Dine Out Broad Ripple Brewpub – June 10, 2010

I wanted to quickly thank everyone who showed up to last night’s Indianapolis Vegetarian Society Dine Out. It was our largest turnout ever for one of these and that’s very exciting news. I suppose some of the thanks for that goes out to the Broad Ripple Brewpub itself. Their unique, and very vegetarian-friendly pub food menu is accessible and delicious.

As I said, this was our largest turnout for a Dine Out so I do want to apologize for anyone who wanted to sit with us but for reasons of space were unable to. Hopefully you were at least able to run by and say hi to one of us IVS folk and let us know you were there, or told your server that you were there with us.

The purpose of these IVS Dine Outs are two-fold.

• We want to let people, vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike, know how easy it is to be a vegetarian in Indianapolis. Sometimes from afar Indy doesn’t seem like the most cosmopolitan of towns. But we’ve come a long way, a long way, from where we were when I moved here in the spring of 1998. We have enough places like the Broad Ripple Brewpub serving up delicious vegetarian (and vegan) cuisine that there’s no need to fear that making the leap to full- or part-time vegetarianism (veganism) would deprive of you of life’s gastronomical pleasures.

• And of course we want to let restaurants like the Brewpub know that we are out there and that we appreciate what they are doing for us, our health, our community, and our environment by making vegetarian food and making it well. Nothing does more harm to the vegetarian cause than culinary half-measures like taking a pasta dish designed with chicken in mind and then just removing the chicken. Nothing will convince a fence-sitter to become a full-on carnivore like a bland “vegetarian” dish.

And when I said “we appreciate what they do” I mean of course, not that we sit at home with good thoughts about the Brewpub dancing in our heads, but that we are willing to leave our houses and support them with our pocketbooks.

And that’s what you did last night, so thanks for sharing a meal with us. I hope you had as good a time as I did.

Check back here for when and where our next Dine Out will be. Or better yet, put your pick for a good Dine Out venue in the comments below.

PS: What did you eat while and what did you think? If you write a full review of either the dish or the restaurant we’ll publish it here for other vegetarian and vegetarian-curious readers.