Santa Cruz is a small city in our database, but a well-stocked one: of the 4 verified addresses, 3 are fully dedicated kitchens, with no wheat flour on the premises. Two belong to the same Venezuelan business, a dining room and its food truck; the third is a bakery-bistro downtown. The fourth is a café whose menu is advertised as gluten-free but calls for a specific precaution, detailed below.

The city in numbers

Santa Cruz's 4 verified addresses, by type
Restaurants2
Bakery1
Café1

Pana, the Venezuelan business

Pana Venezuelan Food, 118 Cooper Street, in the heart of Santa Cruz, builds its entire kitchen gluten-free: corn arepas, empanadas and sides are prepared in a fully dedicated space. The address matches Yelp, Wanderlog and Downtown Santa Cruz.

Pana Venezuelan Food Truck, based at 2738 Mission Street, roams the city with the same arepas and Venezuelan dishes: nothing enters the truck that isn’t gluten-free. It also serves breweries and events. The official Instagram bio reads “The Gluten Free Spot.” As with any truck, check its location and hours for the day before heading over.

The bakery-bistro

Switch Bakery, 1016 Cedar Street, right downtown, is an entirely dedicated bakery-café: breads, tarts, cakes and a small menu of prepared dishes made without wheat, but also without corn, soy or seed oils — useful if you’re managing multiple exclusions. The official site presents the business as a “100% gluten-free” place and publishes a page detailing the ingredients used.

The café to watch

Roxa Hammock Cafe, 110 Cooper Street, is a café where you eat lying in a hammock: organic açaí bowls, smoothies, granola, a snack menu advertised as gluten-free. The caveat is clear-cut: a “super tonic” topping contains wheatgrass and barley grass, and the source flags a risk of cross-contact. We have kept the “gluten-free menu” level out of caution. Order without that topping, and say so when ordering.

Our tips on site

  • Say “I have celiac disease,” not “I’m gluten free”: in the United States, the second phrase reads as a preference, the first as a medical constraint.
  • At Roxa, explicitly ask for “no super tonic”: it’s the only gluten-containing ingredient identified across the city’s four addresses.
  • Downtown groups three addresses — Pana and Roxa sit almost across from each other on Cooper Street, Switch Bakery is on Cedar Street, a few minutes away.
  • Continuing across the United States? Our guide to gluten-free travel in the USA covers the rest of the country.

Explore the 4 addresses

Every address cited has been verified at the source: existence, actual gluten-free level, risks. All 4 are on the Nutrixe map — and if your Santa Cruz address is missing, suggest it. The full list is on our page gluten-free restaurants in Santa Cruz. To understand what separates a dedicated kitchen from a gluten-free menu, read dedicated kitchen vs. gluten-free menu, the difference.

Figures at the time of publication. The database grows every week: today's exact count is always on the map.