Problems at allegedly gluten free restaurants are almost invariably caused by cross-contamination. Here are some strategies that may improve you chances for having a great experience.

♦ Do lots of homework before visiting the restaurant but don’t reveal your knowledge to the restaurant staff. Ask lots of questions, and be prepared to walk out of the restaurant if you do not get appropriate answers.

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According to Consumer Reports, four out of the ten best chain restaurants in America post gluten free menus on their websites. We can dine safely at Biaggi’s Ristorante Italiano, Bravo Cucina Italiana, First Watch, and Fatz Eatz and Drinks. Our power page “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” provides more information about these establishments and their gluten free menus. You may also want to look at the website for the Black Angus Steakhouse. The restaurant does have a gluten free menu, but it did post a full copy of the Consumer Reports findings

In another survey — this one limited to restaurants that provide gluten free menus — top honors went to Legal Seafoods, PF Chang’s China Bistro, Bonefish Grill, Pizza Fusion, and Carrabba’s Italian Grill. To find out more about these restaurants, use the link in the last paragraph.

Our gluten free power page “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” now lists 50 or more restaurant chains whose websites promise that people who live gluten free can safely in their restaurants. These promises are particularly significant because restaurant chains are generally huge corporations with hundreds of lawyers tasked with making sure that individual restaurants don’t make promises they can’t keep. If a restaurant chain’s websites says that gluten free options are available, they probably are.

This does not mean that we should blindly trust everything we read on a website. I wish it was that simple. But it is generally true that the first step in deciding to visit a hopefully-gluten-free restaurant is to study that restaurants website. The link in the first paragraph gives you the opportunity to do that.

Realizing that you may need this power page many times in your gluten free life, I have placed the same link in the sidebar of this and every page.

Reading the disclaimers on most restaurant websites is a key step in visiting a restaurant with the hope of finding a gluten free meal. There are rules for what to look for — it boils down to a personal decision — but I will give you a few examples and my reaction to them.

Exhibit #1 would be funny if it wasn’t so common. I’m writing in a coffee shop right now and the cardboard cup in front of me is clearly labeled “This cup may contain hot liquid”. Exactly what am I supposed to do about that? I’ll probably take a sip and hope that it is still OK. There is probably an attorney somewhere who believes that this warning will change my behavior and/or change my behavior if I spill coffee in my lap.

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Domino’s Pizza is now marketing a gluten free pizza crust but does not consider any of their pizzas to be acceptable for people with celiac disease or severe gluten intolerance. What are they trying to do? As one visitor commented after the original announcement: “Why would they make [the crust] gluten free and then contaminate it?” There is only one possible answer Domino believes that they have a product that so superior that people will pay $3 extra to purchase it even though — unlike many of us — there is no medical reason for them to do so.

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Today, our power page “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” became even more useful today when I added links to several more pages. I’m promising links to all the restaurants by the end of April and (by the end of May)  a state-by-state breakdown that will enable you to find a ‘safe’ meal almost anywhere in the country.

For the time being, the “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” power page is at least functional — it was totally-useless a week ago. Please keep up the search for ‘safe’ restaurants and let me know if you find information that should be published on this site. My e-mail address is gfceliac@gmail.com.

We recently asked America’s gluten free community to determine our favorite restaurant chains. I have decided not report the exact results simply because there is enough data to support a conclusion. The survey listed 65 restaurant chains and 35 people responded to the survey. As I should have expected, nationwide chains like The Outback Steakhouse got more votes (negative and positive) than chains that are only active in two or three states. What else should I have expected?

The only important information coming is that we are very pleased with our gluten free restaurants. There were only a handful of critical ratings.

Hopefully, I have learned from my errors in conducting this survey, and I will be conducting more surveys. Celiacs need to know what other celiacs are thinking and feeling.

How can we trust the internet to steer us to restaurants which can  serve the needs of persons who live gluten free? I need to make a personal decision about this and I must also decide which (if any) to recommend on this website.

As you have probably figured out, everything you read on the internet is not gospel truth. Anyone can say anything they want to say on the internet. The costs are insignificant — you don’t have to satisfy an editor and you don’t even have to convince yourself that anyone would pay a nickel to read what you wrote. Obviously, I think the internet is a wonderful tool, but final decisions are always up to the individual. That’s why I link people to websites rather than passing my judgments off as facts.

