Finding tasty vegan food at restaurants is rarely a problem, especially in Worcester. These days nearly every restaurant has good veg options on their menu. Last Spring VegWorcester printed a large number of veg dining guides and distributed them to curious Worcesterites. We are now on the third annual printing of the Guide to Vegetarian Dining in Worcester. Want to help? Look through our online listing at VegWorcester.com/restaurants and see if there are any good spots missing. Send any tips to info@VegWorcester.com or comment below.

2009 Edition: A Huge Success

Last year’s print edition featured 26 listings and a handful of events. We distributed a total of 8,000 copies–5,000 full color copies and 3,000 black and white copies.  These guides are a great tool for showing Worcesterites that being vegan is an easy way to help animals and the reduce our ecological impact. It’s also a great way to send some love to local biz that feature vegan items on their menus.

Over the course of a year, we handed out the 8k guides while tabling at community events, at shows, on college campuses, in Worcester highschools, at our vegan feed-in’s, and at lots of other events. You can download a pdf of last year’s guide.

Going bigger, going bolder

This year we’re going bigger with the guide. To start, we’re going to double our color printing to 10,000 copies. That means that as we get closer to publishing it, we’re going to need to ask more of y’all to step up and volunteer to distribute it. Look out for more details soon.

Post your tips!

So if you know any solid, veg-friendly restaurants, cafes, bakeries or other spots in the Worcester area, post them here. Or send an email to info@VegWorcester.com.

VegWorcester member Jin hands out veg dining guides to kids in line at the Palladium.

On Saturday, a couple of VegWorcester volunteers handed out over 250 copies of our Spring 2009 vegetarian dining guide to Worcester at events downtown. We went down to the Four Year Strong show (Worcester hardcore band) and also gave out leaflets at the Danskin Expo.

Fireworks at the Palladium

VegWorcester members Jin and Drew with the members of the band Fireworks

Lots of the kids in line at the Palladium said they were vegetarian or vegan and almost everyone took a copy of our guide. Yeah! While we were out there, we met the members of Fireworks, one of the bands playing that night. They’re from Detriot and just passing through, but were pysched to get a copy of our dining guide. Turns out their whole band is vegetarian and they’ve got a vegan on board too. I recommended they check out Tortilla Sams or Belmont Veg, since both pretty close to the Palladium.

Chicks dig vegans

Jin offers a copy of the 2009 VegWorcester dining guide to a couple in downtown Worcester.

When we were done with the line at the Palladium, we walked over to the DCU center to see if anything was going on. Turns out there were a ton of women going to the Danskin Triathelete Expo. These ladies were excited to get copies of the Worcester veg  guide. A handful of people thanked us for putting it together and taking the time to hand them out. What a great response! Some were from Boston or other towns, but appreciated the guide nonetheless. When we ran out of leaflets, I didn’t find a single leaflet on the ground. That’s a good sign!

Want to help out next time?

Overall, a very good day of veg advocacy in Worcester. If you’d like to help out with something like this in the future, email drew@VegWorcester.com. VegWorcester has a bunch of volunteer opportunities coming up this month.

The Details

July’s monthly VegWorcester general meeting is happening on Thursday, July 23 at 6pm at Dynamy (27 Sever Street, Worcester). Dynamy is acting as Stone Soup’s temporary space and it located at 27 Sever Street, Worcester. It’s a potluck, so bring a vegan dish to share. (No worries if you can’t, there will be plenty of food to go around.)

Map

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On The Agenda

We will recap on our fundraiser buffer at Buddha Hut. Get updates on the restaurant outreach efforts. See where we are at with distributing the 2009 veg dining guide. Move forward with our newsletter. Further explore our plans to hold a vegetarian food festival next Spring. Take some steps forward on the second edition of our reading & discussion group. Plus some other neat things. Feel free to bring agenda items!

Now’s the time to get involved

This meeting is a great chance to meet other people involved in VegWorcester and plug in. We have a handful of projects going on that could use more people.

If you’re on facebook, you can add this meeting to your events.

