Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats
Ku Cha House of Tea has been lucky to call Boulder, Colorado home for nearly 20 years. The natural setting enchants. The city has maintained its historic charm. The people embody energy and optimism: A smile would be a fitting logo for the city. And finally, so much of Boulder’s culture revolves around health.
People take advantage of the city’s 155 miles of trails, many of them in mountains. They spend entire afternoons trail running or mountain biking; fly fishing or kayaking; skiing or snowboarding. They’re mad cyclists, too—few cities in the United States are as bike-friendly as Boulder.
And then there’s the city’s wealth of healthy cafes in Boulder for plant-based eats. Sure, meals consisting of beefy cheeseburgers, fries and soda are on menus across the city—and we savor a good burger every once in a while. But where many other cities’ restaurants don’t offer much more than bar food, pizza, barbecue, wings and the like, Boulder presents diners with a huge variety of cafes that either offer entire plant-based menus, or at least include a lot of plant-based variety on menus.
The city’s embrace of healthy diets informs our ability to operate four tea shops between Boulder and Denver. People who gravitate toward healthy lifestyles often enjoy daily pots of tea—we visit with them every day in our shops!
Healthy cafes and tea a big part of Boulder life
As proud Boulderites, we are keen to share tips about some of our favorite cafes in Boulder for vegetarians. And we’re also thrilled to kick off our look at 10 healthy cafes in Boulder for plant-based eats with a close look at teas that help ripen health. Along these lines, we also want to mention our just-launched Wellness Tea Box. This beautiful box of six teas includes traditional Camella sinensis teas, along with herbals. All of them stand out for their health properties.
Tulsi Twist
This health-fortifying tea, found in our Wellness Tea Box, leads with one of the healthiest botanicals in the world—tulsi, or “Holy Basil.” Ayurvedic medicine practitioners have turned to tulsi for generations, for everything from reducing inflammation to invigorating the mind and relieving fatigue without caffeine. It also supports kidney and liver health. This beauty also includes super-healthy botanicals like ginger, lemon, strawberry leaf, marshmallow root and lavender.
Lemon Blossom Oolong
This lightly oxidized Chinese oolong brings the many health benefits of oolong tea to the wellness mix, along with lemon, heather blossoms, red cornflower blossoms and apple. We will further explore the health benefits of oolong tea in a future blog. Either way trust us—oolong is good for you!
Organic Ginger Puerh
As with oolong, China’s famous fermented tea, puerh, delivers myriad health benefits to those who sip it. Bonus—the process used to ferment puerh transforms the tea into a flavor bomb. All puerhs taste a little bit different, depending upon where the tea was grown and the methods used by artisans to bring about fermentation. One quality they all share: earthy flavors, ranging from forest floor in autumn to mushrooms. It is exquisite, and our ginger puerh adds beautiful ginger to the blend along with powerful lapacho, a South American plant that is widely used in traditional indigenous medicine for its antiviral and antimicrobial benefits. This detoxing blend simultaneously embraces both Asian and ancient South American wisdom traditions to help foster health.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Leaf Vegetarian
Looking for a more upscale experience? A 100% vegetarian restaurant that delivers on flavor, ambience and value? Then Leaf Vegetarian, which has been in Boulder for as long as Ku Cha House of Tea, is a superb option. Its location on Boulder’s iconic Peal Street is a plus, too. A grand place for date night vegetarian. Pro tip: The happy hour deals are fabulous.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Zeal
The emphasis on this outstanding restaurant, in the thick of a part of Boulder undergoing rapid development, is health. It offers meat dishes, but Zeal fusses over the provenance of the chickens and beef it incorporates into dishes. Either way, the plant-based options are wide-ranging and delicious.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Bramble & Hare
No restaurant in Boulder quite captures the city’s optimistic and health-forward vibe than Bramble & Hare, the winner of a Michelin Green Star in 2023. Bramble & Hare is the most true farm-to-table restaurant in the United States. Most of the ingredients on the menu come from the restaurant’s 425-acre organic farm—Black Cat Organic Farm. Black Cat raises livestock, too, and the menu includes plenty of dishes with meat from local livestock. But it also offers a wealth of vegetarian options—with most of the veggies coming from just miles away.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Pizzeria Alberico
Pizza has long served vegetarians. Sure, pepperoni and meatballs have always been popular toppings. But most pizzas are more vegetable- than meat-forward. Among Boulder’s many outstanding pizzerias, Alberico represents a step up. The pizzeria, a sister to the Michelin star restaurant Frasca Food & Wine, takes Neapolitan-style pizza seriously—it even had its majestic pizza oven custom-made in Italy. Pro tip: Do not miss the Budino dessert.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Masas
Just as Italian tends to offer vegetarians a diversity of delicious choices, so does Mexican. Masas, a newcomer to Boulder’s Mexican scene, focuses on the foods of Oaxaca, the Mexican state most renowned for its deep food culture. Among other things, it’s the birthplace of mole sauce. From chips, salsa and guacamole to veggie tacos and platters, this hymn to the culinary glories of Oaxaca will please any vegetarian.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Postino Boulder
Crispy cauliflower with sultana raisins, capers and romesco sauce. Roasted mushroom fondue. Bruschetta boards dense with vegetables and spreads. Soups, salads and paninis. This beautiful space, in the heart of Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, offers excellent-value happy hour deals, an innovative menu and a captivating vibe.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Ginger Pig
The Ginger Pig began as a food truck. Then a restaurant in Denver. And now it’s got a celebrated spot on The Hill in Boulder—ground zero for student buzz. This pan-Asian restaurant got a “bib” nod from the Michelin Guide in Colorado in 2023, recognizing its spot-on flavors and inventiveness. And the Ginger Pig is awfully veggie-friendly. From Bangkok Balls (red curry rice balls with lime leaf aioli) to Thai Peanut Tofu, Sichuan Spicy Eggplant, Three Treasures of the Earth (stir fried potato, eggplant, red pepper and garlic sauce) and more, the Ginger Pig compels big grins from vegetarians every day.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Avanti Food & Beverage
The rooftop! This newish food hall in downtown Boulder on Pearl Street includes a pleasing range of restaurant concepts under one roof, including Boychik (Middle Eastern), Pig and Tiger (Taiwanese), Rooted Craft (local emphasis) and Quiero Arepas (Venezuelan-style arepas). Each of them, plus the other concepts, incorporates vegetarian excellence into the menus. And then you can take your order up to the rooftop—one of the best in Boulder—and savor the views of Boulder’s iconic Flatirons mountains.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: Rosetta Hall
Boulder’s OG food hall, Rosetta Hall, contains eight restaurant concepts, two bars and one coffee shop, all just steps from the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder. The concept Amira delivers wonderful Middle Eastern food. Amalfi leans into Italian. Chiang Mai is Thai, Cruz is Latin American and Petite Fleur is a French patisserie. All of them craft dishes that we love—including many that reject the meat and celebrate vegetables. Bonus: It’s also got a rooftop deck.
Healthy Cafes in Boulder for Plant-Based Eats: The Kitchen
In many ways, The Kitchen was the first to put Boulder on the culinary map. Prior to its opening in 2004, the city supported a lot of restaurants, but many leaned into the wings-burger-burrito trio. Hearty, satisfying food heavy on meat and cheese. Then The Kitchen showed up, with menus celebrating local farmers and farms and offering dishes simultaneously simple and fantastic—it was all about the ingredients. Twenty years later The Kitchen continues to go strong. And the menus for this bistro warmly embrace vegetables, from appetizers to salads and entrees. Like Leaf, Bramble & Hare and Masas in this list, it is a bit more upscale. It’s worth it, too.
