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Chaat at Namaste Cafe.
Namaste Cafe

Where to Get Great Vegan and Vegetarian Food in Minneapolis and St. Paul

Great options for meat-free dining around the metro

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Chaat at Namaste Cafe.
| Namaste Cafe

Vegan and vegetarian eating has transformed in recent years, as a growing number of chefs and restaurants eschew meat, dairy, and other animal products in favor of vegetables, fruits, and proteins made from plants. And the Twin Cities — home of the Juicy Lucy, no less — has embraced the tide of cauliflower wings, egg-free cinnamon rolls, and clever seitan dupes that have become hallmarks of the meatless food scene. As vegan and vegetarian restaurants continue to pop up around the Cities, here’s a list of some essential spots.

Note that these restaurants are listed geographically.

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heal mpls (herbs, eats, all love)

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Heal Mpls, which opened in North Minneapolis last summer, serves vegan dishes, smoothies, and herbal supplements. Owner Sierra Carter also owns the Zen Bin, a self-cafe sanctuary and wellness collective, and the serene vibes carry over to the cafe, which is sunny and decorated with plants and vibrant murals. The menu rotates, so keep an eye on Instagram or Facebook for updates, but expect fruit and veggie-rich dishes like creamy jerk chickpea chili, sweet potato hash, and banana chia seed pudding.

Francis

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Francis, Northeast Minneapolis’s newest vegan restaurant, serves a great burger. A few, in fact: an Impossible patty stacked with fried seitan bacon, a garlicky black bean burger, even a Juicy Lucy stuffed with vegan cheese. But it’s not only Francis’s delectably greasy meat-free burgers that make it stand out in the Twin Cities vegan scene — it’s the restaurant’s bar program, which is entirely free of animal-derived dyes, additives, and fining agents. You’ll find no Negronis made with dyes from crushed beetles, wines filtered through fish bladders, or beers sweetened with lactose on this menu.

Three cocktails sitting next to one another on a bar. The far left is an amber color, the middle is a deep red, and the far right is yellow with a wedge of dried pineapple.
Vegan cocktails at Francis.
Lucy Hawthorne/Eater Twin Cities

The Herbivorous Butcher

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This revolutionary butcher shop produces upwards of 15 homemade meat-free meats and an array of plant-based cheeses. Founded by a brother-sister duo, the Herbivorous Butcher is a great place for a vegan pantry restock — but it also offers hot in-store specials like red miso ribs made with a tofu and jackfruit base, or hot chili cheese dogs made with seitan, and shepherd’s pie. Grab a vegan porter cheddar or mint chocolate truffles from its case.

The Stray Dog

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New American diner The Stray Dog has a separate vegetarian menu. Classic bar favorites are transformed into black bean patties and fries, “not” dogs in chili cheese, Chicago, and Venezuelan varieties, vegetarian breakfasts like fully loaded chilaquiles, and a whole range of Beyond burgers: the “Beyond Junk” with vegan bacon and garlic aioli, the “Beyond Bourbon Brown” with butter bourbon glaze, and the “Beyond New Yorker” on a bialy bun.

Bole Ethiopian Cuisine

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Located just west of Como Park, Bole Ethiopian Cuisine has helped Saint Paul maintain its reputation for top-tier Ethiopian food since Rekik Meratsion and Solomon Hailie first opened it years ago. Among the house specialties are sushi-style rolls of injera with vegetarian fillings like red lentils, yellow split peas, or ground chickpeas, and don’t miss the honey wine.

Hark! Cafe

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Hark! Cafe recently transitioned from a full menu to bakery service, but don’t miss these entirely vegan and gluten-free treats. The fresh baked goods in the pastry case rotate often, but expect jammy toaster pastries, cranberry orange muffins, and oatmeal chocolate cookies.

Advellum Vegetable Eatery

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Advellum Vegetable Eatery’s menu makes the most of veggies grown by local farmers, using dairy and proteins only minimally. The result is dishes like nachos borrachos, loaded with chorizo from the Herbivorous Butcher, black beans, jalapeños, and corn; mung bean pancakes with bok choy kimchi; and miso, wild rice and mushroom burgers. For dessert, grab a mango raspberry push-up pop at their Prospect Park location.

Hard Times Cafe

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If food can be punk, Hard Times has it. Since 1992, the cafe — known for its hand-painted, bright green façade on Riverside Avenue — has been a classic haunt for vegan and vegetarian bites. Breakfast classics are the vegan helter skelter with hash browns and tofu, vegan biscuits with mushroom gravy, and the vegan “big fat pancake” with maple syrup. The lunch menu features a seitan Philly and a Korean barbecue tofu bun. The restaurant is currently open from 8 a.m. to midnight.

