Looking for good vegetarian food at Olympia area restaurants? Here are lots of options

Genevieve Belmaker, Shaun Goodwin
·3 min read

Anyone who doesn’t eat meat knows how hard it can be to go out for a simple bite to eat with family or friends. Perhaps you have children who eat vegetarian, and you struggle to find reasonable options for them when you dine out.

Crowd-sourced review sites can provide some guidance on about three dozen Olympia-area restaurants, but vegetarian dining is very loosely categorized. Think steak house in the top 10 local vegetarian options because they serve baked potatoes and steamed broccoli.

In order to find Olympia’s best vegetarian options, we’ve looked at vegetarian food Yelp rankings for:

Then, we curated top Olympia vegetarian picks and recommendations from:

  • Travel website TripAdvisor’s vegetarian-friendly options

  • A targeted search on Google maps for vegetarian food

  • Roundups and community conversations on social media sites like Reddit and Nextdoor to see which restaurants locals are recommending to each other and to visitors.

But what kinds of vegetarian food do these restaurants serve? And how good are the restaurants overall? You can search our list for recommendations based on type of food, and you can search a specific restaurant’s health inspection records online before dining there. It’s also a good idea to call ahead and confirm specific menu offerings.

Here’s what we found.

Vegetarian food options at Olympia restaurants

When it comes to eating out, not every person in a group will be looking for, or want, vegetarian options. These Olympia-area restaurants each have a reasonable number of vegetarian food options on their menus. They’ve been categorized by type of food served with a link to each establishment’s website or Facebook page. Most restaurants have their menu available online.

Fun and casual

Locust Cider is opened a new taproom at 222 Marketplace in downtown Olympia in 2021.
Locust Cider is opened a new taproom at 222 Marketplace in downtown Olympia in 2021.

Fine dining

Italian & Mediterranean

Octapas Cafe’s popular creole shrimp eggs benedict dish is offered during Sunday brunch.
Octapas Cafe’s popular creole shrimp eggs benedict dish is offered during Sunday brunch.

Asian

Burgers & Beer

The interior of Uptown Grill, a new restaurant and bar that has taken over the space previously occupied by Tipsy Piano Bar. The space has been brightened with a chandelier.
The interior of Uptown Grill, a new restaurant and bar that has taken over the space previously occupied by Tipsy Piano Bar. The space has been brightened with a chandelier.