If someone in your family eats vegan or gluten-free, you already know that choosing a restaurant isn’t really about the menu — it’s about trust. Research on food-allergy families shows most of them simply avoid eating out; the risk of a shrug from the kitchen isn’t worth it. But the flip side is just as true: when a family with dietary needs finds a restaurant that takes them seriously, they become the most loyal guests that restaurant will ever have. Here’s exactly how we handle vegan and gluten-free requests at Vito’s — including the honest part most restaurants skip.
New: a dedicated Vegan & Plant-Based menu
This is the part that changed. Vegan diners used to order here by subtraction — a pie with the cheese left off, pasta with marinara, a salad without the parmesan. That works, but nobody wants to build their dinner out of omissions. So we put a full Vegan & Plant-Based section on the menu, made with vegan cheese, vegan sausage and vegan chicken. Ten dishes, priced and cooked as dishes in their own right:
- Vegan Chicken Parmigiana — breaded vegan chicken, marinara & vegan cheese, with spaghetti marinara. $22.99
- Vegan Sausage & Peppers Pasta — vegan sausage, sautéed peppers & onions with penne in marinara. $22.99
- Vegan Eggplant Parmigiana — breaded eggplant, marinara & vegan cheese, with spaghetti marinara. $21.99
- Vegan Baked Ziti — ziti baked with marinara & vegan cheese. $19.99
- Vegan Penne & Broccoli — penne with broccoli, garlic & olive oil. $16.99
- Vegan Spaghetti Marinara — spaghetti tossed in our house marinara. $12.99
- Veggie Stromboli (Vegan) — mushrooms, onions, green peppers, black olives & vegan cheese. $13.99+
- Vegan Greek Salad ($7.99+), Vegan Garden Salad ($6.99+) and Vegan Caesar Salad ($5.99+) — with vegan dressings, no feta, no parmesan.
If you’ve been the person at the table eating a plain side salad while everyone else has dinner, that’s the problem this section exists to solve.
And on the gluten-free side
Italian cooking is friendlier to dietary needs than its reputation suggests, because so much of it starts from simple, whole ingredients. Beyond the vegan menu:
- A gluten-free 10″ pizza crust. Build it with the same fresh toppings as any pie, so the GF person at the table gets real pizza night, not a consolation salad.
- House sauces we can walk you through. Because our marinara, bolognese, alfredo and vodka sauces are made in our own kitchen, we know what’s in them — and we can tell you plainly. Marinara is the vegan-friendly workhorse; alfredo and vodka are cream-based; bolognese has meat. No guessing at a corporate ingredient sheet.
- Naturally lighter starters. Fresh salads and vegetable-forward antipasti give you safe, satisfying options beyond the main event.
Worth knowing: vegan and gluten-free are two different requests, and they don’t automatically overlap. Our vegan dishes are built on wheat pasta and wheat-based breading, so if you need both at once, say so when you order and we’ll tell you honestly which combinations we can do well and which we can’t.
The honest disclaimer — and why we lead with it
Now the part that matters more than the menu: our kitchen is not a dedicated allergen-free facility. We make traditional wheat dough fresh every morning — it’s the heart of what we do — which means flour is present in our kitchen, and we use shared prep space and ovens. The same is true of the vegan menu: those dishes are made without animal products, but they’re cooked in a kitchen that also handles cheese and meat. For most gluten-avoiding and plant-based diners, our GF crust and Vegan & Plant-Based section are exactly what they’re looking for. For someone with celiac disease or a severe allergy — or for someone who avoids animal products for reasons where trace contact matters — that’s a real consideration, and you deserve to know it before you order, not after.
Why say this so plainly? Because a restaurant that promises “100% safe” from a shared kitchen is telling you what you want to hear. We’d rather tell you the truth and then earn your trust with how carefully we handle your order. If you’re not happy, we’re not happy — and that starts with being straight with you.
How to order safely at Vito’s (or anywhere)
A few habits make dietary dining dramatically safer, at our tables and everyone else’s:
- Tell the team, every time. Don’t just order the GF crust quietly — say it’s for an allergy or celiac. That one sentence changes how your food is handled. It flags the order in our kitchen.
- Ask questions, even “annoying” ones. What’s in the vodka sauce? Is the crust prepped separately? A kitchen that takes you seriously answers without sighing. That’s the test — we’d rather slow down and get it right than rush and get it wrong.
- Call ahead for the tricky cases. For a severe allergy or a first visit, five minutes on the phone at (770) 475-0369 before you come in beats a rushed conversation at the counter on a busy Friday.
- Keep it simpler when the stakes are higher. Fewer components means fewer things to verify. A GF pie with a couple of toppings is easier to control than a five-ingredient special.
Going deeper on the gluten side? We wrote a full guide to gluten-free pizza in Alpharetta — crust details, cross-contact questions, and how to order a GF pie that’s actually enjoyable.
One family table, no one left out
Here’s the real reason this matters to us: we’re a family restaurant, and dietary needs are family needs. The whole point of our table is that the kid gets a hand-tossed slice, one parent gets fresh pasta, and the gluten-free or plant-based person gets a real meal too — not a side salad and patience. Guests tell us in reviews that they’re treated like part of the family, and that’s precisely the standard we hold ourselves to on dietary requests: part of the family means we feed you carefully, honestly, and well.
So look over the menu, note what your table needs, and come see how it’s handled — reserve a table or call (770) 475-0369 and tell us what you’re working with. We’ll walk you through it, and we’ll get it right.