GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Living a gluten free lifestyle can present a challenge, especially when eating out. A new restaurant, however, is aiming to make it a little easier.
"To go somewhere and get a quick meal is non-existent for someone like me," says Aaron Muller, owner of Papa Chops.
Muller himself was diagnosed with celiac disease a few years back.
"It was an early birthday present, it was two weeks before I turned 40," he says.
After spending his whole life on a normal diet, Muller now had to be entirely gluten free.
"Things like kissing my children, I have to be careful of if they eat things with gluten in it, it'll get me sick," says Muller. "Dog food, I had to change my dog's food because he'd lick me, I'd forget. It was just so easy to make me sick."
That's where the idea came from for Papa Chops.
"To have a safe place we can eat at rather than having me watch them eat and stand there saying 'don't touch me with the breadsticks,'" says Muller.
The restaurant is 100% gluten free, serving fast, casual food that would take longer periods of time at other places.
"An assortment of different hamburgers, we have different sandwiches, I have a bluegill sandwich," lists Muller.
But that doesn't mean there aren't challenges. At Papa Chops, even something as simple as a food delivery can become difficult.
"Finding somebody like Uber Eats, for example, that won't take a pizza from a competitor and put it in the same warmer as mine," says Muller. "That puts the customers at risk."
And while the food itself is designed for gluten-free folks, Muller insists anyone will love it.
"The fact that its gluten free is something I have to deal with," says Muller. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to live with poor taste or poor flavors."
Papa Chops is now open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and is located at 2222 28th Street SE.
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