All that being said, here are three of the factors that lead a check-out a restaurant and to suggest that you do the same:

Certification.The Gluten Intolerance Group  monitors restaurants  and certifies those  that they consider worthy of our patronage. There are also sites like “The Gluten Free Registry” which lists restaurants that consider themselves to be gluten-friendly but does not do any direct monitoring. “The Gluten Free Restaurant Guide” lists possibilities but relies primarily on phone contacts with restaurant managers. Use the widget in the right sidebar to learn more about this useful guide.

Reputation / Size. I am inclined to believe the the gluten free claims made by nationwide restaurant chains. These are huge corporations with hundreds of lawyers making sure that individual restaurants don’t make promises they can’t keep. Links to these restaurant chains may be found on my power-page “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals“. I’m especially impressed by restaurant groups like ‘The Outback Steakhouse’, ‘PF Chang’s', and Chili’s which have a great reputation with the America’s gluten free community and are unlikely to do anything to jeopardize it.

Gluten Free Menu. I trust a restaurant that publishes its gluten free menu on-line. This enables me to plan my gluten free meal ahead of time. I may need to make some substitutions and I would like to think about that ahead of time. It also tells me that the gluten free options are not an ‘afterthought’ at this restaurant.

This article describes the “good news”, the information I hope to see when I look at a site describing a restaurant. There is, of course, another side to the coin.  I will publish the second part of this article next Sunday, April 15. Click here to check it out!

Six restaurant chains have been added to our “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” power page. It now features 72 groups of restaurants that cater to America’s gluten free community and announce that fact on their websites.

These restaurant groups are vitally important to people who live gluten free.

• They are operated by large corporations with robust legal departments tasked with making sure that no individual restaurant will offer gluten free food unless it is willing and able to follow through.
• The restaurant chains include specific directions for reaching each of their individual restaurants.
• Since all restaurants in a particular chain are rather similar, they give the traveler a sense of familiarity which we all crave occasionally.
• Generally, they are lower in price than independently operated restaurants.

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All Subway restaurants in Oregon will offer gluten free sandwiches. They will also testing their gluten free offerings in Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. I’m thrilled — especially since I live in Oregon — to pass on this information to you.

I am concerned because the Subway website does not mention this fact. I got this information from a website that republished an article from an Oregon newspaper. I got the information from a reliable website and the source they were quoting is one of the most respected newspapers in the Northwest. The information is certainly reliable. My question is this — why would Subway go to all the effort to recruit customers from the gluten free community and then not bother to mention that fact on their site??????

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These Denver restaurants post gluten free menus on their websites. Give them a try, enjoy your meal, and support America’s gluten free community by sharing your thoughts with us by adding a comment to this article:

730 SOUTH BAR AND GRILL posts gluten free menus for brunch, lunch, and dinner.

ABRUSCI’S posts both a gluten free dinner menu and a gluten free take out menu.

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This is the third and final step in choosing a gluten free restaurant. Note that this post is titled “VISIT the restaurant”. There is still a very real possibility that you will choose to dine elsewhere. In the words of celiac-maven Jax Peters Lowell, “there are worse things in this world than being called ‘fussy’.

You may wish to read or re-read the first two parts of this article. Your first step was to explore your options. The second step was to study the websites of restaurants that looked promising. The final step is to actually visit the restaurant you have chosen. Keep these thoughts in mind during your visit:

♦ Be prepared to leave if necessary. Don’t go with a large group Don’t go with anyone who would be upset by your decision to leave. The decision to leave is hard enough under the best of circumstances.

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At least three steps are involved in choosing a gluten free restaurant:

• Part 1 … Explore your options (we deal with that today, January 18)
• Part 2 … Study the restaurant’s website (Friday, January 20)
• Part 3… Check out the restaurants personally (Saturday, January 21)

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Today I added new material to our “Gluten Free Pizza Restaurants” power page. We now list nine national pizzeria chains plus at least 55 individually owned restaurants in at least 24 states. Eventually, we will enable everyone in the nation to enjoy a gluten free pizza in a ‘safe restaurant’.

