This past week I was in St. Petersburg, Florida for a national age group championship swim meet with my kiddos! Not actually my kids, the ones I coach, just to be clear. Lolz don’t freak out, Mom. ANYWAY. I wasn’t exactly how gluten free St. Pete would be, or if I would even be able to find some good eats in between meet sessions, but I was pleasantly surprised, and managed to find a few gems even though we had barely any time off the pool deck the entire trip. And interestingly enough – usually, when I go on vacation I feel like I never eat enough vegetables, and I come home absolutely craving them (probably the nutrients!). This time, I managed to eat vegetables for every lunch and dinner, so I’m gonna call that a win for vacation!

That being said, sorry in advance because I didn’t take many food pictures on this trip. Because pretty much the only time there was daylight and we were eating was during lunch, in the little time we had between sessions…and no joke, I ate the exact same thing every day from this amazing little chipotle-type place called the Simple Greek. But we’ll get to that later.

The first night in St. Pete (before the meet started) the coaches all went to Mad Beach Brewing Co, which is on the ocean side. Besides the beer, breweries are a surprisingly easy place to find gluten-free food. I had the “You’re Not a Jerk Chicken Dinner” which was Jamaican-spiced grilled chicken with arugula, mango salsa, and some grilled veggies on the side. Didn’t get a picture. It was dark. But very tasty!

Later that night let’s just say we were up into the wee hours of the morning, and ended up at Waffle House. And making friends with the waitresses there at about 2am. Judge me if you want, it was amazing. I have to admit I was really concerned I would be dying the next day from cross contamination even though I ordered an eggs dish that wasn’t cooked anywhere near the actual waffles…but happy to report I did not die! Waffle house for the win. I can’t believe I would ever say that. I think this is where the phrase #yolo would come in.

Ok but first. I need to rant about this AirBnb. So we booked this place specifically because we wanted to be really close to the beach for one night, since the rest of the trip we’d be staying at a hotel really near the competition pool and have no time for the beach. So at least the Airbnb got one thing right. The place was NOT like the pictures. And also sketchy AF. Our host called me the second we landed and told me that the name he had listed on the website was not his actual name, and that when we pulled up we should just say we were friends of his from college visiting from out of town, because he wasn’t actually allowed to use his apartment as an AirBnb. LOL. Sketchy AF. It was basically like staying in a college dorm, the guy wanted to do shots with us in his apartment (um, no thank you) and meet up with us when we went out later. Luckily I was staying with two of the guys I coach with so I didn’t feel unsafe, but YEESH. Glad to be shot of that experience.

The next morning after staying a that sketchy a** airBnB (never again) we walked to Smiley’s Snack Shack for breakfast and had some simple coffee, bacon and eggs before we headed over to the pool (for pretty much the rest of the trip). NOW the food pictures are coming. Promise! And no more creepy AirBnb hosts either.

This is going to sound really pathetic, but my breakfast pretty much every morning of the meet was this right here: a banana from the food they provided for coaches at the meet and a pack of almond butter I brought from HOME. Which thankfully I did, because there was literally nothing else I could eat the entire meet in the coaches’ room aside from trail mix. Which got real old after a while. So needless to say, breakfasts were really interesting.

Lunch later that day was at Red Mesa Cantina, which has a great outdoor courtyard with a fountain and music that would be PERFECT for Cinco de Mayo, Happy Hour, or really any time you’re feeling a margarita and a great time. Unfortunately at this point we weren’t allowed to consume any adult beverages (we were on a work trip supervising kiddos, after all) but the margaritas looked soooo gooood. Just a little bitter it’s fine. Anyway, about the food. I ordered the Shrimp al Mojo which had a deliciously spiced sauce on the shrimp, vegetables, and even the rice! Like can I just have a bottle of that sauce shipped to me so I can put it on anything and everything now? Kthanks.

Each night of the meet we had team dinners, so we had no control over where we were going or what kind of menu we were getting – some nights it was pretty tough to find gluten-free stuff or make sure everything was 100% safe with no kind of cross-contamination, but luckily for me, one of my swimmers also has celiac and her parents were doing the ordering one night, so at least I knew one night that I was completely safe! Eeks. The other nights, when we ordered from a tex-mex place (I don’t remember the name and it wasn’t very good), Carrabba’s, and the Annex (deets below!), I did my best to order salads or things that had zero chance of coming into contact with anything gluten-related, and since I wasn’t dying any of the mornings after late team dinners (well, aside from sleep deprivation), I guess I did well enough!

For one of the dinners (and lunch every single day) we grabbed food from the Simple Greek. One million percent recommend this place. Every day I had some variation of a salad or greens/rice bowl with chicken, tons of veggies, olives, feta and/or hummus. Sometimes I went crazy and switched up the protein between chicken, steak, and chicken gyro meat. So I ate there…I think 4 times over the course of the trip? Totally worth it. And I wouldn’t be doing this place justice if I didn’t mention the greek fries. Which are cooked in OLIVE OIL with no risk of cross-contamination, and are covered in greek herbs, lemon, vinegar, and yes, more feta. They were the bomb.com.

Annex and the Simple Greek were definitely battling for the spot of my favorite restaurant on this trip. The Annex is a salad/sandwich place that also makes amazing smoothies (with almond milk!!), soft-serve, AND has a ton of gluten-free options too!

I think we went to Annex three times for smoothies – but let’s be honest, mostly for the chocolate monkey smoothie that had almond milk, peanut butter, banana, and chocolate. So basically a milkshake. (Note: their smoothies all have greek yogurt in them, so if you’re lactose “challenged” like me just get them without the yogurt!) And we also ran (yes, ran LOL) there one morning from the meet to grab gluten-free breakfast sandwiches. They also had fun local kombucha and my new favorite salad – with spinach, grilled chicken, sunflower seeds, poppyseed dressing, and a little feta! Love that they have gluten-free bread for breakfast sandwiches, gluten-free wraps as an alternative for the lunch sandwiches, AND they even have gluten-free waffles (though I never got to try them!)

The last night of the trip, we stopped by Paciugo Gelato Caffe, which had a line out the door so we knew it had to be good! The dairy-free dark chocolate sorbet was to diiiie for. Highly recommended, and right on beach drive. Totally worth the wait.

And that’s it! Honestly, I’m still recovering from the trip…four days later. Kinda feels like I got hit by a bus. One of my co-workers said he slept from 1:30pm on Sunday when we got back until 7:30am the next morning. He may or not have been in an actual sleep coma. So I’ll leave you with this, which pretty much sums up my life this week: