Looking for Donatos Pizza vegetarian options? You’ve got more room to work with than most pizza chains give you. Donatos lets you build a pizza topping by topping and stocks a real lineup of vegetable toppings. Most locations even carry a dedicated vegan crust. New here? Check out what about the vegetarians we’ve already covered at other chains. Then read on for exactly what to order at Donatos, and what to skip.
A Quick Look at Donatos Pizza
Donatos started small. In 1963, a 19-year-old Ohio State sophomore named Jim Grote bought an existing pizza shop on Thurman Avenue. It sat in German Village, on the south side of Columbus, Ohio. He paid $1,300 for it and named the shop Donatos, from the Latin word “dono,” meaning “to give.” The first franchise location opened in 1991. From there, the chain grew steadily into a Midwest favorite, known for edge-to-edge toppings on a thin, crispy crust.
McDonald’s bought Donatos in 1999, when the chain had 146 units. That didn’t stick. In December 2003, McDonald’s sold the 182-unit chain back to founder Jim Grote and his daughter, Jane Grote Abell. The Grote family has run it ever since. Jane Grote Abell now holds the title of Chief Purpose Officer and Executive Chairwoman, with Kevin King serving as CEO and President. The chain remains privately held and headquartered in Gahanna, Ohio, a Columbus suburb.
Donatos now runs approximately 450 locations across roughly 29 states, according to Wikipedia and ScrapeHero location data. Part of that growth comes from an unusual partnership. Donatos has served its pizza inside Red Robin restaurants since 2018. That program had grown to around 260 Red Robin locations carrying Donatos pizza by the end of 2025. The chain has also pushed into new territory recently. It opened its first Houston, Texas location and expanded across the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida.
Donatos Pizza Vegetarian Options: What to Order
Donatos builds every pizza to order, which makes it one of the easier pizza chains to eat vegetarian at. Here’s a quick-reference table for the most common orders. Availability of specific crusts and toppings can vary by location, so check your local Donatos menu before you order if any item here matters to you.
| Menu Item | Vegetarian | Vegan |
|---|---|---|
| Build Your Own Pizza (vegetable toppings, no meat) | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Check (order vegan crust, no cheese) |
| Very Vegy™ Pizza | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (dairy cheese) |
| Margherita Pizza | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (mozzarella, Asiago, provolone) |
| Ultimate 4 Cheese Pizza | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (dairy) |
| Serious Cheese™ Pizza | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (dairy) |
| Vegan Crust (ordered with no cheese) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes* |
| Plant-Based Sausage topping | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes* |
| Fresh Vegy Sub | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (provolone cheese) |
| Italian Garlic Breadsticks with Marinara | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Check (standard dough contains egg and milk) |
| Asiago Cheese Bread / Garlic Asiago Cheese Bread | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (dairy) |
| Cinnamon Bread, Oreo Twists, Fudge Brownie | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Check (dairy and egg likely) |
*Vegan orders depend on staff confirming no cheese is added and that the vegan crust and plant-based sausage are in stock that day. Ask before you order.
Build Your Own: Vegetable Toppings and Sauces
The “Create Your Own Pizza” option is where most vegetarians should start. Per the company’s official Master Nutrition File, the vegetable toppings are fresh mushrooms, Roma tomatoes, green peppers, yellow onion, and jalapeño peppers. Round that out with fresh baby spinach, banana peppers, black olives, green olives, tomato bruschetta, pineapple, and sliced almonds. Cheese toppings add bleu cheese, Asiago, smoked provolone, and fresh mozzarella. Sauce choices are Original, Marinara, Olive Oil, Mild Buffalo, BBQ, and the newer Creamy Parm, added in late 2025.
Plant-Based Sausage is also listed as a standard topping in Donatos’ current nutrition file. That makes it a real, ongoing menu item rather than a one-off promotion, and a good source of protein if you’re skipping the traditional pepperoni and other meats. A Plant-Based Pepperoni, made with Field Roast, launched in January 2022. It doesn’t appear in the most recent nutrition documents though, so treat its current availability as unconfirmed and ask your local store before counting on it.
Crust choices matter for vegan options too. Beyond the standard Famous Thin, Famous Thick, and Hand Tossed crusts, Donatos sells a 10-inch Cauliflower Crust. It sounds like a good vegan pick, but it isn’t: the cauliflower crust has mozzarella baked directly into it, so it’s vegetarian, not vegan. If dairy-free is the goal, the dedicated Vegan Crust, not the cauliflower one, is the crust to order.
Specialty Pizzas Worth Ordering
If you’d rather skip building your own, Donatos has several specialty pizzas that are vegetarian as ordered, no substitutions needed:
- Very Vegy™: tomatoes, green pepper, onion, mushroom, spinach, and green olives on provolone and Romano.
- Margherita: mozzarella, Asiago, and provolone with tomato, basil, and olive oil.
- Ultimate 4 Cheese: a straightforward four-cheese pie.
