a metro area of ~1.4 million with a large proportion of immigrants both from abroad and within Canada. We're quite cosmopolitan. We've had quite a few restaurants on all the relevant awards lists for restaurants. Beyond Burgers sell great, every A&W here was fairly full when they came out. It just hasn't really caught on at price-points higher than fast food. Vegetable forward restaurants are a thing, but I have it on good authority that they still sell a pretty large volume of meat and fish.
strict9 7y ago
Not sure what what city you're in, but even the high-end restaurant where I live (Alinea in Chicago, about $800-1200 for two people) gladly caters to vegan preferences. With the exception of steak houses (not fine dining IMO) there are always vegan options in my experience.
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  There's a difference to catering to vegan preferences (every high end restaurant does that) and actually selling a significant amount of vegan meals. Or being able to open a vegan restaurant at Alinea's price-point. In my experience, vegan items sell fairly well, vegetable based items in general sell very well, but meals that are vegan from start to finish are less than 1% of clients. As in, serving 100 meals per day, we'll get one strict vegan per week. Every high end restaurant is doing more vegetables; but guests still expect meat for the main course.
  - strict9 7y ago
    Complete vegan meals? Sure, I believe that. Overall percentage of people who are vegan is very small. And in a fine-dining experience, omnivores will lean toward meat. I have an acquaintance who is vegetarian, with one exception: Michelin-starred restaurants.
mumblemumble 7y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if higher-end restaurants end up lagging on this trend, simply because they have a bit of a reputational hole to dig themselves out of with the vegetarian, and particularly vegan, crowd. For a lot of reasons. For starters, the options a lot of higher-end restaurants offer have a history of tending to be either really unsatisfying "twigs and berries" type food, overly rich (a lot of vegans aren't used to having their food drenched in cooking fats), poorly prepared (e.g., overcooked), or a mix of them all. So there's a long history of being charged what feels like a rather exorbitant price considering that you end up going home hungry and dissatisfied. Second, vegetarians do notice and make decisions based on what non-vegetarian options are on the menu. If you're serving veal or foie gras, the vegan member of the party is going to be a lot more likely to try and convince the rest of their party to go somewhere else. Also, straight-up boredom. People who eat vegan in particular tend to get really into cuisine from all over the world, and become acclimatized to eating food that's got very bold flavors. After a few years of that, the nouvelle cuisine-inspired stuff being served at a lot of higher-end restaurants is, frankly, just not very exciting. Especially after you take out the butter and cream and whatnot that serve as the gastronomic foundation of that style of cooking. Which isn't to say that all high-end restaurants are like that. But so many are that eventually it gets easier to just use the price point itself as a heuristic.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  Entirely anecdotal, but I went to a 10 course tasting menu restaurant in Portland last year that was about $300 per person and they had a vegan menu. I've seen other high end restaurants providing vegan or vegetarian menus as well in Seattle
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    It's an interesting anecdote, but the words that really jump out of the sentence there are "Portland" and "Seattle". I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of people who eat vegetarian in the PNW is 10x as high as what it is in, say, the Rust Belt.
okmokmz 7y ago
>many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions Price sensitive as in not willing to pay as much as traditional customers? In my experience vegans tend to pay more for their food, as many of them look for local produce, fair trade, organic, etc. which drives the price up. I'd also be curious to learn what other dietary restrictions they may have. Aside from a few that avoid gluten, most of my vegan friends only avoid animal products with no other restrictions
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  The average amount spent per person in our restaurant is over $100. Never seen a vegan restaurant at that price point. Have had vegans complain that a $15 cauliflower appetizer is too expensive however. Edit - vegans also tend to restrict their diets further such as raw vegans, 'whole' food vegans, oil avoidance is a thing in the community, as is gluten free.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    They're not super common, naturally. The first one that comes to mind is Candle 79 in NYC, which I think is at about that price point. Maybe a little below, but I wouldn't be surprised if a vegetarian restaurant of a certain caliber is going to come out at a slightly lower price point due to lower ingredient cost.
    - Mikeb85 7y ago
      > The first one that comes to mind is Candle 79 in NYC, which I think is at about that price point. Nah, it's significantly lower if you consider that booze sales are ~30-40% of sales in most sit-down restaurants. When main courses are $25, typical guest check averages are more like $40-60. > I wouldn't be surprised if a vegetarian restaurant of a certain caliber is going to come out at a slightly lower price point due to lower ingredient cost Unfortunately labour and rent cost the same no matter what you serve.

lostgame 7y ago

Huh. Opposite experience here in Toronto, where I've seen 5-10 new, very popular vegan restaurants in this city pop up over the course of 4 years or so. The statistics may present this to be takeaway only, but, for instance, the oddly named Hogtown Vegan has become one of the more popular and well-received places in the city. May I ask what city you're from? I'm curious as to whether this is a regional thing.

