Wayside Cafe offers comfort food for vegans — and carnivores like it too

Vegans are abuzz about the Wayside Cafe and Deli and its comfort food-laden and entirely plant-based menu.

The more surprising news: Some carnivores feel the same way.

“You don’t miss the meat,” my dining companion said, reflecting on a meal of a red chili jackfruit sandwich, collard greens and cauliflower wings, a less messy and undoubtedly lower calorie version of Buffalo wings. (Jackfruit, for the uninitiated, is a high-protein tropical fruit that works well in savory dishes when unripe.)

There’s a Southern flair to much of the menu at the Wayside, which opened July 20. Mac and “cheeze,” two kinds of coleslaw and creamed corn (so creamy and sweet it could be dessert) appear along with multiple variations on barbecue and fried “chickn.”

“I wanted to have a balance between junk food and healthier food,” said co-owner Jamie Vulva, a doula who’s as passionate about sex education as she is about vegan food.

“We didn’t want to be one of those vegan places that everyone who’s not vegan would expect, like where we just have salads and quinoa bowls,” said co-owner Kevin Rainsberry. “Nothing against those things, but it’s not an exciting thing to go out and eat.”

There are bowls on the menu — based on rice, macaroni and/or mashed potatoes — along with a couple of salads. Almost everything is or can be gluten free, and several items are soy free, too.

But basically, it’s about flavor.

“We wanted to make things for people that they couldn’t necessarily make at home,” Jamie said.

Which is ironic, because until she and Kevin opened the Wayside, she was “just a home cook,” she said. But obviously a highly motivated one.

The duo, who met when both were working at King Solomon’s Reef, share cooking and recipe creation duties 50-50. Jamie makes desserts (when she has time, so they’re not always available, though there are plans to hire another dessert chef).

Each has been eating vegan for more than a decade, and when they discovered they both wanted to open plant-based eateries, Jamie and Kevin decided to work together.

Once they got serious, they quickly found a vacant spot across from Sylvester Park in the former home of Bonjour Cupcakes, Taco Del Mar and Capitale.

Jamie had long been dreaming about opening a restaurant, but for a long time, she wasn’t sure there was enough demand.

“Even at the Reef, I noticed that there was an increase in the vegan and vegetarian options that were being ordered,” she said, “and I was like, ‘Now is the time. It needs to happen.’ ”

Indeed, December’s Culinary & Cocktails Trend Forecast predicted that vegan food would be this year’s top trend.

And though vegan eateries abound in Seattle and Portland, they’re scarce in South Sound. Until Wayside opened, Olympia’s only completely vegan options were Peace Love and Raw in downtown Olympia and its Capital Mall sibling Rocket Raw, both serving only raw food, which is quite a distance from the Wayside’s hoagies and TBLTs (made with tempeh bacon).

It’s already clear the restaurant has met a need. It’s busy enough that the owners plan to continue staying open 11 hours a day, seven days a week.

And social media response has been wildly enthusiastic.

“Grab your friends and just go — you’ll be so glad you did!” Joanne Lee of Olympia posted on Facebook. “After you order, you’re already deciding what to try next time you come.”

“It just got a lot easier being a vegan in Olympia,” Lee, who describes herself as “veganish,” told The Olympian.

This story was originally published August 30, 2018 at 5:40 PM.