Before Deneen Carpenter made the decision to open a cafe in 2018, she had to consider the risks of starting a business in Cable, a town of approximately 825 people in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

“There are already, before we opened, three other cafes. And then one pizza place in this little five-mile radius,” Carpenter says. “So people thought I was really not thinking. They thought I was crazy to do this.”

Yet, Carpenter, 52, had peace of mind in her choice to pursue her business concept: a primarily organic, plant-based restaurant called Velō Cafe, which offers seasonal salads, sandwiches, baked goods, coffee, smoothies and juices. Carpenter was counting on a healthier food option to appeal to the active community that visited Cable for its destination biking, skiing and trail racing. An avid biker herself, Carpenter made the decision to open Velō Cafe because she perceived a local need for food options that accommodated her healthy lifestyle and diet — one that, for the past 28 years, has not included meat or dairy.

“Some people always have a passion of ‘Oh, I want to own a restaurant one day or a cafe’ — that was never necessarily a passion of mine. But when we moved [to Cable], I noticed it really is what I call a food desert up here,” Carpenter says. “I did it out of a need because I’m a vegan.”

In Wisconsin, where meat and cheese are typically staples on the menu, plant-based restaurants defy the state’s traditional meat-and-potatoes food culture. Restaurant owners are opening their businesses to meet a perceived local need for meatless and non-dairy options, and their decisions to offer vegetarian and vegan menus, which often feature seasonal, locally-grown produce, are evolving the state’s cuisine.

Defining the trend

Vegan, vegetarian and plant-based lifestyles exclude, to varying extents, meat or dairy — or both. Veganism, which excludes all animal products, often involves more intentional choices that go beyond dietary habits, according to Emilia Cameron, lead organizer of the Madison Vegan Fest.

“Veganism is more about a philosophy of doing the least harm and committing yourself to, essentially, nonviolence towards other sentient beings,” Cameron says, highlighting the choice to not purchase cosmetics that have been tested on animals as an example.

While choosing to eat plant-based foods may be an ethical decision aligned with veganism, many people also try it simply for health or environmental reasons. A plant-based diet is a “win-win,” according to a 2016 study by the U.N. — good for both health and the environment; in a more recent report commissioned by the U.N. in 2019, researchers urged a global shift away from animal products to help combat climate change.

According to a Gallup Poll in 2018, the number of vegetarians or vegans in the U.S. has seen little change in recent years. Yet as the global vegan food market grows, plant-based options such as the Impossible WHOPPER — now available at Burger King locations nationwide — are becoming more accessible to consumers. Cameron believes this greater number of plant-based options, rather than an increased number of vegans or vegetarians, is driving more national interest in veganism.

As an active advocate in Madison’s vegan community since moving to the city for graduate school in 2015, Cameron says this spirit of veganism is “alive and well” in the city, which she attributes to its progressive history.

“There’s this nature of civic duty — people really want to get involved in their community to make a difference. And I think of all the places I’ve lived, that was most apparent to me in Madison,” Cameron says.

Growing a business

Jennie Capellaro (left) happily passes down her restaurant to new owner Erick Fruehling (right).

In 2009, Jennie Capellaro, then a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School, thought it was unfair that the city  — being a “liberal college town” — lacked an exclusively vegetarian restaurant. A vegetarian herself, Capellaro perceived a local need for more plant-based options, so she took her love for cooking and opened the Green Owl Cafe, the only exclusively vegetarian and vegan restaurant in Madison. Surya Cafe, nearby in Fitchburg, is one of the only other purely vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the area.

“Mainly [my motivation] was: No one’s doing this; it should happen,” Capellaro says. “There should be a place for vegans and vegetarians to come and eat where they have some options other than two or three things at the bottom of the menu.”

Just a year earlier, in 2008, Robin Kasch had opened the first 100 percent vegetarian restaurant in southeastern Wisconsin, Cafe Manna, in the city of Brookfield. Kasch, too, was a vegetarian who felt limited by local options. After experiencing a vegan restaurant in California, Kasch decided to bring the concept back home, according to Alexia Couto, the general manager.

