I used to be a chef. It's really easy to level a bunch of value judgements at people on topics like this, but the truth is, food marketing is complicated, and
none of us is as rational about our choices as we might imagine.
Putting aside the appeal of the terms vegetarian and vegan, which is what most comments here seem to focus on, there are other factors. I reckon the most important one is in-groups and out-groups. As soon as you label something as being "for someone," it subtly implies that it not for someone else.
The small Boston-area fast casual chain Clover did a really good job of side-stepping that. Their menu was ovo-lacto vegetarian with lots of vegan options, but they simply didn't market themselves as such. In turn, they were generally seen as a restaurant for everybody that served plant-based foods rather than a restaurant for people who eat plant-based diets. There are things that kind of annoy me about Clover that I won't get into here, and I'm not a vegetarian, but I do really admire what they did there.
Putting aside the appeal of the terms vegetarian and vegan, which is what most comments here seem to focus on, there are other factors. I reckon the most important one is in-groups and out-groups. As soon as you label something as being "for someone," it subtly implies that it not for someone else.
The small Boston-area fast casual chain Clover did a really good job of side-stepping that. Their menu was ovo-lacto vegetarian with lots of vegan options, but they simply didn't market themselves as such. In turn, they were generally seen as a restaurant for everybody that served plant-based foods rather than a restaurant for people who eat plant-based diets. There are things that kind of annoy me about Clover that I won't get into here, and I'm not a vegetarian, but I do really admire what they did there.