We have a community owned food co-op called The Community Mercantile ('The Merc'), and it has the best selection of organic produce of any place that I have ever shopped in my life (and I've lived a number of places). A Wild Oats came to town but could not compete with The Merc, and ended up shutting down. The Merc has a very strong loyal following.

Recently? A Wild Oats closed in Lawrence in the 90s as well.

Remilard,
No, I didn't mean recently. I was just referring to the history that I had heard. I'm sure you are right that it was in the 90's. It happened before I moved to Lawrence. Are you from Lawrence?

Where's all the Kansan veg*ans? xD No wonder I've never met a fellow animal lover. I guess I'm doomed. :doh:

They make vegans in Kansas?:think:

ha ha. :|

guess who's moving to kansas in less than 2 weeks. I'll have to change my user name.

:eek:

Where at in Kansas? My hometown is just on the Missouri side of the border.

Overland Park, not too far from the Sprint campus.

Very cool...a bit over an hour away from where I live!! Welcome!

I live in OP as well, and am frequently found at the Sprint Campus. Welcome to the area (in a couple weeks of course)!

I'm here. It's hot and I love it; I am excited about the weather. :)

It's all so spread out though... and it's a total change in lifestyle - driving everywhere, no public transit, and NO RECYCLING! It's really weird throwing bottles, cans, and paper into the trash... :cry:

And, seeing people DRIVE to the pool in our apartment complex. It is, at most, a 5 minute walk to the pool. Really, people... driving?!!!

So you guys are in Kansas finally, huh? Who's job decided the move, your's or Remi's? Are you planning on staying a while or is this short term? And most important - is there anything even remotely vegetarian? (restaurants, grocery items, etc...)

I totally hear you about the recycling thing - crazy!! When visiting family in Iowa I almost wanted to pack everything up and bring it home. (That'd be a lot of empty wine bottles to explain to the airlines I suppose...).

Oh - and of course... HOWS THE BEER? (Is there beer in Kansas?)

It's all part of the sprawl that is the KC metro area. There a quite a few health stores, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, etc....you just might have to drive a bit. And on the weekends....The City Market, all the local farmers bring in their produce. There are two Asian groceries, a Italian grocery, and a Pakistani grocery located in The City Market as well. It's on the Missouri side, but well worth the drive.

All the good stuff is in KCMO! :p

Just kidding... There's cool stuff in OP, too. Wild Oats by the Sprint campus, Ruchi Indian Cuisine on College & Antioch (they've got a HUGE vegan menu!), and the all-vegan VegKC potlucks (http://vegetarian.meetup.com/14/calendar/5791024/) at my friend's house... You should stop by sometime!
And a Blue Koi just opened up (I think it's open now) ... somewhere over there... Their food is really good. (At least the KCMO location is.)

And I did a quick search and found these:
Drop-off recycling (http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/City_Services/Trash_and_Recycling/Recycling/drop_off.cfm)
Curbside pick-up (http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/City_Services/Trash_and_Recycling/Recycling/index.cfm)

So you guys are in Kansas finally, huh? Who's job decided the move, your's or Remi's? Are you planning on staying a while or is this short term? And most important - is there anything even remotely vegetarian? (restaurants, grocery items, etc...)

Remi's job moved us out here (rather, a new job that he got). Thankfully, I was able to get a really good job fairly quickly. I start in a week. :) As far as we know, this is a long term thing... we'll see, you never know what comes up. But we don't have any plans in the future to move again. Movin is such an ordeal!

There's a whole foods about 3 miles away from where we live. There's a Wild Oats closer, but the service there TOTALLY SUCKS. I went to the deli and waited for someone to help me while she sliced a pizza. Then when she asked me if she could help me, I told her what I wanted, then she walked away and asked another person to help me. So then that person asked what I wanted and I had to explain it all over again. :rolleyes: Then this other woman came up and asked me if I'd been helped. I said yes and she walked away, but the guy standing next to me who needed help had to say (loudly) "Uh, I haven't been helped yet!" sheesh. I stood at the cash register for about 10 seconds while 2 cashiers chatted, before saying, "are you open?" and the guy said "oh yeah" and then rang up my stuff.

I will never go to Wild Oats again, unless I'm forced to.

As for veg stuff, there is a LOT here. Not as much for vegans as for l/o veggies, but it's that way anywhere. ;) Most places I've been to have vegetarian items marked. We went to a sushi place last night and they had an entire page marked "vegetarian"...

I totally hear you about the recycling thing - crazy!! When visiting family in Iowa I almost wanted to pack everything up and bring it home. (That'd be a lot of empty wine bottles to explain to the airlines I suppose...).

Yeah, since we live in an apartment complex, they don't do curbside pickup. And since our complex doesn't have recycling, we have to take it to a recycling center. Hello 1982!

Oh - and of course... HOWS THE BEER? (Is there beer in Kansas?)

