Organized vegetarianism in America is older than the word vegetarian, and had its initial roots in Protestant Christianity. For the first vegetarian restaurants, however, you have to skip ahead to around 1900, and to three major developments: spa vacations, tabloid newspapers, and Kellogg's Cornflakes.

Early United States vegetarianism took its cues from England. Immigrant members of a minor Protestant denomination, the Bible Christian Church, continued to follow their belief that the Bible commanded a vegetarian diet. Pastor William Metcalfe even published a treatise, Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals, in 1823--this wasn't some one-shot eccentric or classically-educated Gentleman And A Scholar indulging himself.

Non-church-affiliated vegetarian societies (and the word vegetarian) arose in 1840s England; the first American one was founded in 1856. Its founders were mostly Christian pastors anyway, but the organization itself was secular--their foundational principles involved vegetarianism as an act for moral and spiritual improvement.

The American Vegetarian Society was not well received by most Americans, in part because they thought the food would have to be awful. AVS co-founded Sylvester Graham--as in graham crackers--invented sort of a precursor to the vegetarian restaurant. He staged elaborate culinary banquets featuring all vegetarian food (much of which he invented) to prove it was not just edible but good.

Graham died in 1851, but his food sure didn't. Specifically, health spa operator Dr. James Caleb Jackson adopted it as part of the standard diet at his medicinal spa retreats. This had two effects that proved essential for vegetarianism to take root in the American culinary world.

First, Seventh-Day Adventist founder Ellen White was a sometime patient of Jackson, and the vegetarian diet of his spa convinced her to adopted vegetarianism as an Adventist principle. Second, it made vegetarianism a frequent (though not necessary) part of 19th century spa and fitness culture.

Yes, it's hard to get more niche than Seventh-Day Adventists. (Well, the Shakers also cross over with vegetarianism, and the Shakers probably count as more niche). But it's less about the Adventists, plural, and more about one specific Adventist, namely, one John Harvey Kellogg. Incidentally, Kellogg was one of the first to support a vegetarian diet for animal rights reasons, publishing The Natural Diet of Man in 1923.

But long before that! Kellogg was on the way to vegetarian fame. His fortune came from the process of turning corn into cornflakes, primarily, but he also invented a whole host of imitation meats. Nuttose, Protose, Skallops, and Battle Creek Steaks: before soybeans and TVP gave us Boca and Morningstar, salvation lay in crushed peanuts.

Kellogg supplied and popularized a lot of the foods, especially for home consumption. It took a different kind of entrepreneur to realize that maybe Americans wanted to be part time vegetarians, or to be vegetarian consumers. Early bodybuilder ("physical culturalist") Bernarr Macfadden made his fortune in the turn of the 20th century publishing industry, especially tabloids. And alongside the hottest sleazy gossip of the day, he published articles on the health benefits of vegetarianism.

Legitimate belief? Yes. Clever marketing? ...Also yes. Because Macfadden wasn't just a publisher, he was a restaurateur. In 1902, he opened a restaurant in New York City that--really--he named after his Physical Culture magazine. Like the magazine, the restaurant pushed a vegetarian diet. We're still not at American appropriation of tofu yet, but his own steak substitute was a Kellogg-inspired, nut-based concoction.

Physical Culture the restaurant was successful enough, Macfadden's magazine popular enough, Kellogg influential enough, and spa culture entrenched enough in American society that Macfadden was able to take his restaurant nationwide. There were eventually over 20 Physical Culture restaurants sprinkled around America's major cities.

Vegetarianism, vegetarian meat substitutes, and even vegetarian restaurant dining as spiritual and health/fitness concerns have a much longer history in America than their current association with animals rights and environmentalism might suggest. So the next time "a vegan, an atheist, and a CrossFitter walk into a bar"...maybe they're all the same person.