Purple Cafe & Wine Bar

This wine-themed restaurant in downtown Seattle shows vegetarians that they're valued drinkers.

Do not pass “Go”—head immediately to Purple Cafe & Wine Bar when your day is done. Purple’s high ceilings and airy atmosphere are head clearing, and the bustle of the youngish crowd will re-energize you. Wine lovers should order vino, as that’s the highlight here (the two-story wine tower will clue you into that fact). With a handful of meat-free pizza, pasta, sandwich, and salad options, Purple also pleases vegetarians, or at least it satisfied this one. I sampled a veggie sandwich ($10) and a mushroom pizza ($10) during a brief postwork, pretheater window. The sizeable sandwich was packed with healthful stuff including sprouts, cucumber, tomato, havarti cheese, lots of avocado, and a hummuslike spread. The pizza was decent; its mushrooms were rubbery, but that didn’t stop us from polishing off the whole thing. Sadly, we didn’t have time to linger over cheese tastes ($3 each), which can be paired with three-ounce wine pours ($5 each), but the selection looked well balanced. This is the third Purple outpost (the others are in Woodinville and Kirkland)—a Monopoly in the making, perhaps? MOLLY LORI