The exterior of the Hard Times Cafe, which is painted green and yellow with white a black block lettering. There is a snowbank in front of it.
Hard Times Cafe is a Minneapolis go-to for vegan food.
Photo by Joey McLeister/Star Tribune via Getty Images

Namaste Cafe

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This former Victorian home-turned cozy restaurant in Uptown is an excellent stop Indian and Nepali cuisine. The whole menu here is organic: Start with light and crispy bhel puri or little flavor parcels of golgappa. The aloo bodi or Punjabi spinach paneer make for hearty vegetarian entrees. If you aren’t in any hurry, take a seat on Namaste’s patio, and enjoy a homemade chai.

Hi Flora!

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Hi Flora is Minneapolis’s newest vegan restaurant, an innovative Lyndale Avenue spot from chef Heather Klein of Root to Rise. Alcohol-free, Klein instead offers ways to incorporate THC into the meal, from canned beverages to five-milligram tinctures that can be added to drinks or sprinkled over food. Speaking of the food, expect dishes like mushroom and hibiscus street tacos, fried maitake sandwiches, lion’s mane mushroom steak, and avocado cacao mousse. It’s open just for dinner for now with plans to add lunch and brunch service.

Beans, avocado, and other veggies on a tostada on a white plate.
A hibiscus tostada at Hi Flora.
Justine Jones

Himalayan Restaurant

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Himalayan Restaurant on Lake Street delves into India, Nepalese, and Tibetan cuisine, and has extensive vegetarian offerings. Start with the kothe — steamed momos that are pan-fried and served with a savory tomato-cilantro chutney. You can’t go wrong with the chana masala or creamy Kathmandu curry, either. As a side order, savor the dense, flakey layers of a fresh-made aloo paratha, or extra-buttery naan. Save room for desserts like kheer and mango pudding.

Trio Plant-based

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Known as Minnesota’s first Black-owned vegan restaurant, Trio Plant-based serves 100 percent vegan soul food out of its Lake Street storefront. (Dine-in services are currently closed, but Trio is open for takeout and delivery.) Build a soul bowl with Mac and cheese and collard greens, crumbled cornbread, and jackfruit barbecue riblets, or order a platter and add yams and southern slaw. With an entire menu dedicated to Beyond burgers, Trio also serves highlights like the vegan “Mac attack,” the double cheezeburger, or the fiesta, topped with guacamole, shallots, and pepper jack.

J. Selby's

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Vegetarian restaurant J. Selby’s is all about playful and innovative takes on fast food and pub food. Try the crunchwrap, made with vegan taco meat and marinated cabbage on a tostada, the fried lions mane mushrooms (sourced from local farm Minne Mushrooms), and the “Dirty Secret,” a triple-stacked burger with secret sauce. For dessert, J. Selby’s offers dairy-free shakes and soft-serve, floats, halva, and cookies. The Herbivorous Butcher, another local vegan favorite, recently bought J. Selby’s, but has promised to keep the menu largely the same same.

A vegetarian burger made with three buns and two patties, with a toasted sesame bun, lettuce, pickles, and melted vegan cheese.
A triple-stacked vegetarian burger from J. Selby’s.
J. Selby’s

May Day Cafe

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May Day is a quirky Powderhorn cafe and bakery with great vegan options. The menu changes frequently: Expect dill pickle cheese scones and cranberry bread on Friday and raspberry pistachio doughnuts on Saturday. (Keep an eye on May Day’s Instagram for the timeliest updates.) There’s also a breakfast menu of hearty dishes like quiche, breakfast sandwiches, and burritos — and coffee, of course. Take the day’s bakery haul over to nearby Powderhorn Park for a picnic.

Reverie Cafe + Bar

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In a vibrant little corner of Minneapolis’s Powderhorn neighborhood, Reverie Cafe and Bar features monthly specials like jackfruit bulgogi tacos loaded with cabbage slaw, garlic aioli, pickled red radish, and mainstays like coconut achiote beans with coconut rice and lemongrass tofu tacos. Its desserts — dark chocolate beignets, cashew cheesecake, and ice cream from Northeast’s Crepe and Spoon — are worth ordering. Specialty coffees can be made with oat, almond, soy, or house-made cashew macadamia milk options.

Herbie Butcher's Fried Chicken

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A venture by the brother-sister duo behind the Herbivorous Butcher, Herbie Butcher’s Fried Chicken offers a vegan seitan dupe that is as crispy and salty as its meat counterpart (though not a good match for gluten-free eaters). The restaurant serves buckets of chicken, tots, biscuits with maple butter, mashed potatoes, and oat-based shakes out of a tiny window off of Chicago Avenue. Order online if you can — in the summer, the line runs down the block.

