Kneaders Bakery And Cafe, headquartered in Orem, Utah, is operated by Gary and Colleen Worthington. Referred to as a “from-scratch bakery,” Kneaders’ menu has grown to encompass soups, salads, pastries, and sandwiches.
Answer: far less than this page used to claim, and less than we can verify. The headline claim that Kneaders bread is “100% vegan” is false as a category statement — the current bread menu includes an Asiago Cheese loaf and a White Chocolate Coconut Sweet Bread. Seven of the thirteen breads this page listed are no longer on the menu at all.
Scroll through for what Kneaders actually serves today, and for the one honest caveat that governs everything below.
The Caveat: We Could Not Read Kneaders’ Allergen Guide
Kneaders does publish a Nutrition & Allergen Guide. It is a PDF dated 22 October 2024, linked from kneaders.com/nutrition under “DOWNLOAD NUTRITION & ALLERGEN GUIDE”. Credit where it is due — that is more than many bakeries offer.
We could not read it. The file is hosted behind a content delivery network that returns an HTTP 403 with the message “The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country.” Every method was tried: a direct request with a browser user agent and referrer, the tracking-parameter variant linked from the site, the alternate host, the site’s media API, and a headless browser session. All hit the same geographic block.
So this page can verify one thing only: whether an item is currently on Kneaders’ published menu. Every ingredient-level claim below is marked unverifiable, and we have not filled the gap with guesses or with third-party ingredient lists. If you are in the US, download that guide — it will tell you more than this article can.
What Kneaders does state publicly, on its nutrition page, is this:
“We cannot guarantee our items to be 100% gluten-free. We are a scratch bakery and we have flour dust in the air that makes it impossible to maintain a gluten-free environment. As a result, everything we serve could come in contact with gluten and other food allergens.”
“If you have a food allergy, please consult with your healthcare practitioner about which Kneaders products are right for you.”
Note also that Kneaders applies no vegan or vegetarian designation to any menu item.
Bread — The Claim That Needed Fixing Most
This page has said for years that Kneaders bread is “100% vegan”. That cannot stand. Kneaders’ current bread menu lists fourteen breads with marketing copy and no ingredients, and two of them are self-evidently not vegan from their own descriptions: Asiago Cheese (“blend of asiago and parmesan cheeses baked in the bread”) and White Chocolate Coconut Sweet Bread. A blanket category claim is falsified by its own menu.
Breads That Are No Longer On The Menu
Seven of the thirteen breads this page listed have gone: Ciabatta, Cranberry Pistachio, Raisin Walnut, Rustic Rye, Seeded Baguette, 100% Whole Wheat and Potato Rosemary (only a “Rosemary Focaccia Round” exists now). All seven have been removed from this page.
Rustic Rye is worth a note of its own, because this page listed it as vegan in one paragraph and told readers “don’t get the rye bread” in another. That contradiction is now moot — there is no rye bread on the menu — but it should never have been published.
Honey Wheat — Claim Withdrawn
Honey Wheat is still on the menu, and it should never have appeared on a list captioned “the list of vegan bread”. The product is named for honey. Its published description — “Made in a pan, no preservatives, no added fat” — does not exclude honey, and without readable ingredient data there is no way to defend the listing. It has been removed from the recommendations.
Breads Still On The Menu, Status Unverifiable
These four are still sold, and Kneaders publishes no ingredients for any of them: Hazelnut 12 Grain (“sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, wheat, oats, triticale, flax, rice, millet, barley, corn, rye, buckwheat”), Baguette, Paesano (“thin cornmeal crust”) and Country White. French Country has been renamed French Country Sourdough.
Any of these may well be vegan. None of them can be confirmed as vegan from an official source we can reach. The specific unknowns for a bakery loaf are milk, butter, egg wash and honey — those are the questions to put to staff.
Sandwiches
There is no standalone Veggie Avocado sandwich any more. It survives only as one filling option inside the Classic Sandwich: “Kneaders sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, salt and pepper, plus your choice from … Ham, Turkey, Roast Beef, Veggie Avocado, or Dave’s…”
Two things follow. The old advice — order it and have the cheese removed — no longer matches how the item is sold. And the sandwich now comes with “Kneaders sauce” as standard, whose composition is not published anywhere. Ask what is in the sauce, and ask for the bread you have checked.
Smoothies
The No Dairy Berry smoothie is still on the menu: “Guava juice, peaches, strawberry, banana.” No dairy appears in the stated ingredients.
“No dairy” is a name, not a certification, and it says nothing about honey or other additives. With the allergen guide unreadable, this is unverifiable — a good candidate, not a confirmed one.
Kids’ Menu — Rebuilt
The kids’ menu now contains exactly two things: a Kids Combo and a Kids Breakfast Combo.
The green salad this page recommended is gone. There is no salad on the kids’ menu at all.
The PB&J is no longer a standalone item either. It exists as one of three sandwich choices inside the Kids Combo, which bundles “applesauce or chips, choice of soda, milk or juice, and a frosted kids sugar cookie”. The bundled cookie is not vegan, so the combo cannot be recommended as it is sold. The calorie figure this page used to quote was not sourced and has been removed.
Rolls — Petit Pain Is Gone
This page described Petit Pain as “free of any allergens or animal-based products” in a sentence that then called them croissants. Both halves of that were wrong, and the item is no longer on the menu in any case.
No bakery working in a flour-dust environment can be free of allergens, and Kneaders says so itself in the quote above. The current rolls are Soft Rolls, the French Country Soup Bun and Raspberry Rolls — none with published ingredients.