Mikeb85 7y ago
Calgary. We have a few vegetarian (lacto-ovo) places that are full-service, a few vegan spots that are fast casual, but that's it. A few vegetarian and vegan spots have closed in the last few years as well. Edit - more steakhouses have opened in the last year than veg restaurants.
- lostgame 7y ago
  All the sense is made here. Calgary, being a fairly sizeable city, may be an exception, but a lot of our beef comes from Alberta. I'd say Alberta is mostly known for beef and oil. Heck, you guys have the Calgary Stampede - the last time I travelled out there I made sure to grab myself the nicest reasonably priced steak I could - Alberta's beef is known across this country. Confirms what I was thinking about it being regional. I imagine other states and provinces with similarly agriculture focused behaviours would see the same result.
  - Mikeb85 7y ago
    Of course, we do still have a metro area of ~1.4 million with a large proportion of immigrants both from abroad and within Canada. We're quite cosmopolitan. We've had quite a few restaurants on all the relevant awards lists for restaurants. Beyond Burgers sell great, every A&W here was fairly full when they came out. It just hasn't really caught on at price-points higher than fast food. Vegetable forward restaurants are a thing, but I have it on good authority that they still sell a pretty large volume of meat and fish.

strict9 7y ago

Not sure what what city you're in, but even the high-end restaurant where I live (Alinea in Chicago, about $800-1200 for two people) gladly caters to vegan preferences. With the exception of steak houses (not fine dining IMO) there are always vegan options in my experience.

Mikeb85 7y ago
There's a difference to catering to vegan preferences (every high end restaurant does that) and actually selling a significant amount of vegan meals. Or being able to open a vegan restaurant at Alinea's price-point. In my experience, vegan items sell fairly well, vegetable based items in general sell very well, but meals that are vegan from start to finish are less than 1% of clients. As in, serving 100 meals per day, we'll get one strict vegan per week. Every high end restaurant is doing more vegetables; but guests still expect meat for the main course.
- strict9 7y ago
  Complete vegan meals? Sure, I believe that. Overall percentage of people who are vegan is very small. And in a fine-dining experience, omnivores will lean toward meat. I have an acquaintance who is vegetarian, with one exception: Michelin-starred restaurants.

mumblemumble 7y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if higher-end restaurants end up lagging on this trend, simply because they have a bit of a reputational hole to dig themselves out of with the vegetarian, and particularly vegan, crowd. For a lot of reasons. For starters, the options a lot of higher-end restaurants offer have a history of tending to be either really unsatisfying "twigs and berries" type food, overly rich (a lot of vegans aren't used to having their food drenched in cooking fats), poorly prepared (e.g., overcooked), or a mix of them all. So there's a long history of being charged what feels like a rather exorbitant price considering that you end up going home hungry and dissatisfied. Second, vegetarians do notice and make decisions based on what non-vegetarian options are on the menu. If you're serving veal or foie gras, the vegan member of the party is going to be a lot more likely to try and convince the rest of their party to go somewhere else. Also, straight-up boredom. People who eat vegan in particular tend to get really into cuisine from all over the world, and become acclimatized to eating food that's got very bold flavors. After a few years of that, the nouvelle cuisine-inspired stuff being served at a lot of higher-end restaurants is, frankly, just not very exciting. Especially after you take out the butter and cream and whatnot that serve as the gastronomic foundation of that style of cooking. Which isn't to say that all high-end restaurants are like that. But so many are that eventually it gets easier to just use the price point itself as a heuristic.

okmokmz 7y ago
Entirely anecdotal, but I went to a 10 course tasting menu restaurant in Portland last year that was about $300 per person and they had a vegan menu. I've seen other high end restaurants providing vegan or vegetarian menus as well in Seattle
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  It's an interesting anecdote, but the words that really jump out of the sentence there are "Portland" and "Seattle". I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of people who eat vegetarian in the PNW is 10x as high as what it is in, say, the Rust Belt.

okmokmz 7y ago

>many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions Price sensitive as in not willing to pay as much as traditional customers? In my experience vegans tend to pay more for their food, as many of them look for local produce, fair trade, organic, etc. which drives the price up. I'd also be curious to learn what other dietary restrictions they may have. Aside from a few that avoid gluten, most of my vegan friends only avoid animal products with no other restrictions

Mikeb85 7y ago
The average amount spent per person in our restaurant is over $100. Never seen a vegan restaurant at that price point. Have had vegans complain that a $15 cauliflower appetizer is too expensive however. Edit - vegans also tend to restrict their diets further such as raw vegans, 'whole' food vegans, oil avoidance is a thing in the community, as is gluten free.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  They're not super common, naturally. The first one that comes to mind is Candle 79 in NYC, which I think is at about that price point. Maybe a little below, but I wouldn't be surprised if a vegetarian restaurant of a certain caliber is going to come out at a slightly lower price point due to lower ingredient cost.
  - Mikeb85 7y ago
    > The first one that comes to mind is Candle 79 in NYC, which I think is at about that price point. Nah, it's significantly lower if you consider that booze sales are ~30-40% of sales in most sit-down restaurants. When main courses are $25, typical guest check averages are more like $40-60. > I wouldn't be surprised if a vegetarian restaurant of a certain caliber is going to come out at a slightly lower price point due to lower ingredient cost Unfortunately labour and rent cost the same no matter what you serve.