I have worked over the past 5½ years building this fantastic list of vegan-friendly dining throughout Napa Valley. It started off as a concise list but the growth over the last several years has been incredible. Napa Valley is still behind compared to other comparably sized cities, but the shift has finally begun. There is always a need for local restaurants to add the vegan symbol 🌱 to their menus – searching for this food shouldn’t be as challenging as it still is. There are a few establishments who have happily made the transition – Aroma, Melted, Mango on Main, Archetype, Sweetie Pie’s Bakery and Live Fire Pizza – come immediately to mind. Others, while offering many veg-friendly options, still have not made an effort to label it and treat it like it is something they want to hide. I don’t need to list these restaurants since they are, sadly, the majority!
After spending so much time editing and fine-tuning the Eat! list, I finally made the decision to create an ebook and publish it. It is now available to purchase worldwide on Amazon websites. My husband Steve and I spent a lot of time deciding if Amazon was a company that we wanted to do business with. But based on the number of books they sell, we ultimately decided that this would give the guide the most exposure.
Why am I selling it now when it was free on my blog site before? Well, here’s my reality…it takes a lot of money annually to run the blog. So…much…money. And creating this book took an enormous amount of time and effort. As I mentioned, I started this list back in 2013 shortly after founding the blog. I then spent the next five years finding restaurants, reviewing menus, revising the list when menus changed, restaurants changed ownership or closed. I had to keep pace with new restaurants opening throughout Napa Valley. And it took twice as much time and work for me than other non-vegan bloggers and journalists. I can’t even list the number of times my emails and phone calls were ignored entirely by the restaurants and their marketing/PR teams. This has been a real labor of love, and as much as I appreciate all of you, I just can’t work for free all of the time!
Where are all of the gorgeous food photos in the dining guide?! Well, I’m going to chalk this one up to excitement and inexperience. When I finally upgraded my camera from my iPhone 7 to the Sony a6500 DSLR, all I wanted to do is take amazing, high-quality food photos. Thanks to some practice and a really impressive Macro lens, some of the time I was able to accomplish that. What I didn’t realize is that these high-resolution jpeg photos are essentially large files. To upload these huge files made by my photos onto your Kindle or Amazon App, required Amazon to charge me excessive fees which in turn would have forced me to price the guides – ebook and paperback – far too high! Sadly, I began removing the photos that I loved so much from the guide one by one! Needless to say, my camera is now set to take pictures that will look great on social media and in ebooks which will keep the files much smaller and manageable.
This guide will allow you to embrace your vegan culinary journey through beautiful Napa Valley. It highlights 75 vegan-friendly restaurants from Michelin rated to fast casual and everything in between! This essential guide explores the hidden gems Napa Valley has to offer and will make navigating the Valley’s plant-based dining scene easy and enjoyable. And if you can’t decide what to order, I have included some suggestions and my favorite menu items! When you pack for your trip to Napa Valley, I hope you will make (virtual) room in your suitcase for my comprehensive and indispensable guide to vegan dining. And as always…eat, drink and be vegan!
To purchase the Napa Valley Vegan Dining Guide click the Buy On Amazon tab below and enjoy! If you have any questions, comments or feedback about the guide, please share them with us in the Comments section!
