I’ll be honest: I am not a morning person. I can adapt just like anyone, but given the opportunity, my body will naturally migrate to a bedtime of 2am or later. In a city filled with young “slackers” like myself, where ubiquitous live music shows and other evening entertainment often don’t even commence until 10 or 11pm, and sunrises often indicate that it’s time for bed, I know my particular circadian rhythm is not unique. Let the rest of the world begin their daily rush at daybreak; Austin (or a good chunk of it, anyway) will wait until a more appropriate hour.

So while I have plenty of fellow night owls in my city, there is one issue that presents itself, especially as a vegan: food. When one wakes up late, it’s not uncommon for dinnertime to occur when the PM hours are in the double digits. Most veg-friendly establishments, especially during the week, close before 10pm. So what’s a quasi-nocturnal vegan Austinite to do?

Fortunately, when researching for this post, I came across a plethora of previously unknown options (though many of them only keep their doors open late on weekends). I drew upon my own experience a bit to compile this list, but the vast majority of it comes from the guides of Lazy Smurf, Capital City Bakery, VegAustin, and Vegans Rock Austin. Many thanks to them.

A few more disclaimers before I begin:

• For this post, “late-night” is defined as being open past 10pm, since most other places close at that time or earlier. They also only have to be open late one day of the week, though the weekends-only listings are marked with an asterisk for the purpose of clarity.
• All of these places can be categorized as “serves meat, vegan-friendly” unless otherwise noted. It looks like most of the fully veg and vegan places in town tend to close up shop early, unfortunately.
• For the sake of simplicity, I’ve only listed the hours that are relevant to this post.  Some of the places listed may be open on other days in the week, but not after 10pm. Only the days that they are open late will be mentioned below.
• The hours and vegan-friendliness of these listings are, of course, subject to change. Contacting said establishments is encouraged, particularly once this blog post has aged. I have only dined at a handful of these establishments, so I cannot personally vouch for the quality nor the veganness of their dishes. These listings are for informational purposes only.
• By no means is this post meant to be exhaustive. If a certain place wasn’t listed, please do not hesitate to mention it in the comments.

OK, with that out of the way, let’s get started!

To sum it all up: There are a number of options for the late-night herbivore, but they drop off precipitously as the night goes on. Several restaurants are open until 11pm or midnight (particularly on weekends), bars and nearby trailers are there until 2am, and it’s largely 24/7 joints thereafter. If you get the munchies at three in the morning, and you don’t feel like making something yourself or going grocery shopping, I hope you like Kerbey Lane or Bennu!