STL Vegetarian

Guides

Illinois, 20 minutes · 5 min read

Across the river: Metro East plants

Edwardsville, Alton, and Belleville — vegetarian cafes and vegan-capable plates without a Missouri plate.

Edwardsville first

Sacred Grounds on North Main is the long-running plant-forward cafe. Café Birdie, a few doors of Main away, is the 8–2 brunch. AJ’s Mediterranean on Century Drive covers falafel when you want dinner, not coffee.

Alton and Belleville

Maeva’s Coffee in the Milton Schoolhouse roasts in-house and runs vegan pastry more often than a river town usually bothers. Maya on Belleville’s East Main is juices and bowls when you will not cross the bridge.

The highway, not the ring

Rolla, Springfield IL, and Carbondale sit just past a 100-mile drive from Clayton. Branch Cafe & Market (the old Longbranch) is a vegetarian room on Jackson Street — 113 miles via I-57. Cafe Moxo is the capital’s sourdough stop, 107 miles up I-55. We list them as On the road because people actually stop there, not because they are St. Louis.

On the route