Vegan East Bakery

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Vegan East is one of the Cities’ pre-eminent vegan bakeries: Line up for cinnamon rolls and S’mores bars, pop tarts, cupcakes and cake slices, cake jars, and more. (Gluten-free treats are also available.) Vegan East also offers holiday cookie decorating kits and beautifully decorated seasonal dessert options — the bakery takes pre-orders for cinnamon rolls, specialty cakes, and cupcakes by the dozen.

heal mpls (herbs, eats, all love)

Heal Mpls, which opened in North Minneapolis last summer, serves vegan dishes, smoothies, and herbal supplements. Owner Sierra Carter also owns the Zen Bin, a self-cafe sanctuary and wellness collective, and the serene vibes carry over to the cafe, which is sunny and decorated with plants and vibrant murals. The menu rotates, so keep an eye on Instagram or Facebook for updates, but expect fruit and veggie-rich dishes like creamy jerk chickpea chili, sweet potato hash, and banana chia seed pudding.

Francis

Francis, Northeast Minneapolis’s newest vegan restaurant, serves a great burger. A few, in fact: an Impossible patty stacked with fried seitan bacon, a garlicky black bean burger, even a Juicy Lucy stuffed with vegan cheese. But it’s not only Francis’s delectably greasy meat-free burgers that make it stand out in the Twin Cities vegan scene — it’s the restaurant’s bar program, which is entirely free of animal-derived dyes, additives, and fining agents. You’ll find no Negronis made with dyes from crushed beetles, wines filtered through fish bladders, or beers sweetened with lactose on this menu.

Three cocktails sitting next to one another on a bar. The far left is an amber color, the middle is a deep red, and the far right is yellow with a wedge of dried pineapple.
Vegan cocktails at Francis.
Lucy Hawthorne/Eater Twin Cities

The Herbivorous Butcher

This revolutionary butcher shop produces upwards of 15 homemade meat-free meats and an array of plant-based cheeses. Founded by a brother-sister duo, the Herbivorous Butcher is a great place for a vegan pantry restock — but it also offers hot in-store specials like red miso ribs made with a tofu and jackfruit base, or hot chili cheese dogs made with seitan, and shepherd’s pie. Grab a vegan porter cheddar or mint chocolate truffles from its case.

The Stray Dog

New American diner The Stray Dog has a separate vegetarian menu. Classic bar favorites are transformed into black bean patties and fries, “not” dogs in chili cheese, Chicago, and Venezuelan varieties, vegetarian breakfasts like fully loaded chilaquiles, and a whole range of Beyond burgers: the “Beyond Junk” with vegan bacon and garlic aioli, the “Beyond Bourbon Brown” with butter bourbon glaze, and the “Beyond New Yorker” on a bialy bun.

Bole Ethiopian Cuisine

Located just west of Como Park, Bole Ethiopian Cuisine has helped Saint Paul maintain its reputation for top-tier Ethiopian food since Rekik Meratsion and Solomon Hailie first opened it years ago. Among the house specialties are sushi-style rolls of injera with vegetarian fillings like red lentils, yellow split peas, or ground chickpeas, and don’t miss the honey wine.

Hark! Cafe

Hark! Cafe recently transitioned from a full menu to bakery service, but don’t miss these entirely vegan and gluten-free treats. The fresh baked goods in the pastry case rotate often, but expect jammy toaster pastries, cranberry orange muffins, and oatmeal chocolate cookies.

Advellum Vegetable Eatery

Advellum Vegetable Eatery’s menu makes the most of veggies grown by local farmers, using dairy and proteins only minimally. The result is dishes like nachos borrachos, loaded with chorizo from the Herbivorous Butcher, black beans, jalapeños, and corn; mung bean pancakes with bok choy kimchi; and miso, wild rice and mushroom burgers. For dessert, grab a mango raspberry push-up pop at their Prospect Park location.

Hard Times Cafe

If food can be punk, Hard Times has it. Since 1992, the cafe — known for its hand-painted, bright green façade on Riverside Avenue — has been a classic haunt for vegan and vegetarian bites. Breakfast classics are the vegan helter skelter with hash browns and tofu, vegan biscuits with mushroom gravy, and the vegan “big fat pancake” with maple syrup. The lunch menu features a seitan Philly and a Korean barbecue tofu bun. The restaurant is currently open from 8 a.m. to midnight.

The exterior of the Hard Times Cafe, which is painted green and yellow with white a black block lettering. There is a snowbank in front of it.
Hard Times Cafe is a Minneapolis go-to for vegan food.
Photo by Joey McLeister/Star Tribune via Getty Images

Namaste Cafe

This former Victorian home-turned cozy restaurant in Uptown is an excellent stop Indian and Nepali cuisine. The whole menu here is organic: Start with light and crispy bhel puri or little flavor parcels of golgappa. The aloo bodi or Punjabi spinach paneer make for hearty vegetarian entrees. If you aren’t in any hurry, take a seat on Namaste’s patio, and enjoy a homemade chai.

