Austin’s Coffee and Film

Ahhh…. Austin’s. I love this place. Located on Fairbanks Ave in lovely Winter Park, Austin’s Coffee and Film is a tiny little coffee shop that is owned by a wonderful couple who are very, VERY sensitive to food allergies/sensitivities. This is the ONLY place in town that I’ve found I can get a hot latte (Chai Tea Latte with Soy milk). Every time I’ve tried to get a Chai elsewhere, even after explaining about my milk allergy, I’ve gotten contaminated. But here at Austin’s Jackie is SO helpful: she triple washes the steam wand on the machine & uses a dedicated soy milk pot to heat it. In all the many times I’ve been here (yes, I’m sitting on one of the super comfy, eclectic sofas right now) I’ve only had a dairy reaction once. Not easy to do!

They also carry vegan, gluten free baked goodies and can prepare lots of menu items to be GFCF as well. You can get salads modified to be GFCF and I believe you can now get their sandwiches on GF bread (although I’ve never had one). Let me go ask Jackie. Okay, here’s the scoop. She said that she had been getting the GFCF bread from a local bakery (which I won’t name, since it’s second hand info) but they were delivering substandard product, so she’s currently put all GF sandwiches on hold. But she’s been talking with the bakery and trying to work with them to get what she needs, but they haven’t followed through. So as of this post, there is not any way to get a GFCF sandwich. But that will hopefully change in the near future. And Jackie said she’d keep me posted. :) So I’ll post back when I hear something.

I always get the yummy 954 Salad: Spinach, grilled pears (when you tell them you’re GF, they put foil on the grill so you don’t get CC), seedless grapes, pecans (which I skip because I don’t know how they’re roasted and don’t want any CC, but this is probably being overly cautious on my part), red onions and homemade honey vinaigrette. The super yummy dressing is made of all GFCF ingredients – Jackie was great and showed me the labels for all the ingredients so I could inspect them and make sure they’re all safe. This salad usually comes with blue cheese crumbles, but they leave them off for me… as well as the croutons (which they make here and I’m bummed I can’t try them, but oh well. :) ) But they’re always happy to accommodate any special dietary needs and will really work with you to make anything you’d like. (As long as they have the ingredients… which, they don’t always have… several times I’ve had apples instead of pears on my salad because they never seemed to have pears when I came in… But the grilled apples were tasty on the salad.)

The baked goods at Austin’s come from Veronica’s Vegan Bakery and Raphsodic Bakery, a local orlando vegan place. (I tried it once, didn’t really enjoy the two things I got and was amazed at the high prices… I need to give it another shot….). But it’s hit or miss with the gluten free items… sometimes there’s plenty to choose from, other times it’s one thing…. Today is actually the first time there was nothing GF offered in baked goods. But usually there are two or more muffin flavors and then maybe a breakfast bread or cake being offered here at Austin’s.

Austin’s is a cute little funky coffee hang out place with free wifi, board games and sometimes movies playing (hence the “Film” in the name). And everyone is so nice here! I’m greeted by name, they know my usual drink, and always remember to be extra careful about the milk and gluten. So if you’re in Winter Park and need a little caffeine or nosh, check out Austin’s. And tell Jackie that Noi sent you. :)