Tips on Finding a Senior Living Facility in the United States That Offers Vegan Menu Options [2026]
Tips on Finding a Senior Living Facility in the United States That Offers Vegan Menu Options [2026]
By Jeanne Yacoubous, MS
If you or a loved one is an older vegan searching for a retirement community, nursing home, assisted living, or a specialized facility offering skilled care, memory care, rehabilitation, or hospice, it’s no exaggeration to say that your happiness there depends on vegan menu options at every meal. Unfortunately, there are two major reasons why you won’t find much information about vegan senior living facilities in the United States on the internet or in books.
First, there are few senior living facilities that currently offer vegan menu options. This is true, for instance, in most rural areas where cattle ranching or animal agriculture is a way of life except in isolated pockets. Urban centers, especially in non-agricultural regions, are more likely to have senior living facilities offering vegan meals.
Secondly, currently there is no general database of U.S. institutions of all types that specifies dining options at each of them. Websites occasionally present a sample menu, but we’ve found that it may be outdated or not reflective of everything that a facility offers especially when a facility may have several restaurants on its campus, each with its own unique menu. For these reasons, employees may honestly tell us that they offer vegan meals while sending a sample menu with nothing vegan on it. During our research, we’ve encountered this situation many times.
Additionally, although there are a few online articles that publish a short list of the facilities which purportedly offer vegetarian and/or vegan meals, our research reveals many discrepancies between those compilations and what we were told when we had called to confirm facts.
To respond to the lack of information on vegan menu items at senior living facilities, The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) launched a project in 2014 to create a guide called Vegetarian and Vegan Options in Senior Independent Living, Assisted Living, Nursing Home, and Other Senior Facilities. At the time of writing, our Senior Guide provided information on 120+ senior facilities that we have confirmed offer vegetarian or vegan menu options.
However, because there are so few senior living facilities in the U.S. that serve vegan dishes as standard fare, a serious obstacle arises for older vegans who may not be fortunate enough to have such a facility in their neighborhood. Furthermore, if they do not wish to relocate far from home and family, let alone move to another state, what can they do to discover a senior facility that would genuinely accommodate their vegan lifestyle upon request?
In this article, we propose a 5-point list of strategies and tips anyone can use – even if you’ve never done consumer research before – to predict the likelihood that the culinary staff at a certain facility you’re interested in moving to would gladly create a personalized vegan menu and serve it daily to you in your new home.
Our suggestions are based on our conversations with and website reviews of hundreds of senior care facilities. During this research over the past seven years, we have noticed some patterns concerning where these facilities are in the country and how to determine if they truly offer vegan menu items right now to all residents or only on a case by case basis (i.e., upon request). Unfortunately, we reached out to a few facilities that appeared to be vegan-friendly upon first glance, but after sufficient engagement, it became clear they were not.
To reduce the chances of this negative experience happening to you in your own search for a senior living facility that offers vegan options, the following tips may be helpful. Keep in mind that menu offerings may change frequently – sometimes without announcement – at these places, so ask in advance about dietary consistency suitable to vegans from day to day.
Also remember that there are multiple tiers of the availability of vegan dishes across all institutions. There are facilities that:
- Already serve vegan dishes listed on their menu(s)
- May have accommodated at least one vegan in the past and, so, are knowledgeable and prepared to develop a customized vegan meal plan in consultation with a dietitian or your medical team
- Will make a concerted and consistent effort to meet the dietary needs of their first vegan resident (i.e., you)
- Despite their best intentions, will not be able to provide vegan meals to you.
So, in light of these four possible scenarios, it’s helpful to unpack the seemingly simple – yet absolutely fundamental – question as we do here: Does your facility offer vegan menu options? Once you feel reasonably confident about their answer, you’ll feel better about making a major financial decision about this life transition.
To begin seeking an answer to our fundamental question, here are general tips that offer a strategic plan of action for finding a senior facility that will accommodate your vegan meal preferences when our Senior Guide isn’t enough.
Tip 1. Start with the Top 3 Chains for Vegans
Begin your search with these three senior living chains most likely to offer veritably vegan menu options arranged in regular meal rotations that are often seasonal in nature along with standard, “everyday” vegan options:
Located in over 25 states at the time of writing, most locations of these chains display a vegan icon on their website or print menu. The VRG’s Senior Guide lists several of their locations already, but only if we have been able to analyze a sample menu and/or have spoken with the culinary director.
Note also that new locations become scheduled to open in the future – sometimes in 2-3 years – and may or may not yet be listed on company websites. So, it’s a good idea to use our Senior Guide in conjunction with those websites to identify potential candidates for your future living arrangements that we have not been able to vet thoroughly. If you’re particularly interested in one chain that has no current locations in your area, inquire about possible plans to expand in new locales.
Tip 2. Check Out Runner Ups to Our Top 3 Senior Living Chains for Vegans
At this time, The VRG recommends two other senior living facility chains that seem willing and prepared to accommodate vegans based on previous experiences with vegan residents. This recommendation is based on the conversations we’ve had which highly suggest that they would be. Several locations of these chains appear in our Senior Guide already. However, there are approximately 500 of these two chains’ locations nationwide, and we have not been able to screen all of them. It would be worth your efforts to look into these two if our top three chain choices above don’t meet all of your needs as your search for your next home:
Note that for some of the five chains listed in Tips 1 & 2, calling a website number will send you to a national call center first, and, after a series of questions, connect you to a specific location. It soon becomes clear how time-consuming the process of finding a senior facility that serves vegan menu options can be.