Deli Salad — Fresh Fruit
Still on the menu: “Fresh Fruit: A mixture of fresh strawberries, grapes, melon, blueberries, and pineapple.” This is the simplest item covered here. Additives and dressings are not disclosed, so it is listed as unverifiable rather than confirmed, but it is the shortest route to something plant-based.
Oatmeal — All Four Varieties Gone
This page listed four steel cut oatmeals: plain, Banana Walnut, Cranberry Coconut and Fresh Fruit. Kneaders’ current breakfast menu lists eleven items and there is no oatmeal of any kind among them. The whole section has been removed.
Salad Dressings
Sesame Ginger is gone. It is not referenced anywhere on Kneaders’ current salad menu, and the “0% allergens” claim attached to it here was never sourced to anything. Both have been deleted.
Three dressings are still referenced on the menu, all with no published ingredients:
Balsamic Vinaigrette — served alongside the Turkey Cranberry Croissant. Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette — served with the Berry Pecan Salad. Poppy Seed — served with the Apple Cranberry Salad. Of the three, poppy seed deserves the most caution: commercial poppy seed dressings very commonly contain egg and/or dairy, and there is no data here either way.
None of the three can be listed as vegan on this page.
Beverages
Coffee and Americano are confirmed on the menu — “Coffee: 16 oz. of gourmet drip coffee” and “Americano: 16 oz. of espresso and hot water”. Black, these are the simplest things on the drinks list.
Soy milk is available, which no previous version of this page mentioned. Kneaders states “Nonfat milk and soy milk available upon request” on its espresso drinks. That is a genuinely useful option and it is worth asking for.
Diet Coke and Sprite cannot be confirmed as stocked. The beverages menu lists only “Soda: A variety of Coca-Cola products available in 20 oz. and 32 oz.” without naming individual flavours.
Tea has changed. The published beverages menu lists only “Iced Tea: Iced organic unsweetened tea”. The black, green and herbal hot teas this page recommended are not on the published menu. And note that the Chai Tea Latte is “served with whole milk”.
Three Current Items This Page Never Covered
Acai Berry Bowl — on the breakfast menu: “smooth, refreshing acai base … topped with sweet strawberries, bananas, raspberries, crunchy chia seeds, toasted coconut”. The granola and any honey content are undisclosed, so this is one to ask about rather than assume.
Frozen Apple Cider — on the smoothies and beverages menus. No ingredients published.
Soy milk on espresso drinks — as above.
Other Sections of the Menu
Soups
This page used to state flatly that “all the soups have milk”. That was never sourced, and it cannot be checked. Kneaders’ soups menu lists only serving formats — quart, soup bun, bowl with bread — and the contents rotate on a published soup schedule with no ingredient data attached.
So the honest position is unknown, not “definitely dairy”. Ask which soup is on that day and what is in it, including the stock.
Omelets, French Toast, Pancakes, Frappes and Pastries
Omelets are egg dishes by definition, and French toast is conventionally made with egg and milk — there is nothing here to point a vegan reader toward. For the frappes and the pastries, the honest answer is narrower: Kneaders publishes no ingredients for them and marks no item as vegan, and the Chai Tea Latte is the one drink the menu explicitly says is served with whole milk. Do not assume anything in the pastry case is safe, and do not assume it is not — ask, or read the guide in store.
What to Ask at Kneaders
Because the allergen guide could not be read from here, the useful version of this section is a list of questions rather than a list of dishes:
- Ask to see the Nutrition & Allergen Guide in store, or download it from kneaders.com/nutrition if you are in the US — it is dated October 2024 and it is the authoritative source.
- For any bread, ask specifically about milk, butter, egg wash and honey. Those are the four things a loaf description will not tell you.
- For the Classic Sandwich with Veggie Avocado, ask what is in the “Kneaders sauce”, and ask for it to be left off if the answer is unclear.
- For soup, ask what the stock is, not just whether there is cream in it.
- For coffee, ask for soy milk — Kneaders says it is available on request.
- Remember the brand’s own warning: this is a scratch bakery with flour dust in the air, and everything served may come into contact with allergens.
Other Restaurants With Vegan Dishes
Here’s a list of some other restaurants where vegan dishes are served:
- Plum Bistro in Seattle, WA.
- Plant Miami in Miami, FL.
- AVO in Nashville, TN.
- Au Lac in Los Angeles, CA.
- Elizabeth’s Gone Raw in Washington, DC.
- Bar Bombon in Philadelphia, PA.
- Bunna Cafe in New York, NY.
- Bistro Vonish in Austin, TX.
Wrapping Up
Kneaders is a scratch bakery with a genuinely appealing menu and a real allergen guide behind it — which makes it frustrating that the guide is geo-blocked and that nothing on the menu carries a vegan marking.
What we can say with confidence is what has changed. The bread is not “100% vegan”: the current lineup includes an asiago cheese loaf and a white chocolate loaf, and Honey Wheat was never defensible on a vegan list. Seven of the thirteen breads this page recommended no longer exist. So do the four oatmeals, the kids’ green salad, Petit Pain and the Sesame Ginger dressing. The Veggie Avocado sandwich is now a filling inside the Classic Sandwich, served with an undisclosed house sauce.
What remains is a short list of plausible items — the fresh fruit deli salad, the No Dairy Berry smoothie, black coffee or an Americano with soy milk, and several plain loaves — none of which this page can certify. That is a less satisfying article than the one it replaces. It is also a true one.
