Grassroots Vegan Hospitality: Lessons from the Early Stages of Movement Building

This article was written by Lindsey Britt, Vegan Hospitality Consultant & Founder of Compassionate Dining, a community movement in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA.

How did I come to be writing a blog post about an all volunteer group--Compassionate Dining--located in Brattleboro, VT (USA) with a mission to inspire people to eat compassionately, sustainably, and healthfully? Compassionate Dining is a Plan B idea: it happened because Plan A fell through and I have an almost pathological desire to hammer away at problems and find solutions. 

About Brattleboro

Before I share about Compassionate Dining I'll share some background on where we're centered. Brattleboro is a small town (about 12,000 people) in a beautiful rural area. Incomes here tend to be low and the town, while small, has some big city issues, including addiction and homelessness. People here exhibit a lot of caring and compassion as seen through the numerous food pantries, mutual aid groups, environmental efforts, etc. There are about 50 restaurants, cafes, bars, and food businesses that are open to the public, including two restaurants that are exclusively vegan. Unfortunately those two restaurants have narrow hours and neither is open for breakfast. 

Main street brattleboro (source: wikipedia)

I've lived in the town for five years, but have only been able to try a relatively small number of the restaurants because my husband and I quickly discovered the hospitality scene wasn't very vegan-friendly. This really surprised us since the town is otherwise extremely progressive politically, but we think this is because Vermont is rooted in the dairy industry. Even though the number of farms has declined, there are still a lot of dairy-related businesses and it's just generally a part of the state's image. 

The Start of Compassionate Dining

So, with that background in mind, back to Plan A. Plan A was to get a grant for a short term art exhibit in a downtown Brattleboro, VT (USA) storefront with the hope of engaging people in conversation about the concept of compassion and how it relates to non-human animals. Unfortunately, the vagaries of the real estate market prevented that plan from happening, but I still had the grant money and, rather than return it, I started devising Plan B. For part of the grant money we still used art by vegan artists and created an ad campaign in the local weekly newspaper. We also printed the ads up as lawn signs for people to display at their homes. For the rest of the grant money I decided to gather a group of people to work on increasing the number of vegan options at restaurants in Brattleboro.

In the fall of 2024 I started reaching out to people involved in the Southern VT Vegan Meetup group to see if anyone would like to help with this project. As a group we decided to call ourselves Compassionate Dining, and we started working with Meredith Marin at Vegan Hospitality to get training in how to do market research, approach businesses, and more. This helped us to form a plan of action and make some early decisions. I think it also gave us much needed confidence as we started out. I know that personally as I've approached businesses I've tried to remember that I'm an expert in this subject with something good to offer them, which is definitely something the training instilled in us.

Our idea was to approach businesses with an offer summed up as "Increase your customer base quickly and easily with vegan-friendly options." We were prepared to offer financial aid for menu re-printing and, at no cost, advice on how to accurately label their menus, recipe development, and training for staff. We also proposed a number of ways that working with us would lead to increased visibility: we would update entries in vegan dining guides, give them a certificate to post online and in person, and promote their business on social media, in press releases, and by planning events at their location.

Early Challenges

We started out by visiting restaurants that already had one or more vegan options on their menus. We figured this meant a certain level of interest in serving customers looking for plant-based options. What we found was very mixed. The number of vegan items on the menu didn't seem to have a direct correlation to their interest in working with us. What made this particularly surprising was that we had money to invest in their businesses, such as for menu re-printing, and were offering no cost assistance. One vegetarian restaurant where perhaps 75% of the menu is vegan was dismissive. Others flat out told us that vegans should eat elsewhere even though there were vegan items on their own menus. There were other surprising responses. It was confusing. 

lindsey britt providing education information at a community event

I have a couple guesses as to why we met with this resistance, one being that society is just generally a bit antagonistic to veganism. The other guess being that people don't like change, or even to think about change, especially if it requires any effort on their part. A third guess is more rooted in actual responses from restaurants: a belief that vegans are already well-served elsewhere. This last guess is the one Compassionate Dining, and vegan hospitality consultants at large, can most actively work to dispel by gathering and sharing data with prospective partners.

Today we stand at three volunteers including myself. I've continued to solicit more involvement from vegans and allies in the area, but it has been difficult to find additional volunteers. We are the only opportunity in the area that I'm aware of that is working on farmed animals issues, so it seems like a natural volunteer fit for vegans in Brattleboro. I know we would get further with our mission more quickly if more people joined us--many hands makes for light work. If vegans and vegan allies want to see a more compassionate world then getting involved in on the ground work and calling for a more plant-based hospitality sector is absolutely necessary. 

Early Successes

We have had some successes though! A Thai restaurant which already had a good number of vegan dishes eventually re-labeled their menu using our suggested wording, so now it's easier for people to find the plant-based options. We're in discussions with a chocolatier who is considering adding vegan truffles in their store. We held a ticketed luncheon at an Indian restaurant where the owner was very receptive to our ideas. We're continuing to follow up with him to improve menu labelling and add dishes from the luncheon to his regular menu.

Lessons

All of this happened during what I would consider the launch phase of Compassionate Dining. We've taken some valuable lessons from this phase, and during this phase I also decided to get more extensive training from Vegan Hospitality by taking their full consultant training course. 

To move forward with our mission, our group will need to build demand for plant-based offerings through education and collaboration with possible allies. To that end, we've been regularly setting up information tables to tell people about our mission and to give out vegan info. We are putting together programming ideas with the library and looking for additional partners. 

Compassionate dining outreach table (Source: lindsey britt)

We've also started compiling a spreadsheet listing the vegan options (or lack thereof) at every restaurant in town to give us a baseline and help us track improvements. As mentioned earlier, this data will also be important to share with potential partners to correct the misconception that vegans are already well-served by the hospitality industry. The list of possible actions is very long, so if one idea fails to mature we have a ready list of back-ups. Getting more local vegans involved would definitely be helpful.

I was aware that our mission would be a challenging one, but I didn't realize just how difficult it would be in the beginning. That said, Compassionate Dining has only really just begun! I am sure we will see even more progress as we gain momentum. We aren't the only ones working to prevent the worst impacts of climate change or striving to make a kinder, liberated world for animals through menu changes, and it helps to now be part of the Vegan Hospitality Network so we can continue to receive support. I wish that change would arrive more quickly, but I'm confident that impacting the hospitality sector will make it easier for more people to become vegan and that inspires me to keep pursuing our mission in my corner of the world.

Support Compassionate Dining in Brattleboro and follow their journey:

Website - provides dining tips for people dining in and traveling to Brattleboro, plus resources for restaurants

Learn how to start a Vegan Hospitality movement in your region by becoming trained as a consultant through vegan hospitality.