Getting the Vegan Offer Right - Catering With Pride and The Hydro
We've recently enjoyed two great value, tasty vegan meals at non-veggie establishments. It's fantastic to see more and more places like these starting to embrace vegan options as part of a mainstream menu. Interesting both companies are run as social enterprises. The King's Arms pub is in Salford, just on the edge of Manchester city centre. As well a pub it has a theatre/ music venue upstairs and is owned by Paul Heaton. Whilst I'd been there many times I'd never eaten there until recently when two Cake Liberation Front regulars told us about the great Sunday roasts.
There's various meat roast options and the veggie option is suitable for vegans. It's a sweet potato nut roast and is great value at £7.50 (£4.50 for children) as it also includes a pudding. The pudding in question on the day we visited was a very tasty fruit sponge with banana custard. The food is provided by a company called Catering With Pride. As you can see I was enjoying it so much I almost forgot to get a picture! They are part of Strong Roots, a community interest company and social enterprise where profits are reinvested back into the local community to support unemployed people furthest from the jobs market to learn new skills and gain confidence. The food was tasty and portions were plentiful. We'll definitely be back soon.
We've also recently visited The Hydro in Buxton for the first time. This cafe is a social enterprise run by a charity with profits going to help children and families in crisis both in the UK and Eastern Europe. The cafe also provides training and employment to young people. It's a relaxed environment with a 50's and 60's theme and the only place I've ever been offered a choice of sweetened or unsweetened soya for my latte.
The service was really friendly and efficient and top marks for the breakfast. I was especially impressed with the homemade sausages as I'm not the greatest fan of Linda McCartney ones so it was lovely to get something different for a change.
Both of these places offer great tasting, home cooked, good value vegan food and it's nice to know that your money is also helping fund work in local communities.
There's a very similar trend in Germany. I recently saw vegan options on the menu of a restaurant, which usually offers fancy German food and has so many meat options.
ReplyDeleteThe roast looks super tasty and it's really great that they do charity work, too!
Everything looks great and I love that they're both social enterprises as well as places with solid vegan options.
ReplyDeleteThe King's Arms eh? Brilliant as they sell good beer too! I must get down there at some point, and the Buxton option sounds good too. Your blog is my one stop shop for finding new places to eat heh. Thanks Caroline.
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