When I was writing this article, my mind wandered back to 2007 when I wrote an article stating that my dream that gluten free pizza would be readily available. A short time before that, I reported to you that it was impossible to find a gluten free pizza in Portland, Oregon. I couldn’t find that article. I assume that I deleted it in a moment of despair. Life is getting easier for the people who live gluten free!

If I was a restaurant manager, I would refuse to make a legally-binding written-commitment that it was absolutely impossible to contract salmonella poison in my establishment. Mistakes happen. My goal is to convince my customers by what they see, smell, and taste that my restaurant is a safe place.
The same is true in the gluten free community. Mistakes happen. A restaurant that serves absolutely no wheat-based food might be the exception — but even that is not an absolute guarantee that cross-contamination has not and never will occur.

We need to do a lot of “reading between the lines”. A warning about cross-contamination at least indicates that the restaurant management is aware of the potential problem. On the other hand, a statement about a ‘gluten free pizza crust’ suggests to me that the personnel of this restaurant might not realize that it takes more than an appropriate pizza crust to keep us safe.

Words like this are a problem for me as I protect my own gluten free diet. It is also an issue for me as a writer.

I deal with the professional problem by linking you to the actual website so that so you can make your own decision. Personally, I tend to be very ‘charitable’ when I am reading a website and rather ‘critical’ when I am ordering an actually ordering a meal. I rely on what I ‘sense’ while I am in the restaurant and what my food server says and does.

When I am thinking about this whole problem, I am reminded that Starbuck’s seems to feel obligated to give me a printed reminder on every coffee cup that I am drinking a hot beverage.

Our “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” power page now lists 60 restaurant chains that have committed — in writing on their website — to serve America’s gluten free community. Yesterday I finished the task of proofreading that list and making sure that you will be able to access to information about the restaurants’ locations and their gluten free options.

The fact that a restaurant chain has made a public written commitment to celiac-friendly service is not a promise, of course, but it is a good indication that these places are “worth trying”.

The next step in this project is to make a state-by-state listing indicating which restaurant chains serve which states. That will be a great asset for travelers.

I have just added seven more restaurant chains to our “Gluten Free Restaurant Meals” power page. Fifty one restaurant groups are now listed. I would guess that we now have access to at least 5oo individual restaurants. Restaurant chains have legal departments who are tasked with making sure that member restaurants do not make promises they can’t keep. These restaurant websites have made a commitment to provide ‘safe’ service.

I enjoyed a gluten free sandwich at Subway, which is currently testing products in northern Oregon. The bun was excellent and held together well, especially considering the fact that it was stuffed full of meat and vegetables. My only criticism is that the bun was in the shape of a hamburger roll rather than the submarine rolls that we are used to.

Cross-contamination was not an obvious problem. My server washed her hands before beginning and wore fresh gloves. The bun was individually sealed. My server placed the roll on a napkin in such a way that precluded crumbs falling into the meat area. (I hope that everyone is equally conscientious about how they place any of the rolls.) My sandwich was grilled on top the same napkin so there was no contact with other products.

I also devoured a fudge brownie from French Meadows Bakery. I bought one for pure enjoyment (I’ve already reviewed it.)

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Reminder: Our July survey is designed to tell us more about how people shopping for gluten free bead deal with the clues they find on food packages. Please click here if you haven’t had the chance to share your thoughts.

I’ve recently added new restaurants to my power page “Gluten Free Pizza Restaurants” and checked every item on the page to insure that the links were still working. Gl inuten free restaurant pizza is tasting better each day and becoming more readily available. I remember reporting that it was impossible to obtain a gluten free pizza in any restaurant in Portland, Oregon. I couldn’t find that article — I assume that I deleted it in disgust at some point. Anyway, things have gotten much better.

One major concern I have is that some sites use the term “gluten free pizza crust“. We know, of course, that a pizza is not gluten free simply because it has a gluten free crust. I am a bit concerned about any restaurant that does not understand the difference and assure its patrons that the pizzas are have been prepared in a ‘safe’ environment and that all toppings are celiac-friendly.