Listing guidelines

A listing on hauptstadt.net is free and open to everyone who cooks, bakes or sells vegan in Berlin and the immediate surrounding area, or who works on behalf of animals. You maintain your details yourself; our editorial team checks and approves them. These guidelines set out what we accept, what belongs in a listing and what leads to rejection.

Details

1. What we accept

hauptstadt.net is a directory of vegan places in Berlin and the immediate surrounding area. We accept anything that meets one of these two conditions:

• Fully vegan – no animal products anywhere in the offering. This is the standard case for fully vegan restaurants, cafés, bakeries, ice-cream parlours, shops, online shops with a physical store, hairdressers, shoe and fashion shops, cosmetics and crafts.
• Clearly labelled vegan selection – the business is mixed, but the vegan dishes or products are identifiable as vegan on the menu, on the shelf or in the range. “I’m sure we can make you something” isn’t enough: anyone who wants to eat or shop vegan with you must be able to tell without having to ask.

In addition, we list animal-welfare and animal-rights organisations, associations, initiatives, sanctuaries and groups that are active in Berlin or the surrounding area – even without a shop address, in which case with a means of contact and the area in which they operate.

2. Berlin and the immediate surrounding area

The directory covers Berlin and the directly adjoining parts of Brandenburg – that is, the places you can reach by bike, S-Bahn or regional train in a reasonable time: Potsdam, Bernau, Oranienburg, Königs Wusterhausen, Erkner, Falkensee, Strausberg and the municipalities in between. We don’t accept anything further afield, however wonderful it may be – otherwise a city directory turns into an unwieldy list covering the whole of Germany.

If you have several locations, please create one listing per location. We don’t accept pure online shops without a physical location in Berlin or the surrounding area.

3. What we don’t accept

• businesses with no identifiable vegan offering,
• mixed businesses where the vegan selection is labelled neither on the menu nor in the range,
• purely promotional listings with no concrete offering on site,
• listings with discriminatory, degrading or violence-glorifying content or political advertising,
• duplicate or multiple listings for the same location,
• offerings that make promises of cures or unsubstantiated health claims,
• listings that infringe third-party rights – for example texts or photos used without permission.

4. Everything in a listing must be true

A directory is only worth as much as the information in it. So the following applies without exception:

• No false information. Address, opening hours, contact details and the classification as “fully vegan” or “with vegan selection” must be truthful.
• No fake reviews. Reviews written by you, by your staff or by friends, and reviews that have been paid for, will be removed – and, if in doubt, the entire listing with them.
• No paid recommendations. On hauptstadt.net you can’t buy a better position, a highlighted spot or the goodwill of the editorial team.
• No advertising copy in the description field. Describe in your own words what you offer, who it’s for and what makes you special – without “the best”, “unique”, “unbeatable” and without strings of exclamation marks. 400 to 1,200 characters is a good range.
• No copied text from other websites, portals or brochures. Copyright applies to menu prose too.

5. What belongs in a good listing

Required details: name, address with district or town, category, a short description and at least one means of contact (phone, e-mail or website).

Strongly recommended, because these are what people search for most often:

• fully vegan or vegan selection – the single most important detail,
• opening hours and closing days,
• cuisine or range – for example Levantine, Vietnamese, Italian, baked goods, ice cream, health foods, cosmetics, fashion,
• gluten-free and soya-free options, if available,
• accessibility – step-free access, accessible toilet,
• dog-friendly, outdoor seating, delivery, collection, your own cups and containers welcome,
• website and social-media profile, so people can find the current menu.

Images: Only upload your own images or images you hold the usage rights for. No photos of guests without their consent, no images taken from other websites, no stock photos showing something you don’t actually offer. Please add a short alternative text to every image – people who use a screen reader depend on it.

6. You maintain your listing yourself

1. Request access. Write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your name, address and contact person. You’ll receive a user account for the directory.
2. Create or claim a listing. Is your business already in the directory, for example from a public source? Then you can claim it and keep it up to date yourself from then on.
3. Editorial approval. Every new listing and every change goes through our editorial team. We check whether the category fits, the description is factual and the vegan offering is identifiable – usually within a few working days.
4. Queries. If something is missing, we’ll get in touch. Until then, the listing remains unpublished.
5. Approval. After that, your listing is publicly visible, appears in the proximity search and can be found via search engines.
6. Keep it up to date. If your opening hours, address, menu or range change, please update them straight away. If you close or move, let us know so that nobody ends up standing in front of a locked door.

7. Free, but not an award

Listings and event announcements are and will remain free of charge. There are no paid placements and no ordering by payment; results are sorted by objective criteria such as distance, category and how recently they were updated.

A listing is neither a recommendation nor a seal of quality. We check whether the details are plausible and the guidelines are followed – we don’t rate the food, the service or the prices. There is no entitlement to publication.

8. What leads to rejection or removal

• false information about the address, opening hours, range or vegan offering,
• no longer any vegan offering, or a vegan selection that doesn’t actually exist,
• fake reviews and attempts to buy or extort reviews,
• spam – advertising copy, link dumping, duplicate listings, category stuffing,
• discrimination of any kind, hate speech or incitement to violence in the listing or in images,
• rights infringements in texts and images,
• persistently unreachable contact details despite our enquiries.

In minor cases we’ll ask first. In clear-cut cases – invented reviews, a fake vegan offering – we take the listing offline without warning.

9. Legal matters and data protection

• You confirm that you are entitled to publish the data you enter and that you are not infringing any third-party rights.
• You grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual right to display your content on the portal – including in abridged form, for example in lists, on the map and in search results.
• You remain responsible for the content of your listing.
• How we process your data is set out in the privacy policy.

What to do

1. Check the directory first. Search under Places for your name and address so that no duplicate listing is created.
2. Gather your details. Name, address with district or town, phone, e-mail, website, description, category, fully vegan or vegan selection, opening hours, accessibility, one to three of your own images with alternative text.
3. Request access. A short e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is all it takes.
4. Create the listing and assign it to exactly one suitable category.
5. Wait for approval and answer any queries from the editorial team.
6. Keep the listing up to date – especially opening hours and menu.
7. Add your events – tastings, action days, regulars’ meet-ups, information evenings.

Where to get help

• Editorial team: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. – for questions about your listing, category, approval or removal.
• See examples: The published listings under Places show what a good listing looks like.
• Events: What’s on right now is under Events.
• Something wrong? Guests are welcome to report incorrect or outdated listings too – via the contact form.