VegGuide.org has been shut down. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the site as well as to all of our nonprofit partners! So long and thanks for all the mock fish.

Alternatives

Check out HappyCow. They have worldwide restaurant and shopping listings, as well as lots of other information.

You might also find Google Maps helpful. Try searching for "vegan food near me". And also check out Yelp for restaurant listings and reviews.

Why?

VegGuide was created back in 2002 to fill what I (Dave Rolsky, the site creator) and several others saw as a gap in online services. There were also some other motivations you can read about in greater detail if you're interested.

The site did get some traction and did have quite a bit usage, particularly from 2008-2015, when the bulk of the entries currently on the site were added.

However, traffic to the site was declining for many years by the time it was shut down in late 2019. But even more importantly, contributions to the site had also declined, so the data on the site was becoming increasingly stale and out of date. My feeling is that the site was that the site had become a net negative because it often directed people to businesses that no longer exist. This is especially true outside of North America, but even in North America most of the listings were old and not well-maintained.

I think there are a number of factors that led to VegGuide becoming much less relevant.

Probably first and foremost is the rise of mobile devices and apps. A huge amount of people's internet activity has moved to their phones and apps. We never had a full-featured app and we didn't have a mobile-friendly web design, all of which certainly hurt usage quite a bit.

In addition, very well-funded commercial entities like Yelp and Google Maps have done a better and better job of serving the same niche that VegGuide.org served. When traveling over the last few years I've found Google Maps to be quite helpful in finding vegan food, and I turned to it before VegGuide or HappyCow more and more.

My own increasingly limited interest in working on the code behind the site didn't help either. The code base used some technologies that I developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I really started hating to deal with those technology choices over time, but switching off them was quite difficult. Also, as I've aged I've also noted that my stamina for working on large volunteer coding projects by myself has greatly waned. I still enjoy working on hobby projects, but I'm much better at completing smaller efforts. Moving VegGuide to a modern technical footing was one of those big projects I just couldn't get done.

That all said, I think it had a good run, I'm proud of what the site accomplished, and I think creating it was a net good for animals and the movement.

Technical Jibber Jabber About Why

I wrote about the shutdown on my blog, with a lot more technical detail, if that's something you're interested in.

Code and Data

• The code is on GitHub.
• The data is on Google Drive.

Questions or Concerns?

Send me an email if you'd like.

Thank you for your support and interest in VegGuide over the years!