HappyCow celebrates its 25th anniversary: how the app continues to change the world for animals
With over 4 million downloads, HappyCow remains an essential app for anyone wanting to help animals and create positive change.
Credit: HappyCow
Since its humble beginnings in 1999, HappyCow has helped millions of people create a kinder world for animals and the planet.
For the uninitiated, HappyCow is a website and mobile app that helps locate nearby vegan and vegan-friendly food options at restaurants, health stores, food trucks, and more.
You can type in a city or area, or use the ‘locate me’ function to find listings close to your nearby location.
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, it remains one of the biggest vegan platforms in the world and is an essential for anyone wanting to discover more plant-based food.
The site’s community ethos has seen over two decades worth of user reviews, helping plant-based food lovers to find the best fare available.
Currently, HappyCow’s global directory lists almost 250,000 vegan businesses across 185 countries, including:
10,354 fully vegan restaurants
15,395 vegan-friendly vegetarian restaurants
151,028 restaurants that serve meat but also offer vegan & veg options
To help sort the best of the best, more than 1.7 million user reviews have been submitted to evaluate and rank each eatery.
Credit: HappyCow
With its global reach the app has become a particular hit with travelers and holidaymakers, as it helps users locate the best plant-based food in new surroundings.
HappyCow often releases figures and research made from its extensive database of all-things-vegan. For 2024 it ranked every city in the world on how vegan-friendly they are, by using various metrics including the number of fully vegan restaurants in the city and the density of vegan businesses in each location.
The resulting list of Top 10 Vegan-Friendly Cities ranked the UK capital of London in first place, thanks to the 161 fully vegan restaurants in Central London and its over 350 fully vegan establishments.
The European cities of Berlin and Barcelona claimed the second and third places respectively, while Portland at sixth and Los Angeles at seventh represented the US in the list.
HappyCow also keeps a regularly updated list of the Top Rated Vegan Restaurants in the world. Some of those with the most five star ratings include a food stall in Vietnam called Hoi Banh My Chay, which serves traditional Vietnamese sandwiches - known as banh mi - loaded with tofu, salad and chilli sauce.
Slutty Vegan is one of the top rated spots in Atlanta. Credit: Slutty Vegan
Other highly-rated eateries include The Queen Inn, a fully vegan pub in Wales, UK, which serves homely food like vegan steak and chips and traditional Sunday roasts, and Chef Tanya’s Kitchen in Virginia, US, a lunch counter & deli that offers vegan sandwiches, burgers, and salads, with a special focus on their homemade tempeh and seitan.
“Thank you to our amazing #HappyCowmunity for making this journey possible! Every meal shared, every review written, and every photo uploaded helps make vegan food accessible to ALL”, HappyCow posted on social media to celebrate its 25th year. “Let's keep spreading the love for a kinder world, one meal at a time”.
Estimates suggest that a plant-based diet can spare the lives of 105 animals per person each year.
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