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Cafe Gratitude is a local San Francisco restaurant (now a small chain with 3 locations in the Bay Area) well-known for it’s self-affirming entree names like “I am Wonderful” and “I am Great”.
I thought at first the restaurant and its staff truly believed in the life-giving qualities and energy of its food and the people involved in creating and serving it. (Otherwise, why the weird names for the food ..)
With an enclosed patio overlooking the green garden, it was a perfect choice for dining vegan with vegan friends. We were there one Saturday night. And, I’ll be the first to admit that despite my hesitations over the oddly-named food, I did enjoy sharing two appetizers with my dining companions and devoured my entree.
But – when I left the restaurant, while I enjoyed the food, I think all this self-affirmation stuff is just self-marketing hype to distinguish itself from the other 85+ vegetarian restaurants in the SF Bay Area.
Here’s what happened. We asked our waiter if everything was vegan. He said yes, but we could have ‘honey’ on the side. We said that was fine – we’re vegan, we don’t need honey (let’s just call it what it is — bee vomit).
Anyways, he tells us that he knows what vegan is, he used to be vegan. Of course, tell any vegan you used to be vegan and you’re not now, and they’re going to ask why. So we took the bait and asked why. Well, what the waiter said was lengthier than what I’m going to share, but to be perfectly honest, as soon as he said he felt “more connected” to animals by eating them, I was too busy internally recoiling that he worked at a vegan restaurant with menu items named “I am Sensational” and “I am Whole” to listen any further.
Oh, and before the waiter would give us our check, he asked if there was anything we wanted to be acknowledged for. As if I want or need affirmation from someone who eats animals because he feels more connected to them.
I think it’s just pretentious. A big sham. I will give them kudos for cashing in on the growing market for vegan foods.
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Good news for the movement. Animal People Magazine, reports that donations to animal rights groups increased 40 percent from 2003 to 2004. HSUS up 3%, PETA 20%, and PCRM a whopping 33%.
However, I’d heard reports that 2005 was not a good year for many animal rights organizations due to a number of issues including Katrina.
Hopefully the 2003-2004 increase is a sign that the movement is becoming more mainstream and hopefully making a difference – which is contrary to some peoples thinking that we’re having very little effect because of the increase in animals killed each year for our consumption.
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From the BBC News -
The popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way is wrong, researchers have told a major US science conference. Instead, they argue, early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts.
“Our intelligence, co-operation and many other features we have as modern humans developed from our attempts to out-smart the predator,” said Robert Sussman of Washington University in St Louis.
According to the theory espoused by Professor Sussman, early humans evolved not as hunters but as prey for animals such as wild dogs, cats, hyenas, eagles and crocodiles.
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I’m sure many of you have heard of the Vegan Outreach campaign called Adopt A College, where activists leaflet at local colleges on a regular basis. Well we were at an BAVeg dicussion event with Erik Marcus yesterday, and someone there said that they’ve started to place VO “Why Vegan” brochures in bathrooms that they’d adopted.
She overheard that someone in her apartment building went vegetarian from reading one of those brochures.
I thought this was a fantastic idea and worth sharing.
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In this episode we provide an overview of our favorite places to eat vegan in San Francisco and the surrounding SF Bay Area.
With a strong vegetarian and animal rights community, nearly 90 vegetarian restaurants in the region (which includes over 30 vegan restaurants), vegetarian and animal rights events happening every weekend, moderate weather, beautiful natural scenery, progressive and relatively pro-veg climate, the SF Bay Area is the best place to live as a vegetarian. PETA says “The Bay Area is the capital of America’s vegetarian and vegan revolution!”
We hope folks visiting SF for pleasure or business, as well as those new to the area or vegetarianism, will find this a useful guide to eating with compassion in the SF Bay Area.
