Veg Dining - www.vegdining.com - is a website that helps us locate veg eateries and other veg-friendly establishments worldwide. Another such site is www.happycow.net

We can support these sites by telling our networks about them and by helping the sites keep up to date. For instance, if we visit an eatery not listed in the websites or notice that an eatery has changed its opening hours, we should send that information with the sites, so that they can better serve the growing community of people looking to eat veg.

IVU Online News did an email interview with VegDining’s founder, Dennis Bayomi.

How and why did you start VegDining?

VegDining.com actually began as a natural extension of my vegetarian activism. Six years prior I’d started the Winnipeg Vegetarian Association (here on the chilly Canadian prairies) which I continue to coordinate. As a vegetarian activist, I strongly believed success of the vegetarian movement hinged on ensuring that fully vegetarian restaurants prospered and, ultimately, proliferated. By the late ‘90s, the excellent website World Guide to Vegetarianism had been inactive for some time and with my software development background, I thought I’d try to fill the gap by creating VegDining. The rest, as they say, is history!

What was one idea you tried that didn’t work?

Oh sure, you could say that over the years I’ve tried a lot of ideas and some haven’t "worked out" as planned. But that’s never really deterred me, realizing that my vegetarian activism has, is, and will forever be a life-long endeavor, no matter the adversity. The key has been perseverance!

What is one of your favourite success stories?

I’d say perhaps the most personally satisfying of the VegDining "success stories" has been my "meeting" thousands of vegetarians around the world. In those ten years I’ve corresponded with so many people – including vegetarian restauranteurs and new vegetarians – and have become very good friends with many of them. For example, a visitor to VegDining explained she and her husband had recently moved to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. After a few e-mails I encouraged them to start a vegetarian group there. It was gratifying to know I had a small part in starting a veg group in such a far-away place!

What is one piece of advice that you have for fellow veg activists?

As I mentioned above, I think "persistence" is a key part of being a vegetarian activist. It’s easy to say "oh, this won’t work or that won’t work" or "only 3 people showed up for an event, it’s not worth the effort". But we just have to keep going. Our mission of promoting vegetarianism is just too important to be impeded by the occasional set-back. I’d also add that networking with as many like-minded people in your community and around the world is another key tool for veg activists.

How do you think your site will be different 10 years from now?

Wow, 10 years is an eternity in the tech world – it’s hard to anticipate what things will be like in two! With constant improvements in technology, networking among vegetarians will be easier and easier, and getting the word out to non-vegetarians equally so. Maybe our website will be able to deliver real-time video from the chefs in their restaurants’ kitchens, complete with scents and sounds. Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to deliver take-out through "teleporting" ("beam it up, Chef!") In whatever form, whether through VegDining or other outlets, I’ll definitely be promoting vegetarianism as widely as I can!

Do you collaborate in any way with sites that are similar to yours?

VegDining works with a lot of other sites, collaborating over the years with both commercial and non-profit organizations. For example, for a long time we've worked with TheVegetarianSite, a great online vegan products retailer as well as vegetarian travel companies like VegVoyages and Green Earth Travel, offering specials to our VegDining Card holders. We've brought on-board some great freelance writers, such as Vesanto Melina RD, and of course, we've worked with dozens of veg groups all over the world. But we've intentionally not collaborated with other restaurant sites per se, mostly out of a concern to ensure a certain amount of diversity in veg restaurant sites and to avoid the potential of establishing a single mega veg restaurant site which I don't think would be the best for our movement.