Hail Snail: vegan cinnamon rolls on Interstate

Out at 6550 North Interstate, Hail Snail sells the cinnamon roll under a new name, the snail, and it's well worth pulling over for. It's a vegan, queer, family-owned cinnamon-roll shop, every snail is fully vegan and naturally colored, and the one people know best is majesty, topped with periwinkle royal icing. The homepage lists handcrafted cinnamon rolls, vegan, gluten-free and soy-free options, and fair trade chocolate and coffee, and since all the ingredients are 100% vegan, you don't have to ask.

If it's your first visit, start with majesty, a cinna-snail under naturally colored periwinkle royal icing, and they'll add extra butter if you want it. The rest of the predestined board is fun to read. Ogopogo has sprinkles, mini popcorn, whipped cream and lemon blueberry icing, Lunch box has Lay's, peanut butter and strawberry sauce, and Bee has pecans, maple cream, toasted coconut and crushed Newmans. Macrocosm is brownie, caramel, gummy worms and chocolate sauce, Planetarium is strawberry sauce, black-and-white sesame and freeze-dried apples, Explorer is the s'mores one with chocolate sauce, graham crackers, mini marshmallows and mini chips, and Quake is banana, pistachios, carrot bacon and chips. You can also skip the named set and build your own snail (regular, gluten-free or minis) from more than 25 toppings.

People get the gluten-free part wrong, so here's how it actually works. The shop has gluten-free snails, and it marks a few toppings as not gluten-free, which are pretzels, graham crackers, crushed Newmans and brownie. That's a good range of gluten-free options in a shop that isn't a certified gluten-free facility, and when its own faq asks whether it's certified, the page doesn't answer.

The hours match everywhere they're printed (the homepage, the contact block, the full menu and the faq header), Thursday through Saturday 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Monday through Wednesday aren't listed as open. A snail flight is 15 mini snails and four toppings. Catering needs about a week's notice, and the shop says delivery is free within Portland. The catering blurb mentions birthdays, weddings and being the most popular person at work, and what it means is snails for those occasions, since there's no wedding-cake program.

It's hard to find a vegan cinnamon-roll shop that will also make you a gluten-free snail, and periwinkle icing on the regular menu is a sweet bonus. Get majesty, and get a flight if you brought friends. If you need gluten-free, order the gluten-free snail and skip the marked toppings, and keep in mind that the shop has never said it's certified.

The essentials are on the Hail Snail page.