Most Cafe Menus Are More Vegetarian Than They Look
If you do not eat meat, you have had this experience: you scan a menu, see a chicken section and a burger section, decide the place is not for you, and order a coffee.
That read is usually wrong. The meat items are the ones with names and photographs. The vegetarian items are scattered across the breakfast board, the pasta list, the salads, the soups and the drinks, and nobody labels them, because the kitchen is not thinking in categories. It is thinking in dishes.
We are a waterfront cafe at 10 Bay Ridge Ave, and a fair number of people who walk in from Owls Head Park or off the promenade are eating meat-free that day. So here is our own menu, read honestly: what is already vegetarian, what needs one swap, where the vegan line actually falls, and what to ask when a blog post cannot answer it.
Breakfast Without the Bacon
Breakfast is the easiest meal of the day to eat vegetarian, because the protein is already eggs and dairy.
Avocado Toast
Listed at $10.25 with a hard boiled egg. It is the order we point people to most often, and the egg is a component rather than a fixture, so it is a normal thing to ask about. There is a whole guide to how we build it if you want the detail.
Grilled Cheese
$7.50, up to five cheeses, bacon and avocado as paid add-ons you simply do not add. It is the cheapest hot vegetarian lunch on the board and arguably the most fun to customize, which is why it has its own article.
Pancakes and French Toast
Double pancakes or French toast are listed with bacon, and also listed with strawberries. Asking for the plate without the bacon is routine. For what the two actually taste like next to each other, see our pancakes and French toast guide.
Eggs, Egg Salad and the Oat Jar
Potatoes and eggs at $10.50, egg salad at $7.50 and the overnight oatmeal jar are all vegetarian as listed. The breakfast sandwiches and the breakfast hero are built on bacon, so those are the ones to skip rather than to modify.
The meat items have names. The vegetarian ones are scattered, which is why they look absent.
Lunch: The Part That Needs Reading
Lunch is where a menu rewards attention. The chicken board and the Burger Factory are built around meat end to end; there is no useful swap there. Everything else is in play.
Pasta
The saucy tomato penne is $7.25 and the plain tomato sauce ziti is $7.25, both vegetarian. The spicy tomato sausage ziti, the pesto chicken pasta, the Alfredo bacon penne and the mac n' cheeseburger are not, and the meat in each is cooked into the sauce rather than laid on top. Our pasta guide walks the whole list.
Salads
The Mediterranean salad is $12.50 and the salad with three hard boiled eggs is $8.50. The Caesar at $10.25 comes with the usual caveat: classic Caesar dressing contains anchovy, so if that matters to you, ask before ordering rather than assuming a no-chicken Caesar is meat-free. More on how we build them in the salads guide.
Soup and Sides
Of the two soups, creamy tomato is the vegetarian one at $7.25 for a cup; chicken noodle is what it says. Fries at $4.50 are the side that always works, and every pastry on the baked goods shelf — croissants, muffins, the black and white cookies — is fine. Our soup guide covers what to pair with each.
Drinks Are the Easy Part
Nothing on the drinks side of the counter involves meat, which makes it the stretch of the menu where a vegetarian order needs no thought at all.
The Juicery is cold-pressed and plant-based by construction: Daily Cleanse with carrot, orange, ginger, turmeric and lemon, Detox with kale, apple, romaine, celery and cucumber, plus Morning Glow, Energize, Anti-Inflammatory, Oh So Berry, Red Rabbit and Spice, at $7.50 small and $8.50 for a 24 oz. The juice guide goes through them one by one. The ginger and comfort shots are $3.25.
Smoothies are vegetarian across the board, and one of them clears the vegan bar too: Oh So Green is spinach, kale, banana, pineapple and almond milk. PB Fit uses honey and milk, which matters if you are vegan rather than vegetarian. See the smoothies guide for the full list.
On the coffee and tea side, every La Colombe drink and every Rishi tea is vegetarian, including the matcha and chai lattes covered in our matcha and tea guide. If you need a non-dairy milk in a latte, ask what we have on hand that day rather than assuming — it is the one drink question worth asking out loud.
Vegetarian Is Not Vegan, and the Gap Is Dairy
Worth being straight about this. A cafe built on coffee, cheese and eggs is naturally vegetarian-friendly and naturally difficult for vegans. Butter, cheese, eggs and honey are load-bearing ingredients here, not garnishes.
If you are vegan, the reliable orders are the cold-pressed juices, the Oh So Green smoothie, black coffee and plain tea, and fries. Anything beyond that is a question for the counter, and we would rather answer it accurately than have you find out from a plate. The same goes for allergen and cross-contact questions: a small cafe kitchen works in close quarters, and the people cooking that day are the only ones who can tell you what is possible.
Three Questions Worth Asking at the Counter
- "Is there anchovy in the Caesar dressing?" The one classic dish where vegetarian status is not obvious from the name.
- "Can this come without the bacon?" Nearly always yes on breakfast plates, nearly always no where meat is cooked into a sauce.
- "What milks do you have today?" Faster and more accurate than reading a board.
Calling (718) 777-6969 before a visit works for all three, and is the right move if you are ordering for someone else and cannot ask them.
Feeding a Mixed Group
Most orders for a crowd involve at least one person who does not eat meat, and the usual mistake is to treat that person as an add-on: one tray of something plain, ordered last. The better approach is to build the spread out of items that happen to be vegetarian and let everyone eat from the same table — pastries and fruit, a tomato pasta, salads, grilled cheese cut in halves, coffee and juice.
That is how we plan most catering orders for offices and parties in the neighborhood. Tell us the headcount and how many people are meat-free and we will set the ratio with you.
The Short Version
Breakfast is easy: avocado toast, grilled cheese, pancakes or French toast without the bacon, eggs, the oat jar. Lunch takes one pass of reading: tomato penne, Mediterranean salad, creamy tomato soup, fries, with the Caesar dressing as the one real trap. Drinks require nothing — the whole juice, smoothie, coffee and tea side is already there. And if you are vegan rather than vegetarian, the juices and the Oh So Green smoothie are your floor, with everything else worth a question first.
Pier 69 Market is at 10 Bay Ridge Ave in Brooklyn, open 6 AM to 9 PM Monday through Friday and 7 AM to 9 PM on weekends, with delivery through GetSauce. Browse the full menu, check hours and directions, or read our wider guide to eating well in Bay Ridge and what else is open for lunch in the neighborhood.
Eat Meat-Free by the Water
Cold-pressed juice, grilled cheese, avocado toast, salads and La Colombe coffee at 10 Bay Ridge Ave. Open 6 AM to 9 PM weekdays, 7 AM to 9 PM weekends. Call (718) 777-6969.
