Or so says this survey. Well, what it really says is that more people in DC don’t eat meat than any other city in this survey.
The DC metro area is definitely amazingly friendly for vegetarians. We may not have a ton of purely vegetarian/vegan restaurants, but we do have an amazing amount of vegetarian/vegan-friendly restaurants. I almost think that’s more important. There’s an incredible abundance of pizza places offering up vegan cheese now (even a late-night big slice place, which is ridiculous) and a good number of bars serve up vegan eats without question (a legacy leftover from DC’s punk days).
I’ve never had trouble eating in restaurants here. Yeah, it does take a little more forethought, but it’s super-easy to go without meat here. It’s barely even a thing you need to think about.
Some of it, I know, is the awesome work groups like Compassion Over Killing does in the area. They work with restaurants to develop vegetarian and vegan dishes. The goal isn’t to make restaurants entirely vegetarian — but just to encourage them to expand their offerings a bit more.
I will be at DC VegFest next weekend. You should come too!