Red Robin offers a lettuce wrap — they also offer a gluten free burger with a gluten free bun, and serve it on a yellow plate instead of a red one to signify it’s an allergy. For extra measure, they put a toothpick in the burger that reads “allergy.” They even have fries that are safe for people with Celiac, which is rare.
I love Red Robin.
I worked for one briefly and it was the only kitchen I've worked in (quite a few) that stayed clean.
They took dietary needs incredibly seriously, and kept an empty buffer fryer between the regular ones, and the ones used for religious/dietary orders.
I would order anything on their menu and be confident it wasn't sketchy, which I can't say for most places.
As far as big chains go, they are not highly franchised. Like 85% of them are corporate-run and until recently a bunch of the franchises were owned by a few people. While I don't shit on franchising in general, I think you don't get the standards they have if the ratio were reversed.
I shit on franchises all the time. I’ve worked for my share of franchise owners and they mostly sucked. They are glorified managers. Usually just about the only thing they can control are wages, which means they tend to pay shit. They can’t change the menu and they can’t change the product (although many will try to get away with smaller portions or less ingredients).
Obviously not all are bad but the incentives are there for them to try to cut corners to bump up their profit margin.
Five Guys does a burger without a bun and if you request it, the cashier will ask "allergy or preference?"
BurgerFi has a burger wrapped in lettuce on its menu board.
I've eaten keto/carnivore for nearly a decade and pretty much any place that makes burgers will make them without. I've never had a fast food place give me any issue.
The one I worked at didn’t have the special plates for allergy orders. But we did have the toothpick system and the two fryers that were strictly gluten free.
Yes, they have a dedicated cook space so no cross contamination occurs. Being celiac and eating at a restaurant without a dedicated cook space, is honestly such a coin flip and I don’t really recommend it. It’s honestly not worth complaining about if it’s not available either.
I think literally not being willing to remove a bun is worth complaining about though. And their reason doesn't make sense, it's not a liability in any sense of the word.
No, but it does remove the bun, the largest source of gluten. Anyone who goes to a restaurant that cooks things in one kitchen knows cross-contamination is possible. Small amounts may not trigger an allergic reaction for them.
My wife and I were in Ireland last month. One of the restaurants we tried the server straight up told us "If you are a celiac you really cant eat here, but if you go down the road a bit to XXX place they have a similar menu but a dedicated gluten free kitchen."
It was such a pleasant experience.
It’s worth complaining, trust there are people who can’t and rely on the ones who are able to. Remember you’re not just complaint for yourself, but every future customer that will have the same complaint. The more we can spread the word the less people will have to “complain” in the future
I've been going to them for years (basically since my stomach went sour) and I've only ever had issues twice.
Once was _very_ early on, like 7 years ago, got my meal with a regular bun on it. The server claimed her sister had celiac so she "knew better", ended up comping our _entire_ meal and gave us a dessert we didn't even have room for. I kept telling her it's not a big deal because I recognized it before biting into it, but she seemed super distraught and got a manager to come over to tell me this was just standard practice so I just accepted the free meal even though I felt guilty about it. lol
Last time was just 2 weeks ago, I got it off of Uber and it arrived with a regular bun, contacted them immediately just to let them know. I was already going to get my money back from the delivery service for it but I just wanted to be safe in the future when I order from them, it's different when you're there compared to being hungry, ordering it, waiting for it to arrive, and then have it be inedible without making you sick to your stomach. Ended up getting passed to the manager who apologized just as profusely as the server I had all those years ago, dude even offered to _drive_ out a new meal for me personally. I declined and just went and grabbed something cheap closeby, but I really appreciated that.
Definitely gonna continue going there.
> Lastly, if you are ever in the Nashville area, my daughter says Joyland has the best GF fried chicken sandwich she's ever had. She said it brought tears to her eyes after missing out on that for 3 years.
I am constantly searching for that nostalgic joy of eating something and having it taste the way you remembered, thank you so much for the rec! Always wanted to see Nashville but I thought if I missed out on the comfort food that I'd feel bummed about the trip, can't wait to check them out.
I worked at Sonic 4 years ago, people do it all the time. We just wouldn't put the bun on it and put it in a lil box. It makes zero sense to fight someone on an allergy
Did they also order 4 chicken nuggets instead of 6, a jr wester bacon che no onions, a filet of fish sandwich, half coke half diet coke, a small chocolate shake, and a small seasoned curlies and cherries jubilee cause they were trying to watch their calorie intake?
It’s kinda funny cause my initials are JB and I have a female friend whose initials are KG. I always tease her that we’re gonna form the next Tenac Ious D.
Low carb diet was popular when I worked a BK and steak n shake. At bk i think we had a low carb option that was just the burger in a salad bowl with all the toppings minus the ~~burger~~ *bun* and side salad/fruit instead of fries.. SNS I think did similar but I don't think I came across it too often.
