Southland Savvy
For Julie Scianna, necessity was not only the mother of invention it was the only way she could find to eat out.
Scianna (pictured with chef Andrew Hebda), of Frankfort, suffers from celiac disease, which prevents her from digesting gluten, and gluten is found in anything made from wheat, barley and rye. It also is used as a stabilizing agent in otherwise gluten-free products such as ice cream and ketchup.
Scianna says she learned she had the disease four years ago after being misdiagnosed as having among other things irritable bowel syndrome and ovarian cancer.
“One in 100 people have celiac disease,” she says. “Most people diagnose themselves because doctors don’t know that much about the disease. It’s estimated that 97 percent of the people with celiac disease don’t even know they have it.”
Gluten also damages the lining of the small intestine, which makes celiac patients more susceptible to ulcers and cancers later in life.
“But the silver lining,” says Scianna. “Is that celiac disease is easily controlled through a gluten-free diet.”
Unfortunately, few restaurants offer gluten-free choices. Scianna has changed that by opening the OMG It’s Gluten Free Café at 19810 S. Harlem Ave. in Frankfort.
“I didn’t have anywhere to go out to eat,” says Scianna, who started cooking gluten-free meals at her home three years. That soon expanded into a food fest with eight friends who would cook and share gluten-free meals.
That’s where OMG Café comes in. Scianna started the eatery to give people like her a place to go.
“Our goal is to produce good, delicious food. We just take the wheat out.”
OMG Café opened March 20 and business has been brisk. Scianna attributes the early success to her chef Andrew Hebda. She also says she’s expanding the menu next week.
“We are going to start offering four or five dairy-free items next week because of requests,” she says.
“We also started Tasty Tuesdays this week. Every Tuesday, we’ll feature a special dish. We also are going to start serving sandwiches served on our gluten-free bread that is baked here daily.”
Scianna says she and partner Eileen Greenawalt eventually want to get into distribution and shipping of their foods.
“If we do that, we’ll have to expand our kitchen,” she says. “But I’ll always keep the café because of the smiles on the kids faces when they come in and see they can eat cookies or pizza.”
OMG Café is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and closed on Sunday.
For more information, call 708-469-4900 or visit http://omgitsglutenfree.com/ OMG It’s Gluten Free also has a fan page on Facebook.
