Vita Cafe

The only personal negative observation I can really make is I wish it was an all vegan establishment. Their breaded deep fried tempeh thingy with gravy and potatoes is just magical to me. Actually I should be more accurate and say that is the only thing I ever get so I guess I’m giving that menu item five stars.

So insanely amazing. They cater to every dietary restriction in a beautiful way. My wife and I were more than pleased with our food, I had the vegan lasagna with both pesto AND marinara. It was a large portion and very delicious. Our server was very friendly and helpful, I’m pretty sure her name was Shelly and she was amazing. We can’t wait to come back!

Best Birthday dinner ever last night — we always love coming here! Food is awesome, service is fantastic and the cocktails just top everything off perfectly! And it’s always fun to see the art circulating through the restaurant, which we found out is the hard work of one of the wonderful people who work there — whose puppets we admired most recently :-)
Fantastic place to take folks from out of town and if you aren’t vegan they options for youtoo — and they don’t make you feel guilty abut it!
thank you Vita Café!!!

I’m super excited for all the gluten-​free and vegan options. I ordered the fish and chips and was really surprised how close they came to the real thing. Now, «close» because if you’re used to eating halibut fish and chips, a block of tempeh is a far cry from the «real» thing. In fact, it was a little too much for me and could only finish two of the 4. Obviously, the texture it totally different from fish, BUT the batter was amazing and the tarter sauce was exceptional. It was a sustainable option and non-​GMO which is a big deal for me. Fries were fantastic. Looking forward to eating through the rest of the menu and definitely trying some dessert; their cakes looked insanely good.

Uncle Dougie will make a special that will blow your socks off. If you’re lucky, he’ll put some mac & cheese with tempeh on texas toast and let you dip it in BBQ sauce! Seriously though, whatever is on the board, just order it! Home. Run.

Not impressed with this restaurant at all. My initial impression was already bad when we were greeted by this standoffish server that acted like he was too good to be working there. Number one rule of working in hospitality– provide service!
Anyways the two star review is not merely a reflection of the service, as the food was disappointing as well. We tried the Thai soup, the chicken fried steak, and the Italian pasta. I’d say the only item that was good to me was the soup. It was nice and creamy with a strong coconut flavor, and the onion bread was the main highlight of the night.
Chicken fried steak was not good to me at all. I really thought that the «meat» could have had a lot more texture, as it just tasted like mashed taro coated with a crispy batter. I feel like any meat alternative sold at the grocery store would have tasted better in place of the «chicken» they served. The mashed potatoes that were served with it were good, but definitely nothing noteworthy there either.
The Italian pasta was good, and the aardvark sauce helped give it a kick. Overall though, food was mediocre to me and the one server dude that was too cool to serve us definitely didn’t help. Do want to point out, however, that another server that came in later was super friendly and she happily went around the restaurant looking for the last bottle of aardvark sauce for us. As touristy Californians, my group was super glad that we got our final dose of that amazing hot sauce.

Food here is absolutely delicious!!! I had the french toast which was so amazing and also the curry which was good even when i reheated it later. The bread that comes with the soup is amazing as well. For dessert I had the peanut butter square and wish I had 2 of them. The staff was very friendly and we ended up chatting for a while while the food was being prepared. If you’re in the area make sure and check out this place.

The Vita Café is consistently good, and we find ourselves returning time after time when visiting family in Portland. It’s a vegetarian’s heaven, and any meat lover will enjoy the fare as well.
My husband once had their chicken fried «steak» and didn’t even realize it was meatless until after he had finished and I told him. Lol. Every dish I have tried has been flavorful and tasty, and healthy. Service is always with a smile, and they’re kid friendly. In fact, kids eat for $ 1 from 5 – 7 pm. Score!

I really like to try new vegan places but these days your food should just be good.. .not good for a vegan place.
Unfortunately.. .I’d just say it was good considering it was a vegan place.
Not totally vegan because there is salmon on the menu.. .but oh well. The salmon burger was really tasty.
The pasta in the lasangna was soggy and the sauce was way too salty. Nothing sophisticated in the taste.

We came back to Portland and my 17 yo is a vegetarian and we were all starving so we returned here to give this place another shot. The food was really good. Snapped some photos and uploaded them. I had the Ruben which was filling but perhaps a lil too sour/​salty for my personal taste but still good.
I would df come back and try some other stuff out.

We have stopped in here a couple of time. We have enjoyed it very much. This is the type of place you can take you vegetarians and meat eating friends and everyone has equal number of choices. I had a great burger; others had chile and cheese sandwiches. We had a nice Pilsner with our burgers. The service was very good. Great meal. Looking forward to our next visit.

Where to begin on this lovely, lively, nourishing establishment?!
I’ve never had a negative experience at Vita.
Their menu is vast and hits allllll the cravey spots; there’s something for everyone here, regardless of dietary preferences.
Relaxed atmosphere. Love the rotating art; glad this place support local artists!
Servers are always SUPER AWESOME. Every last one of em. (Have had a couple sour apples in there over time, but they move on.) Friendly, genuine, unique crew. Owners should feel blessed with these guys. Hope it shows in their hourly; you don’t find servers like this every day.
On hungry days I’ll order the Country Comfort with tempeh bacon, tofu, potatoes. Average days I’ll stick to their savory biscuits in almond gravy, with a side of that delicious, well-​seasoned tofu… And I like to jazz with some of dat Aardvark.
Can I just hug the kitchen? All of them? They treat my tastebuds right and make me very happy.
I’ll have the occasional renegade lemonade on a day off and I’m always satisfied with the quality.
Idk if we keep coming back for the food, the atmosphere, or the service, but we’re just gonna keep rolling with a good thing. My sister and I hit up this spot at least twice a week, and we’re happy to have Vita in our lives.
Would give 10 stars if possible. For a balanced or an unbalanced meal, I will always recommend Vita.

