Seattle Restaurant Review: The Wayward Cafe

The Wayward Cafe is one block off of Roosevelt in a residential section of the eclectic University District in Seattle.

I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to trying out new restaurants, even if they seem a bit questionable from the very start. After all, sometimes the best vegan food can be found at cramped little hideaways that look like they barely pass when the health inspector comes. I had heard that the Wayward Café was collectively owned and operated (I've since learned that they are not collectively owned, just collectively run), so I was willing to forgive some things based on that as well. I had all of this in mind when my partner and I walked past the weeds and into the hot, stuffy dining area of the Wayward Café to check out what we hoped would be another great vegan restaurant in Seattle.

Upon entering, we could immediately feel the punk/indie/counterculture vibe, even without any other customers there. To the right of the door there are rows of books with lots of the typical leftist, activist titles, vegangelical reading and recruiting materials and tons of games to play while you wait for your food. We are both vegan and I swing to the left, so at this point things were looking good.

The dining area looked clean enough and I loved the DIY spray painted black tables and the overall black, gray, red and burgundy décor. There was, however, a plate of donuts on the counter without a cover that looked a bit less than sanitary.

We placed our order at the half door leading into the kitchen, which really, they might want to rethink. I'm all about placing my order at a counter and I don't need someone waiting on me hand and foot, so that's not my issue - my issue is that they probably shouldn't let prospective customers see the kitchen. But, holding true to my willingness to forgive some cleanliness issues in return for some rockin' vegan cuisine, I still reserved judgment and chose a table. Since we were the only ones in the restaurant (about 2pm on a Sunday) we had our choice of spots and selected a table near the windows and the door, since it was rather stuffy in there.

They were out of natural sodas, so we had both ordered juice, which arrived at the table after an extended wait and was somehow warmer than room temperature. As for food, we ordered the breakfast burrito, biscuits and gravy, scrambled tofu, sausage and bacon. At the suggestion of the person taking our order, we opted for adding beans to the burrito for $1 extra.

The dishes arrived one at a time with lengthy intervals between deliveries, with one dish (the sausage) being completely forgotten. It had taken so long to get all of the other food - and at this point it was clear they were in closing mode - that we didn't bother to remind them about it.

The breakfast burrito was really, really bad. Neither my partner nor I could stomach it enough to eat even half of it, not to mention, there were hardly any beans on it at all. At one point, I tried to remove some of the scrambled tofu and other innards so that we could at least eat the tortilla, but soon determined that it was a lost cause. The tempeh bacon was very good and we both enjoyed that side dish. I'm sure you are thinking well, how could they mess up pre-made tempeh bacon, right? Well, right, but I still want to give credit where credit is due and the bacon was good.

However, I think most of us would also wonder how it's possible to make tofu scramble inedible. Well, whoever was cooking at the Wayward Café that day could probably give us some tips. The portion size was large, which is normally a good thing, but in this case, it was a large amount of a runny, disgusting, gag-producing mess (the same tofu scramble that was in the breakfast burrito) and was left almost entirely untouched, even after our attempts to doctor it up with salt, hot sauce and whatever else we could find on the condiment table.

The biscuits and gravy were a very pleasant surprise after trying the other dishes we had ordered. I must say, the biscuits and gravy alone might even be worth dealing with all the downfalls and returning to the Wayward Café for another try. Now, this is not your typical breakfast-style biscuit and gravy dish, so don't go in with that expectation, but rather they are a completely comestible delight of huge herbed biscuits smothered in a savory mushroom gravy. They are available in a half order (one biscuit) or a full order (two biscuits), which is what we ordered. The full order was plenty of food to fill us both up, which was great since the other dishes didn't really work out.

As for service, after you order at the door to the kitchen, you get your own silverware and napkins and bus your own table, which is cool, lots of vegan eateries have the same policy and I have no issue with it. However, in this particular case, the bins for your dishes and trash are not visible from the dining area. And, I don't know if it was the really loud music, or that is was getting closer to closing time, or something substance-related, but it was next to impossible to get the staff's attention even standing right in front of them and asking them where the bins were.

The times when we were successful at getting their attention, they were friendly enough and even offered us donuts since they were getting ready to close. I was actually pretty excited to try the donuts since I haven't been able to get over to the vegan donut shop yet, but when we approached the uncovered plate and saw the ants teeming over the plate and donuts, we decided to pass.

The Wayward Café: Conclusion and Tips for Dining There

If you are a vegan for health reasons, are at all conservative, concerned with cleanliness, don't like loud music, prefer a wide variety to of menu options, looking for a nice place to take a date or your family, or don't like cleaning up after yourself, this isn't the place for you.

However, if you fall more on the punk-anarchist-counterculture side and can look past the issues of cleanliness and inconsistent cooking, value politics over palatability and if you like loud music and browsing through anti-establishment titles while you wait for your meal, then you should probably at least give them a try. If nothing else, you will appreciate the politics and dig the atmosphere.

The Wayward Café has its heart in the right place and I haven't entirely given up on it as a vegan dining option. I will likely return in a few months to see if my next visit will go any better than this first attempt. But, in the meantime, I will be continuing to scour the Seattle vegan scene for good eats and will let you know about them when I find them. For now, my favorite vegan restaurant in Seattle is still Pizza Pi and that is where I will be dining the next time I find myself hungry for some excellent vegan food in the U district.

A couple of things you should know before you venture to the Wayward Café...

1. They only accept cash, so bring some with you or use their ATM to pull some of out of your account.
2. It appears that there is no heat or air in the building (or that they just don't use it), so dress warm in winter and cool in the summer.
3. The music is loud, so it's not the place for intimate conversations or if you don't enjoy loud music.
4. We had no trouble finding parking right across the street, but it is a residential area, so if the Wayward Café is busy, the parking might be more difficult.