As for Carpenter, although the small town of Cable had a considerable number of choices relative to its population, she also recognized a need for healthier, simpler options.

“I’m extremely passionate about knowing where your food came from and going back to the basics, which to me is — let’s just go back to wholesome food. Does it really need to be fried? Does it really need to be covered in sauces?” Carpenter says. “Let’s just go back and remember: What does a carrot taste like?”

For Stephanie Kind, 32, the decision to open a vegetarian restaurant was more about doing “something completely different” with her life, rather than meeting a need in the community. After serving 10 years in active duty with the U.S. Navy, Kind, who became a vegetarian at 12 years old, moved to the city of Monroe in south central Wisconsin and opened the Black Walnut Kitchen in 2018. 

Like other restaurant owners who have opened plant-based businesses in America’s Dairyland, Kind brought more than just a fresh menu of options to the community: She also brought a new experience. The Black Walnut Kitchen offers a creative fusion of local ingredients and global flavors to customers, which she brings from her time in the military and her own vegetarian palate, she says.

Cafe Manna also explores environmentally conscious business practices. As the first Certified Green Restaurant in Wisconsin, accredited by the Green Restaurant Association, and one of the first restaurants to achieve a three-star certification level in the U.S., Cafe Manna boasts bamboo floors, “paper stone” counters, recycled light fixtures, non-toxic painted walls, plastic-less dining and compostable carry-out containers.

Carpenter says visitors can momentarily escape the Northwoods at Velō Cafe with the restaurant’s urban plant-based menu, tin construction, and black and silver aesthetic.

The Green Owl Cafe, where the walls seem to be decorated with just as many community-voted favorite business awards as unique owl decorations, offers a fully vegan-friendly menu.

“It’s just beautiful to watch because [vegan customers are] overcome. They’re like, ‘I can choose everything!’ And they can’t decide because they have all these options. So that’s really gratifying to see as an owner,” Capellaro says. “That’s what I wanted — I want to be able to have people have too many choices and be excited.”

The Green Owl Cafe, located in Madison, is nothing short of vibrant.

Midwestern vegans

Carpenter will forever remember a moment during Velō Cafe’s opening when the older “local locals” came to try the food for the first time. After seeing the looks on their faces at the nontraditional options on the menu, she couldn’t help but to joke and have fun with them.

“There are the people who have been there once, and they’ll probably never come back because we just don’t speak to their need. And that’s okay,” Carpenter says.

While Cameron doesn’t necessarily believe Wisconsin is any less accepting of plant-based options than other states, she says a fair number of Wisconsinites have connections to dairy farming and may express more resistance to the idea of plant-based diets and lifestyles.

When purchasing restaurant equipment, for instance, Capellaro says it was difficult for one seller to conceptualize a successful restaurant that didn’t serve meat. With the Green Owl Cafe still in operation nearly a decade later and happily being passed on to a new owner who will contribute fresh ideas to the business, Capellaro is able to prove her skeptics wrong. “We have thrived,” she says.

Kind also initially experienced skepticism from friends and family who expressed concerns about her opening a plant-based restaurant in a small town. But Kind says the Black Walnut Kitchen has so far been successful, especially considering that a number of her returning customers are beef farmers. She has faith in her philosophy: “If the food is good, and people enjoy the food, they will come regardless of whether it’s plant-based or not.”

Cafe Manna shares this philosophy. According to Couto, the majority of the restaurant’s customers consume meat and dairy, but they still come to the restaurant because the food tastes good. Not a vegetarian or vegan herself, Couto, 38, says she has personally become more conscious of her eating habits and has learned a lot about plant-based foods since she was hired in 2015.

Overall, these plant-based pioneers perceive a positive shift in the reception of vegetarian and vegan food culture in Wisconsin, despite the state being largely characterized by its dairy industry. Their businesses are perhaps more accepted now than they were, or would have been, years ago, especially in more rural communities.

“Five years ago, I don’t know if this would have taken off,” Carpenter says. “But I think now is the right time. I think people are just more in tune [to their bodies].”