This Bellingham restaurant is serving up vegan comfort food

If you’re looking for a place to eat tasty vegan food in Bellingham, look no further.

Sage Against the Machine started out as a food truck in 2018 and now also operates out of a brick-and-mortar location in downtown Bellingham.

Food options

Its menu is entirely vegan but you’d never know by looking at it.

You’ll find breakfast foods such as the BacUn Egg N’ Cheese Sandwich, Biscuits and Sausage Gravy and Pancake Breakfast.

If you’re looking to stop in for lunch, you can try the Tofurky Sandwich, BBQ Chick’N Sandwich or Toona Melt, to name a few.

And take your pick of loaded man n’ cheeses, wraps, burgers and ‘notchos.’

Supporting local

The restaurant also has an attached grocery mart, called V Go’s, if you’re looking for vegan snack foods or other local vegan products.

You’ll find these local brands featured in the store:

▪ Coast to Coast Sustainable Solutions.

▪ Pumped Bellingham.

▪ Thorough // Fare Tempeh.

▪ Leap Bellingham Nut Spreads.

▪ Pangea Ferments.

▪ MW Soap Works.

Sage Against the Machine also features local artists in-store. Thirty percent of the profits from the art is donated to local animal sanctuaries.

The owners

Co-owners Nate Johnson and Tara Folenius found a lot of success with their food truck. Their goal was to make a plant-based diet more accessible to the community.

But when they signed the lease on their storefront in September 2020, they ran into financial trouble getting the business running during the pandemic.

“It almost broke us. We almost didn’t make it, but we preserved,” Johnson said.

With help from family and the community, the two managed to keep the business and officially open its doors in February 2022.

“We kept our faith and believed in ourselves,” Folenius said.

Coming up next

After many months of operation, the owners are hoping to expand their outdoor seating capabilities.

Johnson and Folenius received a $5,000 grant from American Express to help them fund that project.

The grant is aimed at helping small business owners who identify as Native or Indigenous, Hispanic or Latinx, LGBTQ+, or as immigrants, refugees or forcibly displaced.

Johnson is one-quarter Native Alaskan.

“We are just so grateful because now we can reach more of the community by building outdoor seating,” Folenius said.

Sage Against the Machine is located at 1213 Cornwall Ave., Suite 102. in Bellingham.

It’s open 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and closed Sunday-Monday.