Delicious vegan food served at new Bethlehem spot
With the shuttering of Shankara in South Bethlehem in 2017, the Lehigh Valley was temporarily left without a fully vegan restaurant.
With the soaring popularity of meatless dishes, and folks limiting or eliminating meat from their diets, it’s a shock that it took until recently for someone to follow in their footsteps.
With Philadelphia racking up vegan accolades from the likes of Vedge, Charlie Was a Sinner, and V Street, it was only a matter of time until the Lehigh Valley got with the program.
VegOut began as a pop-up restaurant operated by chef Mary Lopresti and hosted at Roasted — a South Bethlehem breakfast and lunch spot — during their off-hours. Immediately successful, Lopresti then teamed up with Mike Clancey, who operates The Seitanic Butcher, an all-vegan producer of faux meats, to launch a food truck called Vegan Voyagers.
Now Lopresti has a location all her own, quickly taking over the vacancy left when Church Street Market closed on Bethlehem’s north side at the end of June.
VegOut offers a variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner options, with a special brunch menu on Sundays. The regular menu offers a nice variation, from options traditionally considered healthy — such as salads — to comfort foods like mac n’ cheese and cheeseburgers. All of these are created using plantbased proteins.
The sandwiches dominate the menu, with classics like cheesesteaks utilizing seitan and cheeseburgers using the ever-popular Impossible burger meat. There’s a “Big Mac” burger take, heaped with Impossible meat crumbles, Thousand Island dressing, pickles, and sesame seeds. Also there’s the hoagie with the same, plus
cheese, lettuce, and tomato.
VegOut offers a few graband-go items for takeout, along with a variety of canned and bottled beverages. Utilizing the coffee bar left over from the previous tenants, VegOut also serves up a full list of coffee drinks and teas.
Setting and décor: Luckily for VegOut, the sleek and simply gorgeous design of the space — courtesy of Bethlehem’s Alloy5 architecture, a graphic and interior design firm — set the shop up nicely. The general motif, with hardwood floors, sage-colored walls and black accents, is pleasing to the eye, with copious amounts of natural light pouring in.
Added was hardwood seating, matching the interior and blending in nicely. The place is small, so with its popularity, finding a table may be a bonus. Even when busy, the atmosphere remained relatively relaxed — somehow maintaining an air of calm, where most
restaurants seem chaotic and frenzied.
Food: My wife and I split two VegOut specialty sandwiches: the Monte Cristo ($12) and the jalapeno popper sandwich ($11) with tofu.
The Monte Cristo was massive, which giant, fluffy French toast slices dusted with a healthy dose of powdered sugar and crammed full of goodness. An expertly-prepared measure of tofu was topped with a lightly melted faux smoked gouda cheese and a sweet (but not overpowering) maple mayo providing the signature Monte Cristo taste.
Likewise, the jalapeno sandwich had three slabs of their fantastic tofu and thin slices of smoky, vegan bacon on an English muffin, providing the base for a spread of cream cheese and cheddar sauce. The spicy, roasted jalapenos were lightly charred, giving it an extra hit of flavor that mixed well with the hearty squirt of sriracha mayo.
The side of home fries was a nice surprise (it was not listed on the menu) and provided just the right amount of food.
I also had a side of animalstyle fries ($5), a riff on the California favorite made famous by In-N-Out Burger. This fairly large portion came loaded with toppings, swimming in a sinful mixture of cheese sauce and Thousand Island dressing. Dark brown and already seasoned with a delightful spice mixture, the sauce and copious amounts of richly dark caramelized onions made this over-the-top dish fantastic.
My friend went with the huevos rancheros ($12), another brunch specialty. Two big corn tortillas were obscured by mounds of shockingly good tofu egg scramble, the aforementioned home fries, and a ladle full of cheddar cheese sauce. A mixture of beans, peppers and onions added color, texture, and substance, and a side of tortilla chips aided in scooping it all up.
This dish was my favorite of the day and made brunch, in addition to the regular menu, a must-hit.
Another friend went with a cup of the lentil soup (around $6), another delicious and flavorful concoction that was loaded with lentils, kale and small diced chunks of sweet potato. Simple, but rich in taste and hearty, it was the perfect bite for a frigid day.
Many of our dishes were brunch (rather than dinner) options, all extremely well prepared and made my mantra of “if you hate tofu, you likely haven’t had it from someone who cooked it properly” all the more relevant.
Service: A month after opening, it’s clear that the popularity of VegOut is rising. Everyone, from strict vegans to dabblers, crammed the restaurant on the Sunday we visited, with not an open seat in sight.
Orders are placed at the counter, then picked up once prepped. You clear your own table once you’re finished. Given how busy it was during our visit, a wait was certainly expected. Our friends’ food arrived in a reasonable amount of time, and atable opened up for us once the restaurant cleared out slightly.
Another order took considerably longer, and I nearly checked to see if they misplaced our ticket. So, if you’re visiting during a busy dining time, be sure to allow for a good chunk of time to grab a table and enjoy your meal, or opt for takeout.
The bottom line: VegOut fills a huge hole in the Lehigh Valley dining scene by offering accessible options to strict vegans and the veg-curious. Brunch for four with two coffee drinks totaled around $55 with tax.
Restaurant reviewer, Glenn Koehler, is a Morning Call contributor