January 3, 2008
Veggieist: Focus on Espresso Royale
Those who keep a vegan diet will probably tell you that eating a healthy breakfast out can often be a challenge, especially when hoping to get something quickly. Breakfast in America is heavily focused on animal products and often the only options involve bacon, eggs, milk, or all three! Enter the chain of Bagel Rising and Espresso Royale cafes in Boston. These green-leaning, eco-friendly, and vegan-catering cafes are warm, inviting, and most importantly, delicious! While most mainstream coffee shops offer soy milk as an option (and charge up to $.60 extra!) that is where the vegan options usually end. BR/ER is, from our experience asking around, the ONLY cafe in town that offers tofu spread – they even have different flavors!! Their menu offer one fully vegan sandwich (the yummy Joy of Soy), and many others that can be made easily vegan (Chia Bagel minus the cheese). The also offer other vegan cookie and pastry options as well.
A sticker on the door of the Newbury Street location touts that BR/ER is a certified Green Restaurant, and they are indeed listed on Green Restaurant Association's website as: using a comprehensive recycling system, being free from styrofoam products, and performing other environmental steps. Just by looking around the cafe you can see they do make a concerted effort. Anyone dining in gets a nice big ceramic mug for their drink to cut down on waste, to-go lids are not standard on drinks - you must take your own if you think you need it, and patrons are reminded to limit their napkin usage and recycle accordingly.
Cafes such as Espresso Royale and Bagel Rising understand that living a more compassionate and ecologically aware lifestyle takes many steps, and they have certainly proven they are excited about doing their part. Now if other cafes in Boston would take notice!
Please refer to the websites for Bagel Rising and Espresso Royale for more information, handy maps, and coupons (!).
Are there any cafes that are vegan/eco friendly that we missed? Let us know in the comments! Finally Bostonist wanted to thank everyone two took the time to write to us about Veggieist, it seems we have a lot of people excited about this column and all the feedback has been wonderful!
Image of a cappuccino used under a creative commons license from Flickr user Ahmed Rabea
|
The Ula cafe in JP has some good vegan options.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/ula-cafe-jamaica-plain#hrid:yI129lcWSgsf7PV2oJhlEw/query:ula
I practically live at Bagel Rising. They have a Baked Tofu sandwich I often eat there, and that is vegan, too. Thanks for highlighting this chain's vegan options.
It's hard to resist the vegan cookie, and they also sell vegan muffins, mini banana loaves and mini carrot cakes. All are good (they are baked by Herrell's Allston Cafe at Brighton and Harvard).
herrell's in allston is very vegan friendly. they have tofu spread for their bagels, vegan muffins, carrot cake, banana bread, cupcakes, cookies, soy yogurt, soymilk for drinks, a variety of vegan sandwiches, and vegan french toast. their working on adding other vegan items to the menu too!