Gnocchi at Cafe Green - Dupont Circle in Washington

  • CLOSED: Cafe Green - Dupont Circle
    (12)
    6

    Closed

  • White Vegan
Vegan
American
International
Organic
Beer/Wine

Affiliated with the Java Green, this is a full-service organic vegan restaurant. Has raw, gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free options. Reported closed to HappyCow.

Venue map for Cafe Green - Dupont Circle
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12 Reviews

First Review by RichPeppin

Avatar kzollman

kzollman

Points +123

Vegetarian
04 Jun 2012

Good food, terrible service, misleading pricing

My experience here seems to confirm many of the positive and negative reviews of this restaurant. Overall, the food was very good. The Thai-style noodles dish is well balanced and very tasty. With the addition of "chicken" -- which is some of the best fake chicken I've ever had -- the dish is substantial enough for dinner. The "cheese" burger was good, but does not stand out from a number of other veggie patties that I've had at other restaurants.

The menu is structured in a non-standard way. It has basic items to which you can add other items for an additional charge based on the item. While this adds a significant amount of variation to their menu, it also makes the price of the dish somewhat misleading. The initial price is not terribly expensive, but then the charge for additional items can increase the price of the dish substantially. At least some of the dishes are not enough for a reasonable dinner without an addition.

In contrast to the quality of the food, the service was truly awful. The waitress seemed annoyed by our arrival. She failed to tell us the specials (which I only found out about after ordering). When it came time to pay she disappeared. We had to ask TWO other servers to find her so that we could get our bill.

Pros: High quality food, Fresh

Cons: Service, Misleading prices

Avatar Dougbrown59

Dougbrown59

Points +24

Vegan
14 Jun 2012

Perfect for Vegans and soon to be Vegans

My wife and I were visiting DC for a long weekend and used Happycow to find our Vegan options. We tried several and we loved this place so much we ate there 3 nights in a row. We spoke with the creator of Cafe Green and he truely wants to help us be healthier and he also wants to help newbies to Vegan foods to find great tasking foods. While you want find meat here you can easily bring your non-vegy friends and they will find something that they will like. We had pizza, cheese burger, nachos grande, and several vegy sides. Everthing tasted wonderful. The deserts were better than I remember dairy deserts tasting. The cheesecake was a master piece. I found the service very friendly and eager. The chefs and owner love to explain how they created your meal, so if you are interested, just ask to meet them and they will make a point to come spend quality time with you. Bottomline, if we lived in DC we would eat at least once per week, it is that good.

Pros: Street Cafe Atmosphere, Both RAW and cooked Vegan, Great tasting deserts

Cons: Pricey but not for DC, A little crowded

Avatar dsparakh

dsparakh

Points +205

Vegan
20 May 2012

Tasty food but... horribly overpriced

Our family likes to try and support vegan restaurants wherever we happen to be travelling to. While we enjoyed the food here, we are still suffering from sticker shock. Portions were miniscule, and they nickel and dime you for everything. My wife asked for some extra vegetables in the spicy Thai noodles and when we got the bill, we were hit with an extra $5 charge. Fine if that is your policy, but let the customer know ahead of time. To add insult to injury, an automatic 18% gratuity was added to the bill for very mediocre service. We did not even venture to order dessert. I understand that they are located in a pricey area of DC, but unfortunately, the overall impression left is that of being ripped off and of the "green" in your wallet...

Cons: Expensive

Avatar DCSanford

DCSanford

Points +147

Vegan
06 Apr 2012

Didn't get 4.5 happy cow service

They did ok with menu items that we didn't alter but the items we ordered and made changes to we're not handled well. Over 20 minutes to get our food and over 15 minutes to get our hot tea. Then the bill came with over $10 in extra charges we had to have removed.

When we did get our food the quality was good. But not fantastic as the other reviewers have indicated by their ratings.

A $10.50 sandwich came with 2 thinly sliced tomatoes and 3 pieces of bread.

The more I think of what we paid for what we got the more angry I'm getting.

If you go here demand that you get what you order and hold them to discounting their mistakes. And look carefully at your bill.

Pros: Vegan, Decent food , Good assortment

Cons: Slow like snails, Bumble special orders, Inacurate bill

Avatar DaisytheHedgehog

DaisytheHedgehog

Points +116

Vegan
16 Jan 2012

Best Vegan in DC

The mac n' kale is the most delicious thing in the world. They also have amazing noodle soups that omnivores love, as well as great soy milk shakes. Every time I'm in DC I eat here as much as possible. Conveniently located near Dupont Circle metro.