Hope to see you there!

This weekend had a ton of events. While Buddha Hut held the first ever buffet fundraiser for VegWorcester (photos coming soon), some VegWorcester members were down the street at the 2nd annual New Orleans festival. We had a booth and gave out free stickers, handed out copies of our 2009 vegetarian dining guide to Worcester, and held a vegan bakesale. (Thanks to Barely Legal Treats for donating the cupcakes and cookies!)

Here are some photos:

The music was fantastic. A lady in one of the bands was wearing a full-body washboard that she played as her instrument. Check it out:

From the event organizers:

There will be two stages of live music being played by 5 bands non-stop from Noon until 11:00 P.M. – a jam packed day and evening of NOLA Blues, Jazz & Zydeco music….. there will also be NOLA cuisine being served by EVO Restaurant & John & Son’s or Worcester & affordable Harpoon Brewery of Boston refreshments being served along with other NOLA style refreshments available at the festival and off-site at our sponsors locations.

12:00 – 2:00 P.M.   – River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs
2:00 – 4:00 P.M.     – Hurricane Horns
4:00 – 6:00 P.M.     – The Chris Fitz Band
6:00 – 8:00 P.M.     -  Henri Smith & New Orleans Friends & Flavours
8:00 – 10:00 P.M.   – Lisa Marie & All Shook Up

Also VegWorcester will have a vegan bake sale with items from Barely Legal Treats.

Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival…New Orleans comes to Worcester, MA Reply to all Forward Reply by chat Filter messages like this Print Add to Contacts list Delete this message Report phishing Report not phishing Show original Show in fixed width font Show in variable width font Message text garbled? Why is this spam/nonspam? Reply | BAEvents@aol.com show details Jun 20 (5 days ago) Reply New Orleans is coming to Worcester, Massachusetts on Saturday, July 11, 2009 @ John & Son’s II Fairgrounds 226 Chandler Street, Worcester, MA via  Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival….this 2nd annual musico festival in the urban core of the city is the perfect venue for those looking for something nuevo to do this summer, for those looking for new cultural happenings in the City of Worcester and especially those who have an appetite for everything that is New Orleans!! There will be two stages of live music being played non-stop from Noon until 11:00 P.M. – a jam packed day and evening of NOLA Blues, Jazz & Zydeco music….. there will also be NOLA cuisine being served by EVO Restaurant & John & Son’s or Worcester & affordable Harpoon Brewery of Boston refreshments being served along with other NOLA style refreshments available at the festival and off-site at our sponsors locations. Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival is sponsored by Harpoon Brewery of Boston, The Chandler Street Business Association, Greek Gods Yogurt, Best Buy, Honey Farms, B.A. Event Promotions, Serrato Signs, Randell Package Store, John & Son’s II, EVO Restaurant, Keystone Plaza & Advantage Benefits. Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival benefits the National Autism Association. Please see www.baevents.com for more information on our 1 day music festival in the “Heart of the Commonwealth”….Worcester, Massachusetts an All-American City!! Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. Reply Forward Reply | BAEvents@aol.com to MassJazz, burke_stacy, emuurisepp, andrewma, PAW72754, kmcamel, Mectrimk, nick, khailer, kbouffard, ahmumaw, jill.tarricone, Annrowkel, alicialcamelli, lpetersma, taniagelormini, aliwinslow, klevy, liannebaldwin, seetonyrun, pantani_04, mbuege, lm2373, rdoran, lee.a.thomas, mkittredge show details Jun 20 (4 days ago) Reply New Orleans is coming to Worcester, Massachusetts on Saturday, July 11, 2009 @ John & Son’s II Fairgrounds 226 Chandler Street, Worcester, MA via  Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival….this 2nd annual musico festival in the urban core of the city is the perfect venue for those looking for something nuevo to do this summer, for those looking for new cultural happenings in the City of Worcester and especially those who have an appetite for everything that is New Orleans!! There will be two stages of live music being played by 5 bands non-stop from Noon until 11:00 P.M. – a jam packed day and evening of NOLA Blues, Jazz & Zydeco music….. there will also be NOLA cuisine being served by EVO Restaurant & John & Son’s or Worcester & affordable Harpoon Brewery of Boston refreshments being served along with other NOLA style refreshments available at the festival and off-site at our sponsors locations. 12:00 – 2:00 P.M.   - River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs 2:00 – 4:00 P.M.     – Hurricane Horns 4:00 – 6:00 P.M.     - The Chris Fitz Band 6:00 – 8:00 P.M.     -  Henri Smith & New Orleans Friends & Flavours 8:00 – 10:00 P.M.   – Lisa Marie & All Shook Up Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival is sponsored by Harpoon Brewery of Boston, The Chandler Street Business Association, Greek Gods Yogurt, Best Buy, Honey Farms, B.A. Event Promotions, Serrato Signs, Randell Package Store, John & Son’s II, EVO Restaurant, Keystone Plaza & Advantage Benefits. Paulie’s NOLA Jazz & Blues Festival benefits the National Autism Association. Please see www.baevents.com for more information on our one day music festival in the “Heart of the Commonwealth”….Worcester, Massachusetts an All-American City!! Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. Reply Reply to all Forward