We (and by "we" I mean remilard) found a great bar not far from us called Barley's. They have 99 beers on tap (yes, sing it with me... 99 taps of beer on the wall), most of them pretty decent. There are a couple of other places with moderate beer selection (we went to a place Friday night that had I think 4 rogue beers, including Juniper Pale Ale and the dry-hopped red!). There are quite a few places here that sell New Belgium and Sierra Nevada beers, which is just fine by me. :) I really like the Mothership Wit that new belgium has out right now. Skinny Dip's pretty good as well.

There are two things I love so far:
1. The weather!! It's sunny every day. I also love that it's warm, sunny, warm, and sunny!!! :D
2. Thunderstorms. So awesome.

Ruchi Indian Cuisine on College & Antioch (they've got a HUGE vegan menu!),

And I did a quick search and found these:
Drop-off recycling (http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/City_Services/Trash_and_Recycling/Recycling/drop_off.cfm)
Curbside pick-up (http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/City_Services/Trash_and_Recycling/Recycling/index.cfm)

Thanks, I'll check out that indian place! We spotted an indian grocery on 119th & Quivera which we have yet to go into, but plan to. I love indian cooking and we were worried we wouldn't be able to get indian dal or other ingredients here. I never even thought about OP having a sizable indian population due to Sprint, Black & Veatch, & other large companies being here, duh. Whole Foods even carries a pretty decent selection of ingredients. So I'm pretty happy about that.

And thanks for the recycling links. I think we'll have to figure out some little system here to do the drop-off recycling. I really hate dumping all the glass, cans, paper, and plastic into the trash.

Thanks, I'll check out that indian place! We spotted an indian grocery on 119th & Quivera which we have yet to go into, but plan to. I love indian cooking and we were worried we wouldn't be able to get indian dal or other ingredients here. I never even thought about OP having a sizable indian population due to Sprint, Black & Veatch, & other large companies being here, duh. Whole Foods even carries a pretty decent selection of ingredients. So I'm pretty happy about that.

And thanks for the recycling links. I think we'll have to figure out some little system here to do the drop-off recycling. I really hate dumping all the glass, cans, paper, and plastic into the trash.

You're welcome! :)

...Yeah, Ruchi has an entire vegan menu that you can ask to see. It's HUGE! (It's one whole page in *tiny* print!) :hungry:

The thing I've found out is that even if you order from the vegan menu, you still have to ask them to hold the yogurt and butter on a bunch of stuff because their vegan menu has some lacto items that can be made vegan.

Thanks for the recommendation - we ended up going to Ruchi that night. :) We both had the Mysore Masala Dosa and it was DELISH. I absolutely LOVE dosa and they're so hard to find. Most indian places just do northern indian food, which is okay, but I love s. indian food so much better. They had idli and sambar and dosa and vada and rasam and a bunch of other stuff. mmmmmmmmm :drool:

very good, thank you!! :D

You're welcome! :D

Overland Park, not too far from the Sprint campus.

OMG!!!! Are you for real. How did I miss this? (Only because I am never here)You are like 40 minutes away from my house! My husband works in Kansas, toto! I - 35 south to I - 70 east. (like you are going to st louie.):hamster:

Come over now! lol. Vodka time!:hamster:

:wayne: .

I LOVE RUCHI! OK, I used to before going raw I guess. I haven't been there since because there's nothing raw unfortunately. But that place ROCKS! Jason's Deli and Panera Bread are chains, but they are a good place to eat too for vegan stuff in town. There is a place on College Blvd between Antioch and Metcalf called Sweet Tomatoes. LOTS of veggie options, and for rawbies like myself lots of RAW VEGAN STUFF!:pibo:

I heart sweet tomatoes.

I'll check out Jason's. I've driven by it several times and wondered if it's any good.

And hey goettling, how's it going? :) Haven't seen you much on the boards these days! So are you near Legends then? Somewhere around there? That's funny.

Have you got to check out the OP mall right off of quivera road yet? Very nice. Yep, it is a big Indian population. You are now on the Johnson county "snot" side. lol. You will learn. I am on the jackson side in MO. (across the the street really)

Have remi take you to the plaza for the food, bars, and shopping, and also Wesport area. (many good times there. ;) )

Just curious where you guys work or what kind of job you got here.:think:

I used to work off of holmes road.

I am a busy bee these days with a two month old. :baby:

Overland Park, not too far from the Sprint campus.

I used to live there! I miss it so much...

I can't wait to leave now. :p We bought a house in KC MO and it's in such a more diverse and interesting neighborhood. Moving in 3 days!!

Then again, we don't have kids or want a cookie-cutter 4000 sqft house, so we don't really fit in in Overland Park.

Hi! I'm in wichita, and I've been a vegan for a little over a year now. Never going back to the way I use to eat. The world would be a much better place if everyone were veggies ^_^