‘Everybody’s welcome here’: Vegetarian food truck Vistro opens brick-and-mortar eatery – Bowling Green Daily News

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Melinda Whitfield Gilbert serves up spaghetti marinara Friday at 937 College St. in her new vegetarian and vegan restaurant Vistro. (Photo by David Mamaril Horowitz.)

BY DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

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The Bowling Green-based vegetarian food truck Vistro has opened a brick-and-mortar location downtown — the only vegetarian restaurant that owner Melinda Whitfield Gilbert knows of citywide.

The approximately 3,000-square-foot space opened March 17 at 937 College St.. The mostly vegan and otherwise vegetarian establishment features a range of freshly prepared fare.

“I want there to be choices,” said Whitfield Gilbert, who said she’s 85% vegan and otherwise vegetarian.

She recognized a lack of quality vegetarian restaurant food areawide when she made the dietary change alongside her husband in 2020.

“We liked to eat out, but we learned that there were very few places that had vegan options other than a salad, but most of the dressings weren’t vegan, so if you wanted lettuce and a cracker, you wouldn’t go hungry, but there just wasn’t good, hearty food to eat out,” she said.

As of Friday, Vistro fare included marinara spaghetti, Asian pasta salad, Mexican street corn dip, a vegan tuna salad sandwich, tomato bisque, a dessert of the week and more.

“I wanted (…) something light where you could grab and go if you wanted to, but also meals where you could sit down and enjoy and would be nice and hardy and filling and healthy,” she said.

Affordability is another focus: A good lunch and drink, she said, should cost under $15, and she won’t raise prices for dinner once they start offering it.

“This was never a pursuit about money,” her husband John Gilbert said. “This is a pursuit about doing what she loves and what she thinks other people love.”

Connecting with local farms is also a focus. Vistro’s a Kentucky Proud restaurant, indicating a commitment to procuring produce from Kentucky farms.

“I’m really conscientious about keeping it local whenever I can and supporting Kentucky companies,” Whitfield Gilbert said. “When it’s not local, at least I can maybe do regional. And I want to use the best products I can in my food.”

It’s open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Friday, staffed by Whitfield Gilbert, her son Hutch Humphrey and four part-timers. Her husband, a full-time teacher at Southcentral Kentucky Community & Technical College, also supports.

Whitfield Gilbert hopes to soon expand into breakfast and, in time, serve dinner. Other hopes are to offer Saturday brunches and live events — perhaps music live music — and to rent out the space for uses like receptions.

She’s also taken steps to distinguish the space aesthetically from previous businesses it housed, most recently, Cafe Kindness.

“I want (people) to be like, ‘This is Vistro,’ ” she said.

A dream

Becoming a restaurateur would have seemed, prior to 2020, a fleeting childhood dream. Whitfield Gilbert remembers standing at her kitchen stove at 12 years old and thinking a restaurant venture would be fun.

She pursued physics instead — obtaining a degree from Western Kentucky University, entering nuclear research, teaching at Western, and, eventually, becoming a technical writer.

When she and her husband changed eating habits, Whitfield Gilbert found herself missing foods she could previously eat and began veganizing her own recipes. Her husband, she said, suggested she open a restaurant.

Research and truck procurement took about three years. In 2023, they opened the food truck — and people loved it, she said. Many, she added, told her she needed to open a restaurant.

While the couple had gone vegetarian for health, it also became about principle for Whitfield Gilbert — and she aims for the restaurant to align with her values.

“I try to be so meticulous about what products are in the things that I use,” she said. “While I will use animal products like honey or eggs, I don’t want to use any product that is created from the death of an animal. And that wasn’t the initial focus, but that’s important to me.”

John Gilbert said he has two hopes for the place.

“My main hope is that it makes my wife happy to do it (…). This has been her dream. She’s about serving other people. She always has been. And when it becomes unfun, we shouldn’t do it,” he said. “And then, second: For this community of underserved folks and unserved market segment, they really need this.”

Whitfield Gilbert had a message for all.

“Just come and hang out, have a good time. This is a judgment-free zone,” she said. “I want this to be a safe space for people to come and feel comfortable (…). Everybody’s welcome here.”