Offering a 100% gluten-free menu featuring breads, cakes and other assorted pastries, Switch Bakery is currently transitioning from an online/farmer’s market business to a downtown Santa Cruz bistro-style storefront. Joshua Bradley and his wife, Amanda, are co-owners/co-chefs, initially inspired by Joshua’s diagnosis of Crohn’s disease 15 years ago.
Between medical and self-interventions with paramount focus on gut health, they removed gluten from their diet as a first step toward using food as medicine, and began feeding their family this way too. Wanting to bring this guiding ethos to others and gain a sense of community, they founded Switch Bakery three years ago.
Starting as a commercial kitchen serving markets across the Central Coast, the aptly named Switch is all about moving away from gluten with the intention to cater to specific diets, lifestyles and conditions.
Best breads are headlined by the rice flour-based focaccia with rosemary and garlic, as well as seeded and brown sandwich breads, baguettes and buns. The crowd-pleasing cakes are also a hit, like the tea cakes and carrot cardamom, with the most raved about being the “amazingly delicious, if you only had one food on a desert island” chocolate cake. The pastries are also popular picks, like the vegan hand pies with both sweet and savory options.
What lifestyle changes helped to inspire Switch?
JOSHUA BRADLEY: Living here has not only given me access to better health care, but also inspired a more active way of life. Through the process of dealing with my Crohn’s disease, I have become an athlete, which I was not before. For instance, I’ve done a couple triathlons as well as run my first marathon after my 50th birthday. In figuring out how to fuel my training while managing my disease, I learned more about using food as medicine to reduce inflammation and reboot biology. This approach is exactly what we bring to our business and products.
Why the evolution to a bistro?
It all goes back to everyone being able to eat together. If you have any type of allergy, condition or dietary restriction, the experience of eating out can often be very anxiety-provoking. The bistro is about creating a space that my family and I wish we would have had years ago, and I’m sure many others are in the same boat too.
1016 Cedar St., Santa Cruz; switchbakery.com
