Vegan Cash. Get some.

After a too-long absence, I just went to a long-time favorite restaurant that’s yummy that actively supports good causes like LGBTQ rights and bicycles for children.

I’m vegan.

I couldn’t order anything on the menu, unless you count the canned fruit. I counted the canned fruit. I ordered it. It was the size of, well, a side. I’m 190 pounds of joy. I drank a lot of black coffee and sadly wrote the restaurant off my list.

That restaurant could be on my list with a few simple changes that wouldn’t irritate any meat-lover or vegetarian or the waitresses or owners. Easy changes.

1. Offer Daiya, or almond cheese or rice cheese. Vegans love that stuff. Soy cheese is gross and unhealthy and plasticy and a reason that vegans stop being vegan. Charge more for Daiya or almond or rice cheese. They’re good and vegans will be grateful you thought of ’em and happily pay up.

2. If you offer granola, like my above longtime favorite restaurant, make it vegan granola. Say what? Yup: most granola has milk curd or something in it, which is unnecessary to its yumminess and no one will miss it.

3. Offer almond milk or rice milk. That, with granola, will satisfy those would-be annoying vegans, and turn them into loyal and spend-happy vegans. Also, lots of non-vegans love almond or rice milk, ’cause they’re healthy or good for the heart and allergy-free.

4. Jack fruit tacos or the like. Jack fruit is awesome. It’s meaty without being a fake lame meat substitute. Shine, one of my favorite restaurants in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado, rocks jack fruit.

5. Pizza: if you have good sauce and a good crust, traditional Italian cheese-less pizza is awesome. Like at Pizzeria Locale, where the pizza’s so good you (seriously, surprisingly) won’t miss the cheese. Don’t believe me? Pizzeria Locale is the furthest thing from vegan and yet their basic, most-offered/consumed pizza is vegan.

6. Awesome salads with lots of good healthy stuff in ’em, not just weak afterthoughts.

7. Burritos and Pasta and Sandwiches can easily be vegan. Don’t just make them option–if a customer has to order off the menu everytime, said customer will not feel at home, will feel like a pain, and will take their money (and friends, vegan and otherwise) elsewhere.

8. Fries. Don’t cook your fries in the same oil as your seafood and meat. Please?

9. What else?

Bonus: curious about how Vegans get their protein?