Tip 3. Look for a Seventh-day Adventist Senior Living Facility
Search for a senior living facility that is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church. Many of these facilities are staunchly vegetarian with eggs and/or dairy in almost all dishes. Some may offer “clean meat” as dictated by their religious dietary laws. In fact, we located a SDA facility where the owner and several employees were vegan, but residents desired and received all meat-based meals.
However, we’ve also discovered a few that serve only or primarily plant-based meat analogs and non-dairy cheese on the daily menu. To the best of our knowledge, you do not have to be a member of this religious group to live there. The entries in our Senior Guide that are SDA are designated as such or as “faith-based.”
To narrow your SDA search, you may consult with the community service departments of this denomination by starting with their regional affiliates throughout the U.S as indicated on this map. We found one list of SDA-associated senior living facilities from a local SDA group, but, upon further investigation, there were several SDA apartment buildings that did not serve meals or were shuttered locations. A few places seemed non-SDA, but where SDA residents lived.
A more effective approach to locating SDA senior living facilities that serve vegan meals may be to conduct internet searches using terms such as “SDA senior living in [your state]” or “faith-based senior living in [your state].” The term vegan meal options may not be prominently displayed on websites, so read carefully and look for hints. For example, we first noticed the phrase “vegetarian bacon” on a site that was not even designated as SDA nor was there a posted sample menu. Further inquiry to the owner revealed the senior facility was, in fact, SDA and all named meat dishes on the menu were actually plant-based meat analogs.
Tip 4. Ask Questions to Specific Staff Members at Senior Living Facilities + Vegan-Friendly Hints to Look for
We recommend calling to confirm whether vegan meals are currently served daily even if you see the words “vegetarian/vegan options available” on a website. That phrase does not mean vegetarian/vegan meals are already being served. They may only be available “upon request.” (This phrase is also vague; see Tip 5 for more information.) Always ask for an updated sample menu. If there are several restaurants/dining rooms at one facility, ask about the vegan menu options at each of them.
Vegan options may appear on an “everyday” menu and/or be listed on a daily menu as alternatives to meat-based dishes. A note to this effect may appear in fine print as an asterisk at the bottom of a print menu or be displayed prominently within the main menu listings, so look menus over thoroughly. A strong indication that a particular facility is vegan-aware is when you see tofu and/or tempeh listed as an “add-on protein” – possibly for an additional charge – or a veggie burger listed as a hamburger alternative or even as an “everyday” menu option.
Similarly, the presence of a salad bar offering a variety of beans along with tofu, nuts, seeds, quinoa, farro, etc., may signal a facility’s readiness to accommodate a vegan resident. Likewise, the availability of plant-based milks especially at breakfast is a sign that a facility is already well-stocked with foods and beverages that could be incorporated into nourishing vegan meal plans on a daily basis. The only way to find out the details is to ask specific questions to the culinary or nutrition staff.
Tip 5. Degrees of Vegan Awareness at Senior Living Facilities & How to Know
As we discussed above, there are four distinct scenarios you may encounter when searching for a senior living facility that serves vegan menu options. You probably won’t definitively know which one applies in any particular case through only one phone call or email. In fact, be prepared to follow up numerous times, most likely with different staff members including members of the sales, culinary, and nutrition teams.
A great way to gauge the willingness of a facility to accommodate vegans is how quickly you would be able to speak directly to the culinary director and dietitian on staff, preferably on a three-way conference call or Zoom meeting if you’re not local and can’t stop in for lunch or dinner with them. Only through those conversations could you get a sense of how welcome you would feel (or not) as a vegan if you decided to move in.
Conversely, if no one calls you back in 3-4 business days, then they probably aren’t able to accommodate a vegan. Of course, you may choose to persevere if it’s a facility you’re extremely interested in. Then, follow up and ask to speak directly to the culinary director or dietitian. Otherwise, our best advice is to search elsewhere, especially if you’re short on time.
When you’re calling facilities, be wary of salespeople who state that there have been vegans in the past who were served their own personalized vegan menu, but cannot share with you any examples of vegan dishes on those menus. Because you’re not asking about the identity of a resident or their medical history – which they should not divulge anyway because of privacy laws – they should be able to ask the chef and relay the names of a few vegan dishes that had been prepared at that facility in the past and could be served to you in the future. If they are unwilling to do this, you may wish to look elsewhere for your new home.
Conclusions
The VRG’s Vegetarian and Vegan Options in Senior Independent Living, Assisted Living, Nursing Home, and Other Senior Facilities (Senior Guide) is a source currently available for older vegans or their loved ones searching for a senior living facility that serves vegan menu options. You can benefit the most from our Senior Guide by using it in conjunction with company websites that you discover through your own research following the five tips we suggest in this article.
If, from using our suggestions, you find another senior living facility that offers vegan menu options, please let us know at [email protected]! We will add it to our Senior Guide.
See https://www.vrg.org/seniors/senior_vegan.php
Here are some helpful hints in working with chefs.
https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2012issue4/2012_issue4_assisted_living_food_service.php
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+vegetarian+option%3A+cost-effective+and+healthy.-a0125064430
https://www.vrg.org/seniors/veganmenusfor51+.pdf
To support VRG research, donate at www.vrg.org/donate