Hi Flora!

Hi Flora is Minneapolis’s newest vegan restaurant, an innovative Lyndale Avenue spot from chef Heather Klein of Root to Rise. Alcohol-free, Klein instead offers ways to incorporate THC into the meal, from canned beverages to five-milligram tinctures that can be added to drinks or sprinkled over food. Speaking of the food, expect dishes like mushroom and hibiscus street tacos, fried maitake sandwiches, lion’s mane mushroom steak, and avocado cacao mousse. It’s open just for dinner for now with plans to add lunch and brunch service.

Beans, avocado, and other veggies on a tostada on a white plate.
A hibiscus tostada at Hi Flora.
Justine Jones

Himalayan Restaurant

Himalayan Restaurant on Lake Street delves into India, Nepalese, and Tibetan cuisine, and has extensive vegetarian offerings. Start with the kothe — steamed momos that are pan-fried and served with a savory tomato-cilantro chutney. You can’t go wrong with the chana masala or creamy Kathmandu curry, either. As a side order, savor the dense, flakey layers of a fresh-made aloo paratha, or extra-buttery naan. Save room for desserts like kheer and mango pudding.

Trio Plant-based

Known as Minnesota’s first Black-owned vegan restaurant, Trio Plant-based serves 100 percent vegan soul food out of its Lake Street storefront. (Dine-in services are currently closed, but Trio is open for takeout and delivery.) Build a soul bowl with Mac and cheese and collard greens, crumbled cornbread, and jackfruit barbecue riblets, or order a platter and add yams and southern slaw. With an entire menu dedicated to Beyond burgers, Trio also serves highlights like the vegan “Mac attack,” the double cheezeburger, or the fiesta, topped with guacamole, shallots, and pepper jack.

J. Selby's

Vegetarian restaurant J. Selby’s is all about playful and innovative takes on fast food and pub food. Try the crunchwrap, made with vegan taco meat and marinated cabbage on a tostada, the fried lions mane mushrooms (sourced from local farm Minne Mushrooms), and the “Dirty Secret,” a triple-stacked burger with secret sauce. For dessert, J. Selby’s offers dairy-free shakes and soft-serve, floats, halva, and cookies. The Herbivorous Butcher, another local vegan favorite, recently bought J. Selby’s, but has promised to keep the menu largely the same same.

A vegetarian burger made with three buns and two patties, with a toasted sesame bun, lettuce, pickles, and melted vegan cheese.
A triple-stacked vegetarian burger from J. Selby’s.
J. Selby’s

May Day Cafe

May Day is a quirky Powderhorn cafe and bakery with great vegan options. The menu changes frequently: Expect dill pickle cheese scones and cranberry bread on Friday and raspberry pistachio doughnuts on Saturday. (Keep an eye on May Day’s Instagram for the timeliest updates.) There’s also a breakfast menu of hearty dishes like quiche, breakfast sandwiches, and burritos — and coffee, of course. Take the day’s bakery haul over to nearby Powderhorn Park for a picnic.

Reverie Cafe + Bar

In a vibrant little corner of Minneapolis’s Powderhorn neighborhood, Reverie Cafe and Bar features monthly specials like jackfruit bulgogi tacos loaded with cabbage slaw, garlic aioli, pickled red radish, and mainstays like coconut achiote beans with coconut rice and lemongrass tofu tacos. Its desserts — dark chocolate beignets, cashew cheesecake, and ice cream from Northeast’s Crepe and Spoon — are worth ordering. Specialty coffees can be made with oat, almond, soy, or house-made cashew macadamia milk options.

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Herbie Butcher's Fried Chicken

A venture by the brother-sister duo behind the Herbivorous Butcher, Herbie Butcher’s Fried Chicken offers a vegan seitan dupe that is as crispy and salty as its meat counterpart (though not a good match for gluten-free eaters). The restaurant serves buckets of chicken, tots, biscuits with maple butter, mashed potatoes, and oat-based shakes out of a tiny window off of Chicago Avenue. Order online if you can — in the summer, the line runs down the block.

Vegan East Bakery

Vegan East is one of the Cities’ pre-eminent vegan bakeries: Line up for cinnamon rolls and S’mores bars, pop tarts, cupcakes and cake slices, cake jars, and more. (Gluten-free treats are also available.) Vegan East also offers holiday cookie decorating kits and beautifully decorated seasonal dessert options — the bakery takes pre-orders for cinnamon rolls, specialty cakes, and cupcakes by the dozen.

Related Maps