Kindler's Brings Celiac-Safe Fast Food to Spokane Valley

The fast-casual restaurant serves bowls and salads from a kitchen certified gluten-free.

By Mei Chen
12:29 p.m. PT, Oct. 11, 2026

AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.

About 80 people got the first taste of Kindler's, and most of them don't usually get to eat out without a lot of questions first. In early September, members of Celiac Safe Spokane previewed the new fast-casual restaurant in Spokane Valley, just east of Spokane, and ordered lunch without having to walk the staff through every ingredient.

Kindler's held its grand opening on Sept. 14, the first restaurant from Kindlers LLC. It works like a fast-food place—bowls, salads, and a drive-thru—except the whole kitchen is certified gluten-free by the Gluten Free Food Program and certified seed oil-free by the Seed Oil Free Alliance. Nothing on the menu is an exception to that; the menu was built around it.

Kindler's Spokane Valley Certified Gluten-Free Bowls Exterior

The idea started with owner Conrad Manfred, who was diagnosed with celiac disease five years ago. His 11-year-old daughter was diagnosed more recently. “Having no place to eat wears on you,” Manfred told the Spokane Journal of Business. His own company, Kodiak General Contracting, built the restaurant: 2,300 square feet, about 40 seats, and a drive-thru, with delivery through third-party services.

The menu comes from Heather Nucifora, the head chef and a registered dietitian nutritionist, who developed it from scratch, down to the sauces and seasonings made in-house. CEO Ken Batali has described her approach as starting with flavor and working out the gluten-free part second.

Kindler's Spokane Valley Certified Gluten-Free Bowls Southwest chicken

There are 11 bowls: chicken adobo over white rice with a coconut adobo sauce and chili crunch; Korean beef over chilled soba noodles with roasted pineapple and cabbage slaw; teriyaki salmon; lemongrass shrimp with avocado; a chickpea chop salad with crispy chickpeas and lemon tahini; and a green goddess bowl over quinoa, among others. To drink, there are organic Tractor sodas and a rotating selection of organic, non-GMO juices.

More locations are already in motion. A second is under construction in Millwood, a third is in permitting, and the company hopes to have four open by the end of next year. Breakfast and catering are planned, too. For now, though, the Spokane Valley restaurant is the only Kindler's open in eastern Washington, and its first customers may be the ones who've waited longest for a place like it: people for whom a drive-thru lunch, ordered without homework, is still a novelty.