Save the Red Herring

The Red Herring is a non-profit lunch-only vegan restaurant that is literally across the street from the Anthropology Department. You would think because 1) it is so close to where I work –and- 2) I’ve been a vegetarian and/or vegan for the past 11+ years, that I would be eating lunch there all the time. But not so much really. Before the last week, I’d probably only eaten there 3 or 4 times. This is because I’ve never been much of a lunch person, but that is probably beyond the scope of this blog.

At any rate, I found out recently that the Red Herring is in financial distress and in imminent danger of closing forever. In a grass roots effort to keep their doors open, they’ve been trying to get everybody and anybody to come in and buy lunch. I guess they normally serve maybe 50 people a day, and they need to drastically increase that number in order to make enough money to buy the supplies to stay open another week. (Keeping in mind that the people who work there are volunteers and do not actually get paid).

Rob and I met for lunch there last Friday, and it was a little chaotic. There were a lot of people in there, and you could tell that the staff was not used to this kind of business. This week, I scored some office space in the department, so I’ve been working from campus and have been back to the Red Herring twice to pick up a sandwich to go. Both times there have again been tons of people ordering lunch. So much, in fact, that today I waited in line for 30 minutes before even placing my order. Just as I got up to the counter, they announced that they were out of everything on the menu, except the Baked Tofu Sandwich—which was actually the thing I wanted anyway, so that was fine by me.

At any rate, I really, sincerely hope that the Red Herring doesn’t have to close down. Its been open for the past 30 years, and I guess its the only totally vegan restaurant in town. Restaurants normally stress me out, because I usually have to ask about a billion questions to determine what, if anything, is vegan and even then I’m never quite sure. So it is really nice to have this restaurant that is all vegan, and I can order anything off the menu (provided that they don’t run out). If you live in the Champaign-Urbana area, please drop by the Red Herring for lunch in the next couple of days to help support a local business. Its in the basement of the Channing Murray Foundation, at the corner of Mathews and Oregon. The Channing Murray is some kind of Unitarian church, but I don't think that the restaurant is affiliated with the church. Anyway, the food is amazing, and I’m not just saying that because I’m vegan. SL took us there for a Dissertation Lunch one time—even he enjoyed it, and he’s a total carnivore.

This is a photo of the building that the Red Herring is in. The Anthropology Department is the pink brick building in the background.

Thanks for reading.