A portrait photo of Sandra Carson standing inside WeVegan Cafe in South Tampa, Florida, on June 25, 2026. Positioned center frame in a medium shot, Carson smiles warmly at the camera with hands resting on hips, long dark curly hair, and wearing a black t-shirt featuring a colorful graphic that reads "ECUADOR." The cafe interior features dark dining tables on the left, a counter with high bar stools and potted green plants on the right, and bright artwork decorating white walls in the background.Sandra Cason inside WeVegan Cafe in Tampa, Florida on June 25, 2026. Credit: Ray Roa / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

WeVegan Eats owner Sandra Carson is proud to have celebrated the cafe’s fifth anniversary this summer. 

“I’m still here right now,” Carson told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “And I’m just continuing to keep my blinders on and keep going and keep pushing… making sure I’m providing something to our customers that I know that they want to have.”

To Carson, the cafe’s niche is maintaining affordable prices while replicating classic flavors in a wide variety of specialty baked goods and savory breakfast and lunch items.

At its cafe in South Tampa (South of Gandy, for the real ones), WeVegan Eats most popular items are the Big Mac crunchwrap, Tampa Cuban, banana nut bread and ube, chocolate chunk, and red velvet flavored specialty cookies. 

“As long as you come in and you want to enjoy a good cup of coffee, a good sandwich,  a good environment, a good conversation, this is your place. I’m not trying to change the world,” she said. 

According to Carson, a majority of WeVegan Eats’ clientele do not follow a plant-based lifestyle, an element that Carson says has made the cafe’s surrounding community more receptive to plant-based foods. And since she started selling plant-based cookies at markets five years ago, the cafe has only experienced growth. 

Part of the cafe’s traffic can be attributed to the matcha craze the food industry has seen in the past few years, which she thinks could also be an indicator that the pendulum is swinging back. 

“Matcha is one of our best sellers,” Carson said. “That’s definitely one of the trends, I think, recently that has really affected us in a good way.” 

For Carson, it’s important to emphasize that WeVegan Eats can make plant-based alternatives that taste identical to the real thing. 

“That’s our thing,” she said. “We’re not just making salads.”

This blog is part of a story highlighting three Tampa Bay vegan concepts staying alive in tricky times.

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This article appears in July 23 – 29, 2026.

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