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‘There’s such a need’: Gluten-free restaurant opens in Geneva

After learning she was allergic to gluten and about 30 other foods, Lauren Serviss longed to be able to go out to a restaurant and enjoy a meal without worrying about how it would make her feel.

She couldn’t find many options, so she opened her own.

  Ugly Noodle opened recently at 303 Franklin St. in Geneva. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com

Her Ugly Noodle restaurant in downtown Geneva is the second phase in Serviss’ journey to provide gluten-free options like pasta to people with food sensitivities. Just over a year ago she opened Ugly Noodle as a retail store selling her handmade gluten-free pasta online and to people who could find her tucked away in a strip mall near Delnor Hospital.

A year to the day later, she’s opened her deli and restaurant at 303 Franklin St.

“It happened pretty quickly, which has been awesome,” she said. “There’s such a need for gluten-free food and there’s no one else doing what we’re doing.”

The three-table restaurant, deli and retail shop opened in early December in the space that used to be Hahn’s Bakery. The irony of opening in a place that was churning out glutenous treats isn’t lost on Serviss, a 2008 Geneva High School graduate.

“I used to come here and get doughnuts when I was 14,” she said. “Then we took over I had to power wash and paint and test every surface (for gluten).”

  Everything at Ugly Noodle, including the pasta, ravioli and chicken cutlet, is gluten-free. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com

The restaurant serves only celiac-safe, certified gluten-free foods. The menu is highlighted by her fresh pasta, which is brown rice and sorghum-based and made without eggs, making it vegan, as well. It comes in a variety of shapes, and is served with a choice of sauces. Meats, including sausage, meatballs and breaded chicken cutlet can be added.

Handmade ravioli can be prepared boiled or deep fried and topped with sauce and meat. The menu includes a number of panini options with house made chips.

  The gluten-free Italian panini is a popular lunchtime dish at Ugly Noodle in Geneva. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com

While everything at Ugly Noodle is made for people with dietary restrictions in mind, Serviss said she thinks people who aren’t worried about that won’t notice the difference.

“Our food is just really good, and that’s what I always wanted,” she said. “I wanted a place where I would want to eat, no matter what.”

  Lauren Serviss makes gluten-free ravioli in her Geneva restaurant. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com

After selling pasta for people to make at home for the past year, Serviss said it’s been rewarding to be there to watch people enjoy it.

“I’ve had people literally cry, I’m not joking,” she said. “Three different times. People come up with tears in their eyes and say how nice it was to just order and not be worried, and then to have a really good meal.”

Like the old location, which Serviss still uses as a production kitchen, the downtown site does retail sales of fresh and dried pastas as well as house-made lasagna and stuffed shells.

  Ugly Noodle offers a number of gluten-free and allergen friendly items in its Geneva store. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com

It also offers other gluten- and allergen-free foods like French baguettes, sourdough loaves, cookies and vegan cheeses in addition to a curated selection of mostly gluten- and allergen-friendly foods in what she describes as a “pasta deli.”

Serviss, who lives in Elgin, grew up in Geneva and loves her familiar downtown location.

“Third Street’s just incredible, there’s so much walking traffic,” she said.

  Ugly Noodle, a gluten-free pasta company, has added a small restaurant space in downtown Geneva. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com

Tables routinely fill quickly at the seat-yourself restaurant, which offers counter service. Serviss hopes to convince her landlord to allow her to turn a parking lot on one side of the building into an outdoor dining space she can share with the nearby Chi-cuterie during warmer months.

Her business success has allowed Serviss to give back to a cause close to her heart. During her 20s while bouncing between careers, she found herself living in a food desert in Texas, doing side hustles while working an unpaid internship and surviving on food stamps.

It reinforced her belief that food is a right and not something that you deserve or don’t deserve based on how much money you have, so in 2020 she created a 501c3 to help people in food deserts.

She started with The Love Fridge in Chicago and now is donating allergen-friendly groceries and pasta to Lazarus House in St. Charles and Neighborhood Food Pantry in West Chicago.

Serviss started Ugly Noodle by selling her pasta at farmer’s markets, but she’s not sure she’ll be able to keep that up now.

“I’d like to, we just need to see how many plates I can spin at once,” she said.

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