Restaurants with Vegetarian Options in Columbia, Missouri

It isn't always easy to find options for vegetarians in Columbia, Missouri, and finding options for vegans is even more difficult. The definitions for vegetarian and vegan seem to vary widely so a person eating out who is either should be prepared to have to substitute or ask for ingredients to be taken out even if eating in a vegetarian restaurant.

Columbia, Missouri is a somewhat liberal college town surrounded by the Midwest. There is only one vegetarian restaurant in town but vegetarians can find options they can eat at the wide variety of restaurants in town.

The Main Squeeze Natural Foods Café, located at 28 S. 9^th St, is the only vegetarian and vegan restaurant in town. Their website states that their vegan menu items do not contain any dairy, eggs, or honey.

For those who have never seen a vegetarian menu they may be surprised at how many menu items The Main Squeeze has. They are open from 7 AM - 8 PM Monday through Friday and 7 AM - 3 PM on Sundays. These hours allow for a full all day menu. There are breakfast items such as Rancheros and Scramblers with prices from $4.50 to $6.75. Salads, soups, wraps, sandwiches, and rice dishes all make it easy to also eat lunch there for $7.50 or less.

Some of their vegetarian items have cheese on them but for vegetarians who do not eat dairy products it would be easy to have the cheese left off.

A vegetarian restaurant is not very common in small town America and if your town does not have one then you have to learn which restaurants have options you can eat. This may be more difficult for vegans since not everyone will understand what you can or cannot eat.

Flat Branch Pub and Brewing, located downtown, is a local bar and restaurant that has two menu items aimed specifically at vegetarians. One is the Basil Pesto Vegetarian Linguini for $7.99 and the Veggie Burger for $6.59. Both of these items come with cheese but by asking you could probably have both items made without cheese.

Panera Bread is found in many cities and towns and has quite a few options for vegetarians as well as having more soy substitutions than many mainstream restaurants.

Calling ahead to a restaurant and discussing their vegetarian or vegan menu options before you go to the restaurant could save you some headache. Of course, almost all restaurants have salads and even though it is not imaginative it is an option for many vegetarians and vegans when eating out.