Looking for honeygrow vegetarian options? The Philadelphia-born stir-fry and salad chain builds every bowl to order. Roasted tofu is a standard protein choice at every location, so a solid vegetarian meal is easy to put together here. Curious what about the vegetarians at fast-casual chains in general? honeygrow is one of the more accommodating ones on the menu-labeling front.
A Quick Look at honeygrow
Justin Rosenberg opened the first honeygrow in Philadelphia in June 2012. He’d sketched out the idea a few years earlier while finishing an MBA at Temple University. Around that time he shifted toward a more plant-based diet himself, and he wanted a fast-casual spot built around customizable stir-fry and salad bowls instead of burgers or burritos (Entrepreneur.com, Nation’s Restaurant News). The name is a nod to the honey used across the dessert menu. honeygrow has kept the lowercase styling on its own signage and website since day one.
The chain is still private and founder-led. It’s backed by roughly $70 million in outside investment from firms including Miller Investment Management and Brook Lenfest. Growth wasn’t a straight line. In late 2018, honeygrow closed several underperforming stores, including three in Chicago and one in Washington, D.C., along with its short-lived “Minigrow” spinoff in New York. The fleet shrank to 28 locations while Rosenberg reworked leases and costs (QSR Magazine, Nation’s Restaurant News).
The reset worked. By the end of 2025, honeygrow had grown to 71 locations across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Ohio, with about 2,000 employees. The company has said it plans up to 18 more openings in 2026, including new stores in New Jersey, Boston, and Ohio, plus early talks about entering Detroit (Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 30, 2025, QSR Magazine, ROI-NJ, Oct. 2025). Headquarters stays in Center City, Philadelphia, where it all started. That growth is exactly why more people are searching for honeygrow vegetarian options as new stores open in new metro areas.
honeygrow Vegetarian Options: What to Order
Every stir-fry and salad at honeygrow is built to order. You choose the base, the protein (or skip it), the vegetables, and the sauce yourself. Roasted tofu sits right alongside chicken, steak, and shrimp as a protein option, and several of the house sauces are already vegan. Here’s how the core honeygrow vegetarian options break down on the menu.
| Menu Item | Vegetarian | Vegan |
|---|---|---|
| Roasted Tofu (protein add-on) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Red Coconut Curry Stir-Fry (tofu, pineapple, veggies, coconut curry sauce) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Sesame Garlic Sauce | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Spicy Garlic Sauce | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Sweet Soy Five Spice Sauce | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Garlic Butter Sauce | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (butter) |
| Rice Noodles, Brown Rice, Whole Wheat Noodles (bases) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Egg White Noodles (base) | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (egg) |
| Kale Chicken Caesar / Classic Shrimp Caesar salads (made without the meat/shrimp) | ⚠️ Check | ❌ No |
| Loaded Greek Salad (grape tomatoes, chickpeas, feta, without meat) | ⚠️ Check (rennet type unconfirmed) | ❌ No (dairy) |
| OG Cobb / Steakhouse Chopped salads (ask for no bacon) | ⚠️ Check (comes with bacon by default) | ❌ No |
| Pomegranate Acai Salad (strawberries, spring mix, no cheese) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes* |
| Olive Oil Focaccia (side) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Roasted Tomato Focaccia (side) | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Check (cheese likely) |
| Fruit + Granola (Honeybar) | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Check (honey drizzle) |
Create Your Own Stir Fry
The “Create Your Own” stir fry is the easiest path to a filling vegetarian or vegan meal here. Start with a base. Rice noodles, brown rice, and whole wheat noodles are all vegan, while egg white noodles are vegetarian but not vegan since they’re made with egg. Add roasted tofu as your protein, load up on vegetables like broccoli, bell peppers, mushrooms, snow peas, and carrots, and finish with a sauce. Sesame Garlic, Spicy Garlic, Sweet Soy Five Spice, and Red Coconut Curry sauces are all labeled vegan on the official menu, so you can go fully plant-based without special requests. Skip the Garlic Butter sauce if you’re vegan. It’s vegetarian, but it contains dairy.
Create Your Own Salad
Building your own salad is another reliable route to honeygrow vegetarian options. Pick greens (spring mix, romaine, or curly kale), swap in tofu for the protein, and choose add-ins and a dressing. Of the named salads, the Kale Chicken Caesar and Classic Shrimp Caesar can both be made vegetarian by dropping the meat or shrimp. Ask about the Caesar dressing before you order, though. Classic Caesar dressing is traditionally made with anchovy, and honeygrow’s ingredient page doesn’t spell out whether theirs is fish-free, so treat it as unconfirmed rather than assuming either way. The Loaded Greek Salad’s feta is a similar case. It has no meat in it, but the rennet type isn’t published, so strict vegetarians who avoid animal rennet should ask.
