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What started out as a family-owned Italianres-taurant has evolved into a gluten-free food haven. Vallario,who isalso the chef, says his restaurant of- fers the largestgluten-freeselection in the world. At Grandma’s Grotto, those onrestricteddiets or Celiac patients can indulge in deep-frieddelicacies,pastas, breads and sweets — items that are usually offlimits. Thosewith Celiac disease, a digestive disorder that candevelop at anypoint in life, react negatively to gluten, a proteinthat is foundin foods contain- ing wheat, barley or rye, accordingto theNational Center for Biotechnology Information. The diseasecannot becured but can be managed with dietary restrictions, whichusuallyrequire the patient to cut out such items as bread, pastaandcookies. “One customer came in who was a friend of the familyandshe happened to be gluten free, and she brought her own bag ofpastaand asked if we did anything gluten free,” Vallarioexplained. “Wedidn’t know anything about that, so we did moreresearch.Then more [gluten-free] customers came in and we took someonlineclasses on food safety.” And the rest is history. Today,Grandma’sGrotto is Gluten-free Resource Education and AwarenessTraining(GREAT) certified and has a complete gluten-free menufeaturing 78items from appetizers to desserts. Vallario also makesa widevariety of gluten-free bakery items, including biscotti,cannolis,cookies and cakes, and regularly comes up with newgluten-freerecipes. “People come from pretty far for the cakes andstuff,”Vallario said. “People will come in and spend $300 oncookies andstuff just to stock up.” Vallario follows his GREATtraining andtakes every precaution to ensure his kitchen is safeand toseparate standard items and gluten-free items. He has alsocreatedhis own gluten-free flour mix that is used in all recipes.The mostpopular items on the menu are chicken fingers and frenchfries, hesaid, because not many places have deep fryers that aregluten-freecertified. “In the kitchen we use all one flour, so thewholekitchen is gluten free,” Vallario said. “In a separate area wedobreads for the hoagies, and the pastas are in two differentboilingwaters all the time. We have separate deep fryers so there’snocross contaminat-ing and we use gluten-free flour as the flour for the regularpizzaso nothing gets mixed up.” Vallario caters to his loyalcustomersin every way possible by offering take out and making hisgluten-free products available at the restaurant and online. Whenpeoplestarted asking if he offered his gluten- free menu itemsfrozen, hemade it happen. At the restaurant you can purchase frozenpizzas,entrees, waffles and cakes along with pastas, bread and cakemix,and desserts. He also ships his famous cannolis toseveralrestaurants in New Jersey and New York. “I don’t know thatanyonedoes what we do,” Val- lario said. “Some franchisesoffergluten-free choices, but some of those restaurants will doachicken parm and it will be grilled instead of fried.Everythinghere is how it would be in any Italian restaurant. “Wetry to givepeople what they’re used to,” he continued. “At leasttwice eachmonth we’ll have a person actually cry, because you can’twalk intoa gluten free bakery and see this amount of stuff. It’sveryrewarding.” Grandma’s Grotto is located at 968 Easton Rd.inHorsham and is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 or10p.m. For more information about Grandma’s Grotto or toordergluten-free items on- line,

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