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We ship batches of our Crispy Cutlets and Nuggets nationwide. Get our scratch-made, hand-battered seitan in the Original or Spicy recipe. Visit the Seitan Shop to browse our offerings and to place your order.

Flat-rate shipping is available to anywhere in the 48 contiguous states, and local customers in NW Arkansas always get free delivery.

In the Before Times, we also served devilicious, scratch-made signature sauces. And we're working wicked hard to bring those back to the devildom. Stay tuned!

Our southern-fried seitan is the best! Keep your items frozen until ready to reheat and stuff yer face. We recommend using an oven (conventional, convection, and air fryer cook times are listed below) for peak crispiness and primo sizzle action.

For details and cook times, refer to the label on your seitan package, or visit our Reheating Instructions page.

Bartleby's slings southern-fried, wickedly good seitan. All our food is vegan (100% plant-based) and is free of most major allergens: dairy, eggs, fish, shellfish, soy, tree nuts, and peanuts. It is kosher-friendly, and can be enjoyed by vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores alike. We make all our seitan and all our sauces completely from scratch. Our cutlets and nuggets are battered by hand. We’re committed to serving incredible, hellishly good fast food.

Bartleby's was born in Boston, MA where we operated a big, blue and orange food truck and also offered pick-up and catering from our commissary. We moved to NW Arkansas in early 2020, launched nationwide shipping of our seitan, and are working on re-expanding our offerings and getting our truck back into the streets of Fayetteville (and beyond!).

Visit Our Mission page for more information about our goals and guiding principles.

The name Bartleby is pulled from a short story by Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.” You might also recognize the name as a character from the cult-classic film Dogma. We think “Bartleby” is unique and fun to say. The representation of our Bartleby as a little devil is a play on words, and a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of how many people mispronounce “seitan” as “Satan.”

Bartleby is bit rebellious, a bit mischievous, and wickedly clever. He doesn’t have any bad intentions, but is itching to rock the boat. If we’re going to serve vegan fast food, we have to shake things up a bit! ​Bartleby's spirit is inspired by the rambunctious son of one of Stephanie’s friends. He’s smart, curious, and ready to push boundaries. He was just a toddler when we launched our food truck, but it was already clear that he’s going to do big things―just what we hope for Bartleby.

Seitan is wheat flour with all its starch granules washed away, leaving only the strands of pure gluten (wheat protein).

Seitan has a satisfying juicy, chewy texture. It is versatile, and can be baked, steamed, fried, roasted, braised, stewed, etc. It can be cooked to a dense, tough consistency, or to a lighter, spongy consistency. There are endless possibilities! Bartleby’s has tested dozens upon dozens of different cooking methods to find the version that pairs best with the fried crispiness of our sandwiches and nuggets.

Nope, not "fake meat." It's real food. Seitan has been consumed around the globe for nearly 1,500 years. It has long been a popular part of Buddhist vegetarian cuisines in China, Japan, and Vietnam [1]. ​In the west, the popularity of seitan as a protein alternative began to grow in the mid-20th century, during the rise of vegetarianism. It is now a prominent player in many plant-based diets, and available to consumers in most supermarkets, health food stores, specialty markets, and cooperatives.

When on the road, Bartleby’s Seitan Stand is a cash-free food truck. Operating cash-free is a safer option for our team, and not having a cash box or a safe on the truck means more room for people and food. It helps us place orders more quickly, which means we can feed you faster.

We accept all major credit credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover), debit cards, and Apple Pay. If cash is a must for you, we will accept it, but we aren’t able to make change, so please make sure you have small bills and coins on hand.

We sure do: Bart's Bucks! These are digital gifts and available in denominations of $10, $25, $50 and $100. Bart's Bucks can be applied to any food and/or merchandise purchase made through our online Shop.

No additional processing or delivery fees. Bart's Bucks expire five years after the date of purchase.

Seitan is made from Vital Wheat Gluten (VWG), which is low in fat, low in carbohydrates, and high in protein. It contains no sugar, no saturated fats, and no cholesterol. VWG contains significant amounts of iron, calcium, and potassium, plus several B vitamins [2]. It also contains more than the RDA of eight of the nine essential amino acids, which are the basic building blocks for our organs and tissues [3]. The only amino acid that presents in a lower amount is lysine, which is easily found in other foods (like the tomatoes on our sandwiches and in our salads). ​After breading and frying, one of our seitan cutlets has an estimated 10g of fat, 31g of carbohydrates, and 17g of protein [4].

If you have celiac disease or an intolerance to gluten, then yes. Gluten (wheat) is included as one of the eight major allergens; if you have a gluten/wheat allergy, you should avoid it. For the rest of us? Gluten is awesome. It’s delicious, and has many excellent nutritional properties (see above). Of the three most popular protein alternatives, seitan has the highest protein levels per serving: about four times as much as tempeh, and a whopping nine times as much as tofu [5].

Scientists have studied the impact of our collective diets and food systems for decades, and shown that the consumption of fewer animal products yields fewer negative effects to our environment. Plant-based foods emit fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during their production as compared to animal-based foods [6]. Analyses show that when compared to beef, seitan has dramatically lower impacts on the environment, particularly in regards to land use [7]. Shifting toward a plant-based diet is “an efficient strategy for countering biodiversity loss and climate change” [8]. And here at Bartleby’s, we believe that shift is tasty, too.

Owner and Founder, Stephanie, has lived a plant-based existence since 2014, when she became a vegetarian. She became vegan two years later. A native of Florida, she saw firsthand the destruction of our ocean’s coral reefs as a result of massive over-fishing. That exposure helped her understand the importance and fragility of our ecosystem. Stephanie has held various roles in food service and retail, her prior role as Manager of the VO2 Cafe in Cambridge, MA where she worked for three years. After many restless nights dreaming about her own food truck business, and ways to bring delicious, affordable vegan fare to the city, Stephanie took the plunge. In early 2018, she bought a truck, tested dozen of recipes, built a team, and sent Bartleby's into the streets.

In early 2020, Stephanie shipped the truck and herself to NW Arkansas to establish a devilish stronghold in the south. The COVID-19 Pandemic put a hold on some of the relocation efforts, but nationwide shipping of seitan products is live! Stephanie and team are working to re-expand Bartleby's offerings, bring the food truck back to the streets, and re-launch the catering and Seitan School programs.

Hell, no! We’re not holier than thou. We love to indulge. We love fried food. Comfort food. Junk food, even. We love over-eating, having cake for breakfast, eating the whole bag of chips—and not just on #WickedWednesday when Bartleby asks. We want to make it easy for you to get some delicious, convenient food that doesn’t harm any living being in the course of its production. Historically, people didn’t have many choices, we ate what was available. Today, we have better tools to make food in a better way. It’s better for you, better for the animals, and better for the planet.