The Celiac Handbook Website was created by Chris Armstrong in 2004 as a simple project to document restaurants in Los Angeles with gluten-free menu options. It started out as a simple list of around 15 restaurants and simple reviews. Before long 15 turned into 50, 50 turned into 100, and before long, people were sending in recommendations on a daily basis for both L.A. restaurants, but restaurants around the country and even around the world.
At first, the list was made up of restaurants that had gluten-free menus but soon expanded to restaurants that were simply considered celiac friendly. With over 10,000 submissions in the last few years, we’ve listed close to 3,000 on the original International Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide.
With this second generation of the Celiac Handbook Website, we are moving to a Google Maps based list, this will enable us to grow more organically and enable users to comment more easily on their experiences at any particular restaurant. It will enable celiacs to help celiacs to help find, share, and rate their experiences. We are also going to focus on restaurants that have either a dedicated gluten-free menu or a menu that clearly shows which menu items can be made gluten-free.
The new Google Maps list is far from complete and is a work in progress. There will be many obvious choices that should be on there that will take a little time to get back into place.
I’ve also added some great new sections to the Website which will make it far more of an information portal and really let you the reader explore and learn about celiac disease and the gluten-free diet from sources all over the Internet. There is a wealth of information available on the Internet and I’ve always prided myself on being able to spot the best of the best — it’s my goal to bring exactly that to you. Not only recommended businesses, but also current gluten-free events and an exciting new feature simply titled, Gluten-Free Blog Showcase. This will be where I showcase some of the great gluten-free bloggers who are truly shaping the celiac/gluten-free community.
Gluten-Free Picks
Think of Gluten-Free Picks as a popularity contest. Businesses can’t buy there way into it, it’s more about how many recommendations for businesses that I get. If a lot of people recommend a business to me, I will include them in this list.
Reviews
I am happy to try just about any gluten-free product and am honored when someone wants to send me something. Please note that acceptance of your product does not guarantee that I will write about it.
International Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide
As stated before the International Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide is a work in progress and is constantly evolving. Eventually, it will be an entirely user generated list that will make it far more flexible and capable of handling the sheer volume of requests that come in.
Events
If you have a celiac or gluten-free event that you would like listed, please feel free to send it to me. If possible, please send a photo at least 300 wide by 250px high to include with the post.
Gluten-Free Blog Showcase
In the past few months since I’ve been working on the new site, I’ve only included my personal favorites in the Gluten-Free Blog Showcase. All of these have been my main “Go To” blogs and continue to amaze me at their inventiveness, their dedication, and the great knowledge that they share with the world.
I will be adding new blogs here weekly (sometimes more, sometimes less) as I find them. It is not open to requests, it’s simply blogs that I find and like to share with my readers.
