Tetsuro Nishi, founder of Gub Gub’s, rubs the belly of one of the many strays he’s taken in.

The Vegans of Okinawa

Veganism gains ground on the island in Japan where Spam has reigned supreme since U.S. occupation

Metal trays clatter, breaking the Saturday afternoon lull. Inside a small concrete building in suburban Okinawa, two kittens snooze in a scratched-up armchair. Meows can be heard from the kitchen, where several cats are picked up and herded out in preparation for dinner. I’m at Gub Gub’s Vegan Kitchen — just don’t call it a restaurant, lest you provoke the owner.

“It’s a small gritty place that serves food, a canteen,” explains Tetsuro Nishi, flashing a smile that sends ripples across his tanned forehead, a bun of long, glossy hair nodding in agreement. Nishi has run Gub Gub’s on this subtropical Japanese island for the past four years. He favors grit over polish, intimacy over formality. That ethos pervades at Gub Gub’s, a place where “you don’t have to be dressed up, because you’ll be covered in cat hair anyway.”

Gub Gub, from “Doctor Dolittle’s Return”

Named for a talking pig from the menagerie in Dr. Dolittle’s book series, Gub Gub’s is located on a narrow sideroad in a residential neighborhood and housed in one of Okinawa’s typical typhoon-proof concrete…