The Details

We’re having our monthly VegWorcester general meeting this coming Thursday at 7pm. It will be a potluck, so bring  a vegan dish to share. Need some recipes? Check out the post punk kitchen .

What’s on the agenda?

We finished our 2009 dining guide, so we need to book some more events where we can distribute it. We’ll also be planning a fund-raiser for July, discussing our restaurant outreach program, check-in about our new veg starter kit stands, get an update from the writer’s group, plan some neat events for the summer, make plans to move forward with the second incarnation of the reading & discussion group, talk about beginning to plan for the Veg Fest, maybe talk about adding new programs, etc. There’s lots of stuff going on!

Newbies welcome

Is there something you want to talk about? Bring your ideas. Or maybe you just want to volunteer? This is a great time for new-comers to get involved with VegWorcester.

Hope to see you there!

Today Steve Baer and I handed out a couple hundred VegWorcester dining guides at the DCU center in Worcester. It was a very positive experience, everyone was very pleasant. Everyone was nice and enthusiastic, very few people turned down the booklet.

I ran into a girl that I met when I gave a talk about vegetarianism at South High. After the talk she had told me she was going vegetarian. Turns out it didn’t last long, but after getting a veg dining guide she said she’d keep at it. Also met a woman from Clark who took a handful to give out to the grad students who she works with. Awesome!

Want to help out? We have leafleting and tabling events coming up in the next month and could definitely use the help. Comment below or send an email to drew@VegWorcester.com if you want to volunteer.

Our Spring 2009 edition of the Vegetarian Dining Guide to Worcester is ready to go. Do you want a free copy mailed to you? Well, fill out this form and you can have one soon:

If you haven’t made a donation already, please consider making a donation to go along with your order. VegWorcester is a not-for-profit group so we rely on donations to cover our costs.

While you wait for the guide in the mail, you can check out our online listings at VegWorcester.com/restaurants.

Here’s a sneak peak:

A high-quality printable PDF will be on VegWorcester in the next week or so. Email drew@VegWorcester.com if you would like some copies of the new guide to distribute to your friends. Don’t forget to include your mailing address.

A big thank you from VegWorcester to Compassion Over Killing for supporting our Spring 2009 veg dining guide. COK is an awesome nonprofit animal advocacy organization based in DC.

We are now only $150 shy of reaching our fund-raising goal and printing 5,000 full-color copies of the new dining guide.

Every little bit helps, even $5 or $10! Visit our fund-raising page on The Point to donate.

If you’re interested in volunteering to distribute the guide, email drew@VegWorcester.com. We’ll be delivering copies to local businesses, handing them out at concerts, and working with college groups to distribute them on campuses around Worcester. Fun, fun, fun.

UPDATE: We raised the $150, thanks to everyone who donated!