Somebody was bound to come up with this list. Mobile app and food ordering/delivery website GrubHub has come out with their top ten cities for vegetarians. What they did was collect data from restaurants offering online ordering to see which cities had more vegetarian, vegan and vegetarian-friendly restaurants per capita.
They’ve released the top ten and I have them for you right here.
#10 is Chicago, which would come as more of a surprise to me (what with all those midwestern steak places) if I hadn’t just done a post on Lady Gaga’s vegetarian week in Chicago.
#9 is Denver, which doesn’t surprise me much at all. Denver has always been a very health-conscious city and I’d expect to find plenty of dining options there.
#8 is Los Angeles. The only surprising thing there isn’t that it didn’t rank higher, considering all of the vegetarian and vegan celebrities and celebrity hopefuls.
#7 is San Fransisco. Since locavore dining really got its start (or at least became chic) in San Fransisco, the fact that it ranks high in vegetarian dining makes sense.
#6 is Austin, #5 is Dallas and #4 is Houston. I don’t want to offend our Texan readers, but that surprises me completely. What about all that barbecue, chili and cattle ranching? Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled. Just dumbfounded.
#3 is San Diego. As a Californian who visits San Diego quite often, I would have been surprised NOT to see SD. I’ve had some of my best vegetarian restaurant meals there.
#2 is San Jose. With all of the organic growers out that way, I’d say the vegetarian restaurants have some amazing supplies to work with and serve.
Finally, Seattle ranked #1 as having the most vegetarian, vegan and vegetarian-friendly restaurants per capita than any other city.
Again, this isn’t much of a surprise, as Seattle has always had a rep as both a health-conscious city and a progressive dining destination.
I may have to make a point of visiting some of these cities to check out their restaurant scenes. First will come Texas; I just really need to see that for myself!
What do you think about the top ten cities for vegetarians? Don’t hesitate to leave your comments. We’d love to hear from you!
- Jenny Sangler
This list is absolute total nonsense. Portland Oregon doesn’t even make the top ten when so many other surveys have placed it at the top of lists of “Most Vegetarian Friendly” cities. It must be that GrubHub doesn’t even operate in Portland and thus it was not even surveyed. No other explanation makes any sense at all.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the survey!
How about the top ten in the world??
I will try to do some research about it!
Using the numbers of happycow.net for the amount of vegetarian/vegan/veg-friendly resturaunts around the world, the top 10 list that I got was
1.Portland, USA
2.San Francisco, USA
3.Vancouver, Canada
4.Seattle, USA
5.Orlando, USA
6.New Delhi, India
7.Venice, Italy
8.Denver, USA
9. Bologna, Italy
10. Austin, USA
Special mentions of Singapore (229) and London (259) for the most total.
The way I got these numbers is I took the total number of veg resturaunts and divided that by how many thousands of people live in that city. I did not include any little tiny cities under 200k either. I don’t have all the time in the world so I only checked the countries I thought would have the most. Happycow.net is not a complete list, by any means, either. But I am sure it can show a pretty good idea of which are the highest.
Some other cities worth mentioning would be Berlin, Toronto, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Chicago and Chiang Mai. If i had included cities under 200k population, Chiang Mai and Santa Monica would have had the most by far.
Clearly, the US generally has the most per population, although happycow.net could be mostly Americans which might throw off the estimate.. but anyways there you go.
Thanks for taking time to check! This is really helpful!
Well, really, anywhere in India is going to be by far the most vegetarian friendly, but happycow.net only shows the best vegetarian/vegan resturaunts in India. Living in any of the descent sized cities (especially in the south) you would be hard pressed to find a resturaunt that isn’t atleast veg-friendly.
Good to know that! Thanks!
sad that none are near me! You would think NY would have more! They have some but not to the degree Seattle does. I grew up near Seattle and it is much more veg friendly out that way.
Thanks for the comment!
Where the heck is Portland, Or.? They have to be THE most veg friendly city I have ever been to!
Thanks for pointing it out! Not sure why Portland, Or wasn’t included in their top 10.
I am very surprised that Oregon is not on this list. I live near Seattle and it definaitly is top 5 for sure.
I agree! That’s what everyone has been questioning.
YEah I am surprised that Portland is not on this list either. According to happycow.net, Portland has 90 vegetarian/vegan/veg-friendly resturaunts where as Seattle has 75 and Oregon has a lower population… so shouldn’t Oregon be atleast in the top 10? Grubhub’s numbers may be different from their’s by a little bit… but I doubt THAT much.
It could be like what someone else said. They don’t operate in Portland so they aren’t including Portland has one of the options.
I live near Seattle and it definaitly deserves to be on the top 10, but Portland should be first.
I guess that’s the reason why Portland, OR is not included in the list. I will send them an email to clarify. Thanks!
How is Portland not on this list?
I will send GrubHub an email to check. I will keep you posted. Thanks!
Oops, sorry- didn’t read the thread before responding
No worries!