- Serious Cheese™: Donatos’ classic cheese pizza, edge to edge.
A few specialty pizzas can also go vegetarian with one change: the Chicken Spinach Mozzarella and Mariachi Chicken are vegetarian if you order them without the chicken. Meat-forward pies like the Classic Trio, The Works, Founder’s Favorite, and anything with pepperoni, sausage, ham, or bacon aren’t vegetarian and can’t easily be made so.
Subs, Salads, and Sides
Donatos’ sub menu is mostly meat-based, but the Fresh Vegy Sub is a genuine vegetarian option: Roma tomatoes, yellow onions, green peppers, mushrooms, lettuce, banana peppers, and provolone with Italian dressing. It’s the only fully vegetarian sub on the menu.
On the salad side, the Italian Side Salad and Very Vegy Side Salad both appear to be vegetarian as ordered, though Donatos hasn’t published a full ingredient breakdown for either. The Italian Chef entrée salad comes with pepperoni, ham, salami, and provolone, but you can ask for it without the meats and keep the cheese and vegetables.
For sides, the Italian Garlic Breadsticks with marinara are vegetarian and, worth knowing if you avoid fried food, they’re baked rather than fried. Asiago Cheese Bread and Garlic Asiago Cheese Bread are both vegetarian too. Skip the Pepperoni Cheese Bread and the Fresh Stuffed Jalapenos, both of which contain bacon.
What’s Vegan at Donatos Pizza?
Vegan options at Donatos take more planning than vegetarian ones, but they’re real. Most locations carry a dedicated 10-inch Vegan Crust, made without eggs or dairy. Order it with Marinara or Olive Oil sauce and skip the cheese entirely. Load up on vegetable toppings and Plant-Based Sausage for protein, and you’ve got a genuine vegan pizza built from real plant-based foods, not a workaround. One catch: Donatos doesn’t sell a vegan cheese, so any pizza with cheese added, including the standard mozzarella, Asiago, or provolone, is off the table for vegans.
The chain also ran a breaded, oven-roasted vegan cauliflower wing at close to 200 locations starting in February 2021, with several vegan-friendly sauce options. That item isn’t in the chain’s current nutrition documentation, so it may be discontinued or only available in limited markets now. If vegan wings matter to your order, call ahead and confirm before you go.
Special Dietary Requirements and Allergies
Donatos publishes a Master Nutrition File that flags the eight major FDA allergens (egg, fish, milk, soy, wheat, peanut, tree nut, and sesame) for every item, and it’s a genuinely useful document to check before you order. A few things worth knowing beyond the standard allergen list:
- The type of rennet in Donatos’ cheese, animal or microbial, isn’t publicly disclosed. Ask your local store directly if that distinction matters to you, since the company’s own documentation doesn’t say.
- Standard pizza dough contains whole eggs and nonfat dry milk, so it’s vegetarian-safe but not vegan. The dedicated Vegan Crust is the only egg- and dairy-free option.
- A Gluten Free Crust is available in a 12-inch size, but Donatos states plainly in its own Gluten-Free FAQ that all items are prepared in a shared kitchen alongside items containing gluten, so cross-contact can’t be guaranteed.
- None of Donatos’ standard pizza sauces carry a fish allergen flag in the official matrix, so anchovy paste isn’t a concern in the sauce itself. The one fish flag in the system belongs to a Sweet Thai Chili wing sauce, not any pizza sauce.
- Breadsticks are baked, not fried, so they don’t share fryer oil with the chain’s fried chicken wings.
Tips for Vegetarians at Donatos Pizza
- Build your own pizza from the vegetable topping list if you want full control over what’s on it.
- Order the Very Vegy or Margherita if you’d rather not build a pizza from scratch. Both are vegetarian as printed on the menu.
- Going vegan, ask for the 10-inch Vegan Crust with Marinara or Olive Oil sauce, no cheese, and pile on vegetables and Plant-Based Sausage.
- Confirm Plant-Based Pepperoni is actually on the menu at your location before you plan a meal around it. It launched in 2022 but doesn’t appear in the current nutrition documents.
- Stick with breadsticks or cheese bread if you want a vegetarian side that isn’t fried in the same oil as the wings.
- Not every crust and topping is available at every store. Check the online menu for your specific Donatos location before you order.
- Ask about rennet type if you’re strict about it. Donatos doesn’t publish this, so a phone call to your local store is the only way to find out.
Conclusion
Donatos Pizza vegetarian options come down to a real build-your-own menu, several specialty pizzas that need no changes, and a genuine vegan crust for anyone who wants to skip the dairy entirely. Just double-check topping and crust availability at your local store, since not every Donatos carries the same lineup. For more on eating out as a vegetarian, see our guide to eating vegetarian and vegan at restaurants, browse more restaurant guides, or check out what’s vegetarian at Hunt Brothers Pizza, Marco’s Pizza, and Jet’s Pizza.
