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New research has ranked the top 10 US cities for vegans and vegetarians in 2025 based on the total number of meat-free restaurants.
New York City (NYC) took the top spot with at least 2,420 vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free restaurants, which works out to just over 30 per 100,000 people. NYC notably had around 1,500 more vegan-friendly restaurants than Chicago’s 926 and Los Angeles’s 885.
The rest of the top ten were San Francisco, Las Vegas, Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, and Boston, which had between 500 and 815 vegan-friendly restaurants each.
The research was carried out by Betway, a British gambling company, and primarily cross-referenced information from sites like Tripadvisor and World Population Review. The vegan data was analyzed as part of a wider search to find the “coolest” North American city.
Read more: Over 50 NYC Bodegas Add Plant-Based Eggs To Breakfast Sandwiches
New York City’s abundant vegan options
As noted by Betway, NYC is home to a huge number of popular vegan restaurants, including local favorites like Vegan On The Fly, Ras Plant Based, Spring Cafe, Planta Queen, Orchard Grocer, Cadence, the Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, and many more.
Research from 2022 found that around 70 percent of the wider US population consumes plant-based foods, in addition to the roughly six percent who follow strict vegan diets. According to a Google data-based map by Newsweek, people from New York search for vegan-related terms more than all other US states, apart from Hawaii and Oregon.
Last year, Happy Cow included NYC on its list of the top 10 most vegan-friendly cities in the world, while WalletHub’s most recent analysis of the top US cities for vegans and vegetarians placed NYC at number 11. In addition to the number of vegan-friendly eateries, WalletHub also analyzed factors such as affordability in restaurants and at grocery stores.
“While vegetarians and vegans are still a relatively small share of the population, businesses are recognizing their impact on their market,” said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo at the time.
Read more: ‘I Dined At The World’s Only Michelin 3-Star Vegan Restaurant – Here’s What It Was Like’