Watch for bacon on two of the named salads. The OG Cobb (grape tomatoes, avocado, hard-boiled egg, white balsamic vinaigrette) and the Steakhouse Chopped (grape tomatoes, creamy ranch) both come with crispy bacon by default. Ask for it left off if you want either one vegetarian. The Loaded Greek leans vegetarian-friendly once you drop the default protein, with grape tomatoes, cucumbers, crunchy chickpeas, feta, and a roasted garlic red wine vinaigrette doing the heavy lifting. For an easier option, try the Pomegranate Acai salad. It pairs strawberries and spring mix with a pomegranate açaí vinaigrette, and it’s one of the easiest named salads to keep vegetarian, or vegan if you skip the cheese.
Sides and Honeybar
The Olive Oil Focaccia side is labeled vegan on the menu. The Brownie and Brownie Platter are vegetarian-friendly, chocolate-forward options if you want something to share. Check before ordering the Roasted Tomato Focaccia if you’re strict about dairy, since it likely carries cheese. On the dessert side, honeygrow’s “Honeybar” builds a bowl around a honey drizzle, fruit, granola, and other sweet mix-ins like the Strawberry Shortcake, Cheesecake, Brownie Crumble, The Cobbler, and Apple Pie. It’s vegetarian but not vegan by definition, since honey is an animal product.
The Fruit + Granola option is the closest thing to a lighter, mostly plant-based dessert among the honeygrow vegetarian options here, though it still comes with a honey drizzle unless you ask for it removed. Planning to cook at home instead? honeygrow sells its stir-fry sauces and noodles through an “HG at Home” retail line, so the same vegan sauces are available even when a location near you is closed.
What’s Vegan at honeygrow?
honeygrow makes vegan ordering fairly simple. It labels vegan items with a “(V)” directly on the menu, both in-store and online. The Red Coconut Curry Stir-Fry is the chain’s clearest ready-made vegan dish, built with rice noodles, roasted tofu, pineapple, jalapeños, carrots, scallions, and cilantro in a red coconut curry sauce. Beyond that, you can build your own vegan stir fry with any of the vegan bases (rice noodles, brown rice, whole wheat noodles), tofu, vegetables, and one of the four vegan sauces (Sesame Garlic, Spicy Garlic, Sweet Soy Five Spice, or Red Coconut Curry). Salads are trickier for vegans specifically, since most of the named salads lean on cheese or a creamy dressing. A build-your-own salad with a vinaigrette and no cheese is the safer bet when you’re after fully plant-based honeygrow vegetarian options. The Honeybar isn’t vegan-friendly by default, since every option centers on a honey drizzle.
Special Dietary Requirements and Allergies
honeygrow’s restaurants “do not carry peanuts or peanut products at any time,” according to the company’s own FAQ page. It’s a policy the founder put in place because of a severe peanut allergy in his family. That’s a genuine plus for guests managing a peanut allergy, though it doesn’t rule out other allergens. Rice noodles and brown rice are both called out as gluten-free bases, and several salads are gluten-free too. Standard soy-sauce-based stir-fry sauces generally contain wheat, though, so check before ordering if you need to avoid gluten.
Stir-fries are cooked on a wok-style flattop rather than a deep fryer, and the tofu itself is described as “roasted” on the menu rather than fried. That’s a good sign for anyone weighing honeygrow vegetarian options against cross-contact with fried animal products. honeygrow’s FAQ doesn’t publish a full cross-contact policy for shared cooking surfaces, though, so ask staff directly if you have a severe allergy beyond peanuts rather than assuming. Egg white noodles contain egg, and several sauces and salad toppings involve dairy. Read the (V) labels menu-by-menu rather than assuming a dish is vegan just because it looks light.
Tips for Vegetarians at honeygrow
- Ask for roasted tofu as your protein on any stir-fry or salad. It’s a standard menu option, not a special request.
- Look for the “(V)” tag on the menu and app. honeygrow labels vegan items directly rather than making you guess.
- Stick with rice noodles, brown rice, or whole wheat noodles as your base if you want to keep things vegan. Skip the egg white noodles.
- Pick Sesame Garlic, Spicy Garlic, Sweet Soy Five Spice, or Red Coconut Curry sauce for a vegan-labeled stir fry. Save the Garlic Butter sauce for when dairy is fine.
- Ask about the Caesar dressing before ordering a vegetarian Caesar salad. It’s traditionally anchovy-based, and honeygrow’s site doesn’t confirm theirs is fish-free.
- Managing a peanut allergy alongside vegetarian eating? honeygrow’s peanut-free kitchens are a genuine advantage over most fast-casual chains.
- Build your own salad instead of ordering a named one if you want full control over cheese and dressing.
- Check the honeygrow app before you go. It shows the same honeygrow vegetarian options and (V) labels you’d see at the counter, so you can plan your order ahead of time.
Conclusion
honeygrow makes vegetarian and even vegan eating straightforward. Roasted tofu is a real menu option, four of the five stir-fry sauces are already vegan, and the “(V)” labeling takes the guesswork out of most orders. Watch for the Caesar dressing, the feta in the Loaded Greek Salad, and the honey in every Honeybar dessert. For more on eating vegetarian at chain restaurants generally, see our guide to eating vegetarian and vegan at restaurants, or browse our full list of restaurant guides. Like build-your-own bowl concepts? Check out what’s vegetarian at CAVA, Sweetgreen, and Bibibop Asian Grill.