Avatar TigerLily+DrTofu

TigerLily+DrTofu

Points +40

Vegan
15 Jan 2012

Best milkshake in the world

We went there a hot summer day and had to wait outside for one hour until they opened (unfortunately we didn't realize that they open at 3pm). The waitresses were extremely understanding and helpful with our early arrival. When the oven was switched on we were free to order. Well, and we ordered almost half of the menu.
The sandwich with chips was great, the burger was excellent and the most delicious milkshake I ever had was the Oreo-cookie (soy)milkshake. As you can imagine our bill was sinfully high, but since we are still talking about this great place's food even half a year later, it was totally worth it!

Pros: Yummy food, Excellent Oreo soy milkshake, Friendly staff

Cons: quiete expensive

Avatar EllenDC

EllenDC

Points +17

Vegetarian
10 Oct 2011

Loved Cafe Green

I went with my husband and stepdaughter for the first time yesterday and we all enjoyed Cafe Green very much. It's such a nice change of pace to pour over a fairly extensive menu and know that EVERYTHING is okay for me to eat! Nice place to sit outside. Get the vegan pizza appetizer -- that was the star of our show. I can't wait to go back and try everything else.

Pros: extensive menu, excellent food, healthy

Cons: somewhat slow service

Avatar atlantis-gaia

atlantis-gaia

Points +29

Vegetarian
04 Oct 2011

Nice Ambience, Good Food, Terrible Service

We ordered a couple of food items, including appetizers and entrees. After 15 minutes, the waitress returned and said, "Sorry, but I was just informed that we have no potatoes". Then another 10 minutes later, "Sorry but I was just informed that we have no asparagas." Entrees were tasty. The smoothies we ordered took an hour. The waitress kept returning and saying , "Sorry, the bar guy is really backed up". Prices were appropriate for this part of the world--pricey, compared to the South, where we're from. Would return, but first would insist that wait staff do due dilligence!
The owner kept spraying nearby tables with some soap/amonia liquid until I asked her to stop--very bad for our health and appetite and very tacky.

Pros: Tasty food, Nice Ambience, Friendly Waitress

Cons: Terrible Kitchen Service, Poor Management, Owner kept spraying nearby tables!

Avatar avegbee

avegbee

Points +28

Vegan
14 Sep 2011

Truly Fantastic

Once again, I'm thankful I don't live in DC. If I lived in walking distance, I would not only be the fattest vegan on the planet, but the poorest as well because I would eat here every day.

We went here yesterday after 8pm so it wasn't very crowded. Our waitress was super friendly and polite.

My fiancé and I ordered the Nachos Con Queso (not Grande) and they were so authentic tasting and filling. The cheese sauce is to die for, my non vegan/vegetarian fiancé said he would never know that this place was even vegan ("you could just bring someone here and they'd have no idea!") - we were fighting over the last nacho.

He got the pesto chicken and I got the turkey club and we both split a side of macaroni and cheese - because I am insistent on finding great vegan mac 'n' cheese. You can probably guess we ended up with "to go" boxes for half of everything we ordered. I read some reviews about the mac 'n' cheese being too salty so I braced myself to try it, but either I'm immune to the saltiness or they had a bad batch, so I'm not sure.

Since I hate driving into DC, I used that as an excuse to get dessert to go and got raw chocolate cheesecake and a chocolate cupcake. I was super full, but got stuck in dead stop construction traffic on 66W at 10:30 AT NIGHT, so I tasted the cupcake (fiancé: "are you serious right now?") and it was SO rich, if you love chocolate, you'll love this. Since it has only been 12 hours that I was last at the restaurant I haven't tried the cheesecake, but how can one go wrong on cheesecake?

I also got the Berry Berry Margarita. They didn't short me on the alcohol, but it didn't taste like cheap tequila either so that was super.

I made sure to drop 57 hints that my birthday should be here; regardless that it's more than 6 months away.


Worth mentioning: Parking = not awesome. Not an issue of Cafe Green since it's a DC wide situation, so it didn't impact my review of the restaurant or anything.

Pros: So Tasty, Food Selection, Outstanding Service

Avatar Reece

Reece

Points +26

Herbivore
19 May 2011

A good reason to love DC

Great little place. Extremely friendly owner and helpful staff. The restaurant is filled with cute local art work.

Pros: healthy cuisine, extremely amicable staff, exhilarating selection

Cons: small portions

Avatar Lisa Bloom

Lisa Bloom

Points +66

Vegan
26 Feb 2011

Bravo!

Another hit from the owner of Java Green. On Friday night, this place was filled with exuberant young people enjoying gourmet vegan fare. Menu is 100% vegan, 50% raw, creative, varied, delicious. Mac and kale delicious! As was raw brownie. If I lived in this town I'd eat in this restaurant constantly.

Pros: huge variety on menu, many raw options, friendly staff

Avatar RichPeppin

RichPeppin

Points +76

Vegan
20 Nov 2010

Finally- A great vegan restaurant in DC

Small, informal, reasonable prices, good, high quality all-vegan food, organic. Can't ask for much more.

Pros: mac n' cheeze, friendly staff, close to metro

Cons: on street, i.e. no parking

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