We were recently in Salt Lake City for a wedding, and we were faced with having to find our own food. Both the caterer for the wedding and the rehearsal dinner couldn’t provide a gluten-free-friendly meal. I know, it’s annoying. I felt bad for me, but I felt worse for the bride – who felt terrible that she couldn’t provide us a safe meal. I wish that these places knew how hard it is to live like this – to attend events where in a foreign city where we don’t know what restaurant is safe. But at the same time, I’m glad they’re upfront about not being safe.

Now that I’m off my rant, let me tell you about some of the great places we found on FindMeGlutenFree.com (and other awesome gluten-free websites, Yelp reviews, etc.). First up is Eleanor’s Bake Shop.

Most (or all, I think they’re still determining that) of their family is Celiac, and the whole place is gluten-free (hooray!) and safe. However, it’s in the middle of an industrial part of town – about 20 minutes away from downtown Salt Lake City. Such a bummer that it’s not downtown with the rest of the great places in SLC and easily accessible.

Inside, the atmosphere isn’t like a restaurant, it’s pretty industrial looking. They have a lot of tables to fit a lunch crowd, and you walk up to a counter to order. I would have liked to stay and talk about their restaurant, but they seemed rushed and we had some place to go. I’m not sure if they’re always like that, but I’d love to know more of their backstory besides what’s online.

A picture of their sandwich and soup menu. Instead of bread, they have something unique – arepas – a corn masa tortilla-like thing. It’s interesting for sure.

Here’s an example menu:

Soup: Baked Potato

Pizza: Pepperoni

Muffin: Blueberry, Apple Streusel

Cake Pops:   Chocolate Pomegranate, cinnamon spice, choc. mint, rasp. cheesecake, Blueberry Cheesecake, Lemon, Chocolate Coconut, Double Chocolate

Cupcakes:  Hummingbird, Chocolate Mint, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Strawberry Banana

Cupcakes (Day Old): Cherry Lime, and Chocolate Almond

Cookies: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal PB, Oatmeal Raisin, Chocolate Crinkle, Ginger,Snickerdoodle

Sweet Rolls: Cinnamon Raisin, and Cinnamon

Fruit Pockets: Blueberry, Strawberry, and Cherry

Bread:  Sandwich and Honey Oat

Mini Loaves:  Cheesy Onion, Cran-Orange, Cinnamon

Unfortunately, when we were there at the end of the day on Friday, they were out of almost everything baked.

Here are the pictures of the arepas:

Non-GFBF got the beef brisket arepa. He liked it but he thought the arepa was a little interesting. He’d rather have the beef brisket on top of lettuce instead of having corn tortilla-esque breading.

I had the chicken salad arepa. I really liked it, but I agree that I’d rather have it over a bed of lettuce or spinach. My chicken salad was all over the place and dripping out of my arepa. LIke putting two fat tortillas together as a sandwich, things are bound to leak out. I’d much rather have it as a pita – so if they could do that, it would be better!

The baked potato soup is really good. I would be so afraid to see the caloric count on this one. It was super creamy and chock full of potatoes. It was really good but really dense. I would probably order another soup if I went again. But to have a baked potato soup without flour rules!

But the cake pops – oh let me tell you about the cake pops. We went pretty late in the day so they had a limited selection – but the cinnamon ones were to die for. The cake was so moist and the fondant-esque icing was so tasty. I ordered a handful, but if I could have frozen them I would have bought the whole damn store.

YUMMMMMMMY! Seriously, how do they make the cake pops so amazing? This cinnamon spice one was so great. These are way better than cupcakes. I mean, their cupcakes were awesome – and so were their muffins (I had some sort of apple streusel one), but so good. Soooooo good!

It’s only open Tuesday-Saturday. You can find them on Facebook here.

I thought the pricing was reasonable, but then again, if I’m getting a gluten-free only restaurant with amazing cake pops – I honestly don’t care.

You can find their bake shop on Find Me Gluten Free here.

For the lunch portion of the place, I’d give it a 3. I liked the filling of my sandwich, but wish the arepa held together better and would rather have a bread or bed of lettuce honestly. The soup was good, but wish they had other options. They were all out of bread when we were there at the end of the day – kind of a bummer.

[ratings wheat=”3″]

For the bakery section of the place, I give it a 4. The cake pops deserve a 5 though! Was pretty impressed with the cupcakes/muffins, but again, they had little to no variety at the end of the day, which was disappointing. I’ve had better cupcakes before, but for having a location in Utah for a gluten-free facility, it’s great.

[ratings wheat=”4″]

Tagged: Bakery, Dedicated Facility, gluten free, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City Gluten Free, SLC, SLC GF, SLC Gluten Free