GenerationV – Show #8
Duration: 34:45 mins [16MB]
Here are direct links to the restaurants listed in our show:
Bay Area Vegetarians Ultimate Guide
San Francisco Restaurants
Herbivore I and II
Shangri-La
Bok Choy Garden
Medicine New-Shojin Eatstation
Golden Era
MaggieMudd
Panhandle Pizza
Millennium
Cafe Gratitude
East Bay (Oakland and Berkeley)
Golden Lotus
Cha-Ya
Manzanita
New World Vegetarian
Fellini
Lanesplitter
Pizza Plaza
Peninsula/South Bay/Silicon Valley
Vegetarian Gourmet – San Mateo
BayLeaf Cafe – Palo Alto
Kokila’s Kitchen – Cupertino
Good Karma – San Jose
Tofoo Com Chay – San Jose
Vegetarian House – San Jose
Santa Cruz
Asian Rose Cafe
Malabar Cafe
Black China Bakery and Cafe
Dharma’s Natural Foods
Misc
Greens Restaurant San Francisco (“world class” vegetarian restaurant but not very vegan friendly)
Zante’s Pizza & Indian Food San Francisco (check ingredients in “Vegan” pizza, specifically the crust)
New Ganges – San Francisco (overly attentive staff)
Local Bay Area Veg Events
Music by The Egerton Boyz
Subscribe to the podcast
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I thought this was an interesting story. I’m sure some of you have heard how Google has refused to share personal info with the government, and how Yahoo! has routinely shared information about Chinese bloggers who then end up in jail.
Well PetSmart has gone to court to stop an anonymous employee (and PETA supporter) from leaking internal memos. It suggests the company hopes to use the pre-trial discovery process to get Yahoo! which operates the bulletin board – to help identify the sender of the messages.
As well as financial data, they posted about how PetSmart refused to accede to any demands by PETA to launch a negative ad campaign against the company. And that once PETA begins pickets, some people will stay away, depressing company business – and, by extension, the stock price.
It’ll be interesting to see if they find out who the person is.
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A professed vegan has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming McDonald’s Corp. misled consumers into thinking its french fries are free of dairy and wheat products.
I was wondering how long this would take. Now what vegan in their right mind would be eating at McDonalds?
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“Super Vegan – Protecting animals from scumbags like you”
I’d totally forgot about “Super Vegan” until I spotted a post on Vegan Freaks Forum today about another Super Vegan, so I thought I’d dig out the photos of my friend the REAL Super Vegan.
More photos here
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A tule elk herd that’s called a 3,000-acre section of the Concord Naval Weapons Station home for the last 30 years will be relocated to free-range public lands.
I saw footage of this on TV the other night. Really horrific stuff. They were hounding these poor animals with helicopters and trying not so successful at times to trap them in nets.
One of them got entangled in a net a top a real steep hill, and then proceeded to bounce down the hill at full speed for what felt like an eternity to me. Not good at all.
The pratice is called “Mugging”. Really, I didn’t just make that up for a catchy title.
‘Mugging’, the use of helicopter mounted net guns to aid in the capture of large game, is preferred to using tranquilizers, because it doesn’t introduce foreign chemicals into the elk’s bloodstream,” said Tom Swauger, public affairs director of the California Department of Fish and Game.
I’m sure letters to Fish and Game Department are too late for them 
The Tule Elk, which are protected under the Tule Elk Preservation Act of 1976, have slowly been making a comeback in California. During the turn of the last century, there were less than a dozen. Currently, there are 3800 elk in 22 herds across the state.
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Something has been bugging me since I watched the Grammy’s last week. You know how it goes – you hear a snippet of a song on the radio, at the mall or on the TV. You know you know it, and you want to hear it again in it’s entirety – but for the life of it, you can’t damn well remember what it is.
Well that’s what happened to me last week. I really liked Madonna’s performance and loved the song “Hung Up” which I’d not heard before, and it sounded very familiar and retro and I knew she’d borrowed the backing from something that I must have heard a hundred times as a kid.
I’ve been trawling my ripped CD collection, tried Googling when something sprung to mind, and browsed Amazon to no avail.
So, just a moment ago, it popped into my head – It was Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! by Abba
And of course, now I know the answer I can find thousands of hits when Googling for it, including this one where they write on how she had to beg Abba to let her use the track.
I can now sleep tonight knowing that all is right with the world 