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Restaurants in the USA and Canada - Some Ideas For Vegetarians

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Surprisingly, there does not seem to be anywhere near the same level of provision for vegetarians in restaurants in the USA and Canada as there is now in Britain. Whereas most British restaurant chains now clearly display menu options suitable for vegetarians, this is not generally the case in the USA and Canada.

Nearly all the chains offer full nutrition details of their products in the form of printed leaflets and on their web sites.

The following are a few very tentative ideas. You would need to check on whether specific menu options include any non-vegetarian ingredients. Please treat these ideas merely as starting points for an investigation of the subject.

• In the fast food sector, Wendy's offer various pre-prepared salads, baked potatoes with various choices of fillings, and pitas again with a choice of filling. Some Wendy's locations also have an excellent serve yourself salad bar, although sadly this feature currently seems to be in the process of being withdrawn.

• The chains offering submarine sandwiches (also often called subs or heroes), would probably be well worth investigating. As all subs are made up to order, you can specify exactly which ingredients you do or do not want. The two most widespread chains are Subway and Blimpie.

• McDonald's and Hardee's offer a limited range of pre-prepared salads. The Hardee's fast food chain only operates in some states.

• Whereas McDonald's in Britain has a "Veggie Burger" on its menu, I don't think this is the case in the USA or Canada. However, I haven't checked this thoroughly and I could be wrong.

• Taco Bell, the Mexican fast food chain, offer a Bean Burrito.

• Most of the family steakhouse chains such as Golden Corral and Ryan's feature serve yourself salad bars with an enormous choice of items. In most cases the salad bar can be purchased either as an accompaniment to a main meat dish or as a meal in its own right. I realise that many vegetarians may not wish to patronise establishments whose main product is meat and where they would be surrounded by most other customers eating meat dishes.

• There are a large number of pizza restaurants throughout the USA and Canada, both chains such as Pizza Hut and independently owned restaurants. These would also be worth investigating. As well as offering pizza and pasta, Pizza Hut restaurants also have serve yourself salad bars.

• The buffet restaurant chains such as Home Town Buffet might be worth investigating.

• I think that some of the waitress service restaurant chains such as Applebee's and Denny's now offer vegetarian menu items.

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Most recently modified 10-Aug-04