After arriving in Portland we deciding to grab some vegan lunch. One of the closest places I found on Unilocal was Vita Café off Alberta street. Needless to say the food was great. We ended up eating there a couple times during our vacation. I had the Fishwich and the Vegan Club Sandwich on my two visits. Both were awesome and paired well with a local IPA. We shared a small order of fries which was plenty and delicious. My only regret is I wish I had been able to try their breakfast while in town. But I will be back some day!

I am impressed with this restaurant! Truly gluten free, vegan menu (with meat options available!)
Really delicious food that I haven’t typically been able to eat since becoming allergic 6 months ago.
The GF, V Pizza Stack was SO good!

Awesome experience during the dinner crowd on a Friday. When I came in the tables were full so I sat at the bar. The servers kept my glass full of water, I was thirsty I had done a lot of walking. As a southern gal turned vegan I’ve had chicken fried steak before so I was interested in trying a vegan version and it did not disappoint. The gluten free coating they surround the tofu with is spot on! I enjoyed it and the mashed potatoes and gravy. Customer service was great.

My husband wanted some burger so we found this place in the Internet. The sun was shining and we eat outside. The service was perfect, I ordered a burger but asked if we could get him gluten free. Perfect, he was not sure if the tempeh is completely gluten free so I got a burger with a gluten free party and the tempeh extra if I want to try it. The burger was so good, that we forgot to take a picture. The fries also are really good. If you want a good vegan burger go here!

So I’ve been back in Portland for less than a week and I’ve made it to Vita at least 3 times. I don’t know if it’s a recent addition to the Alberta area or if I was just living on another planet when I did live here, but this place is AWESOME!
I’ve only had breakfast when I go but the Country Comfort is super filling, flavorful, and makes me want to come back over and over again. The almond gravy is the winner on that one, and is totally worth pouring over everything else on the plate (even says my meat-​loving mother). She also says the chicken Apple sausage is totally worth it. Additionally, the jam is fab and the scrambles have massive amounts of super fresh veggies!
The service has been up and down the couple times that I’ve gone but I’ve always left satisfied with the customer service AND food. Plus it’s a super cute neighborhood spot so extra star for that.

I’m not vegetarian so this may bias my results but I only give this place 3 stars because I was still very hungry after my meal and was not satisfied with how much I paid for my meal.
I arrived in a party of eight after a long hike. Of course a vegetarian café might not be the best place to go when you’re really hungry. And of course it might be better to eat meat to feel full. However since I know the basics of appetite regulation, I knew that carbs are key to feeling full by causing the greatest leptin release which is the hormone that tells your hypothalamus you’re full.
So I at first was interested in the burger but I don’t like eating white bread so I thought about the buffalo tortilla wrap. I noticed there were no carbs inside the wrap so I decided to order the broccoli tempeh dish instead because it comes with brown rice.
When it arrived I noticed that there was very little brown rice but a lot of vegetables. I was very pleased with the tangy taste– it was very saucy and having an Indian heritage means I like sauce with rice.
However it was the smallest serving of rice I have ever been served so I barely felt like I ate anything afterwards.
So I ordered a basic burger which was as the name suggests very basic. No cool sauces or anything unique came with it; I just got some well-​done meat, lettuce, and tomatoes, with bread that was a bit burnt. It’s not grass-​fed to my knowledge and it’s not worth $ 6.50. Also they use Hunt’s ketchup which I don’t like; I only like the local good ketchups like what they serve at little big burger.
I would have paid $ 7 for the broccoli and tempeh instead of $ 10.5 and $ 4 for the burger instead of $ 6.50.
It’s important for serious vegetarians to obtain enough calories in their diet. Not eating meat doesn’t really make that difficult either but deciding to eat lots of vegetables to feel full and avoiding more calorie dense foods like rice will leave one hungry and lead to health problems down the line.
I’m glad I tried this place out, but I would only recommend it to vegetarians that are small and require fewer calories. On the plus side the service was pretty fast.

I mean honestly… totally worth all five stars. This place has epic vegan brunch food! I had a massive (I mean ginormous) stuffed burrito with loads of potatoes plus a coffee with almond milk cream. My friend had the fried ‘chicken’ with gravy… heavenly! I think it was battered tempeh? It was so crunchy and so yumm! I’m definitely returning here. Portions are huge and prizes are comparable!
Update: So this is like my favorite vegan spot now. Third visit and I had mimosas with a colleague. She had raspberry cider and mine was with grapefruit juice — amazing mimoas, woah! The juice tastes so fresh. I’m not a drinker so I’m picky! Still 5 stars in my book.

Love the corn cakes different from our fl grits all around great food
Ronn just the Ronn
The hole in the wall food guy