Casual Dining and Family-Friendly Restaurant Choices for Vegetarians

Vegetarians have many choices when it comes to eating at casual dining or family-style restaurants. Here, vegetarian choices for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert are plentiful, and in most cases, lower cost than items with meat. The following are some of the most popular types of cuisine, and some ideas where vegetarian diners can enjoy a good meal in a variety of locations, as most chain restaurants are very accommodating to vegetarian diners.

American - Buffet restaurants offer great selections with choices such as vegetables, fruits, breads, pizza, and pasta items. Some buffets, such as Golden Corral, allow diners to purchase their selections in a to-go box and are priced by weight. This is a very good idea since the dine-in buffet price takes into account items such as steaks, hamburgers, chicken, and other items. If purchasing vegetarian cuisine by weight, the cost is usually one-half to one-third the typical dine-in buffet price.

Another great choice for classic American cooking are restaurants like Boston Market. Here, vegetarians can order the side item meal, which is your choice of three side items and a cornbread. These are priced at $4.99, and Boston Market offers great sides such as: green beans, seasonal vegetables, mashed potatoes, mixed fruit, macaroni and cheese, and cinnamon apples. The good thing about Boston Market is that they usually have dollar-off coupons in the Sunday paper.

Italian - Some of the best places for vegetarians to select when casual dining are Italian restaurants like The Olive Garden and Sweet Tomatoes. The Olive Garden has a soup and salad buffet, which includes breadsticks and is unlimited as to how many bowls or plates you eat.

Sweet Tomatoes, on the other hand, offers bakery, pizza, and pasta choices in their soup and salad buffet. It is also all you can eat, and both The Olive Garden and Sweet Tomatoes regularly have coupons in the Sunday paper.

Desserts - One of the best places that offer both a vegetable plate (for lunch or dinner) and great desserts is Cracker Barrel. While vegetarians like the casual and family atmosphere of the restaurant, the side item choices are impressive. Choices include: carrots, lima beans, cabbage, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cinnamon apples, and dumplings. For dessert, Cracker Barrel has cinnamon apples topped with vanilla ice cream. Seasonally, they have been known to offer a strawberry dessert.

For the most part, cakes are not vegetarian friendly at any restaurant because they are made with eggs. However, if angel food cake is an option, ask your server if it is vegetarian. At home boxes of angel food cake mix do not require eggs, so the restaurant version may be ok. Look for strawberry shortcake items on dessert menus and ask if they are vegetarian.

If ever in doubt if any menu item is vegetarian at a casual dining restaurant, ask either the server or the chef. Also, many menu items can be made vegetarian, so be sure to ask if your requests can be accommodated. I have found this most helpful when dining in Mexican restaurants, and the results have been very good. Chili's, for example, will substitute any of their hamburgers with a black bean patty. Other times, I have had kitchen staff suggest something that is not even on the menu. Even better, due to the lower cost of raw ingredients, the server will sometimes give you a price adjustment in your favor.