Everybody has their travel bugaboos. Some folks pack a special pillow. Others can barely tolerate sitting on an airplane for 12 hours, or freak out about getting lost in a strange place. Me, I always worry about bad coffee and a lack of veg food. This fear is especially chilling in a state which prides itself on supplying one out of three of the country’s steaks and hamburgers.
But The Chocolate Bar in Grand Island, Nebraska, solved both these problems. And offers excellent chocolate, too.
Why does a café in this Nebraska town offer multiple vegan options? Chocolate Bar employee Danae McCoy, culinary artist, is their resident vegan. She’s been vegan for more than two years. In her quest for fertility, she sought the best diet. That brought her to the movie Vegucated. “I went vegan overnight,” she told me during a brief lull in the lunch rush. “There’s so much I didn’t know about the animal industry.” Grand Island has a local vegetarian organization called Veggienforcers, and quite a few vegans in town, Danae said.
When first entering The Chocolate Bar, it’s easy to mistake the long, narrow restaurant for a café. But while they offer excellent coffee – I had Black Cat espresso roasted by Intelligentsia in Chicago, by far the best caffeine I had all week, coupled with a rare soy milk sighting in central Nebraska – they also offer a full lunch menu. While there’s no dinner menu, lunch is offered till close, which is 10PM Monday through Thursday and “late,” according to their website, on Friday and Saturday. Avoid Grand Island on Sunday, when The Chocolate Bar is closed.
Danae McCoy, The Chocolate Bar’s resident vegan
It took Danae a while to convince the powers-that-be, but they finally relented and tried out some dishes centered on Portobello mushrooms. They were a hit. Three dishes revolve around vegan pesto and Portobellos: a sandwich, a wrap and a salad. I got the salad, which featured hunks of bread grilled with olive oil then spread with pesto. Also, the salad featured fresh mixed greens, a marvelous oasis in an iceberg lettuce kind of state. Diners can also order a mushroom as a meat substitute in any wrap on the menu.
During my visit, owner Sharena Anson was out of the shop. But her mother/employee Lori Arriola and barista/barkeep Elizabeth Frady filled me in on The Chocolate Bar’s history. It opened 3 ½ years ago. Lori said Sharena had dreamed of opening the business for about four years before that. While Sharena likes coffee, her true love is baking. “She’s been baking for as long as I can remember,” Lori told me. But once she opened her restaurant, she got so busy she had to hire somebody else to bake.
The biggest sellers in the bakery department are an almond butter rainbow cake, with festive orange and pink polka dots in the frosting, and the old-fashioned chocolate cake.
On the way out, my local guide pointed at some old buildings which are getting a makeover. Sharena and her husband own them, too, and are hard at work revitalizing downtown Grand Island on a shoestring budget, he said. Okay. I’m a fan. Delicious desserts, perfect coffee drinks and multiple vegan options paired with deep commitment to the local community. All vegetarians and vegans passing through central Nebraska should stop by for a wrap and an espresso.