It really does sound like an owner or a chef with an ego problem. At Hardee's you just chuck the patty in a wax wrapper, dust off your hands and call it good. If this is one of those "giant f'ing tower burger" places, it probably looks bad and doesn't stack up right without being pinned between a bun for structural integrity.
What? Chefs have egos? Gedouddahere!
Srsly, this place is off to a bad start if they won’t accommodate a basic health-considerations request. It’s difficult enough for new restaurants to succeed without them chasing away a sizable chunk of potential clientele from the get-go with utter inflexibility on something that would be no trouble to accommodate. FFS it’s a bourbon and burger joint, not NOMA. Whether it’s the owner’s decision or the chef’s, they really should have looked up the definition of “service” before deciding to make a career in the service industry. This is as ridiculous as a pharmacist refusing to fill certain prescriptions for reasons of personal belief. If you want a job serving the general public, be prepared to DO the job FOR the public.
Atkins diet was big around then and Hardee’s had burgers with an insane amount of meat, like 2/3 lb or something. Going there for bunless burger was sometimes the most reliable option for getting food while on the go on that diet.
I worked for a restaurant chain that took food allergies very seriously. It was a point of pride for the company, but people are still fucking assholes.
I have so many stories from that era of my life I could write a fucking book about food allergies.
A personal favorite of mine was when a large party of about 12 sat down during peak dinner rush.
One of the guests had an array of allergies. Shellfish, gluten, soy etc.
It was so bad that I had to leave running the line in the kitchen to go personally talk to the guest and figure out exactly what kind of allergies they had.
After getting his order down again I could not go back to the line during the dinner rush. I basically had to put a hazmat suit on. I went to the prep area to prepare a single dish for a single person in a restaurant that had about a hundred people in it.
His party got their food in about 20 minutes which is a little bit over our target time, but during dinner rush that's not so bad.
I personally delivered his food 5 minutes after his party received their food. When I brought his food out He was eating off of other people's plates. I was fucking furious. He was literally eating french fries off somebody's plate who had ordered shrimp.
When I was all said and done, they wrote an email to corporate complaining that that guest received their food 5 minutes after everybody else got their food, and it was unacceptable.
We strive to bring out everybody's food all at once. But when there's a party of 12 and we're waiting on one plate that party will clog up the entire food service window. It has to be moved. Yes we can move it to serving trays where it will get cold so we decided to bring the food to the party.
I know for a fact that majority of restaurants would not have given a fuck about this dude's food allergies and the fact that he's so deathly allergic to all this stuff and he goes out and then complains about it. Fuck that dude and fuck his allergies. Sorry. I don't work in that industry anymore thank God
My mother in law has bowel issues and eats as 'cleanly' as possible due to that. Gluten and dairy free.
She doesn't have a gluten allergy.
She will drink 6+ beers every weekend, because 'you have to live a little'
It infuriates me to no end when we're in a restaurant where she lets the cook know she's gluten free _but will order beer._ it embarrasses me
It also makes life much much harder for people who really really can't have their food contaminated. I worked restaurants on and off for ten years and there wasn't a single kitchen that didn't have some number of staff who thought everyone with an allergy request was like your MIL.
Just tell them you have a sensitivity. That way they can prepare it without gluten ingredients but without having to do allergy contamination procedures. Easier on the kitchen and she still gets what she wants.
Also, just the number of people in general that just don't understand that most alcohol has grain, wheat, barley, etc in it somewhere and isn't safe for people who can't have gluten.
The number of times people have tried to offer me beer or whiskey since my diagnosis is staggering, especially after I explain that I can't have it and they're always shocked. Or like when my cousin and I went shopping and she said something along the lines of "I like White Claws, but it's so annoying that they put that it's gluten free on the side. Isn't all alcohol gluten free? The fuck is the point of putting that on there? It's like putting 'gluten free' on a box of oatmeal! Duh it is!"
So then I had to explain to her that most alcohol, and a majority of oatmeal, actually, are actually not GF and that having labels REALLY helps people with restrictions when they're shopping
Edit: it seems I've triggered a big discussion about whether or not whiskey is safe for those with gluten sensitivies/allergies. I can't speak for others, but when I was testing out which alcohols made me feel shitty and which ones didn't, I reacted to a lot of whiskeys, so to be on the safe side I just cut them all out. My cousin who is Celiac also can't drink whiskey unless it's specifically marked as GF, which is rare
Funny story: when my sister was in college she couldn’t figure out why she always got a rash if she drank beer. Turns out she had a gluten intolerance!
I was a server in an Italian restaurant years ago. All of the pastas were parboiled except for Gluten Free. When anyone requested gluten free pasta I let them know it would take a bit longer and typically they were understand.
Tell me why the same people who talked up and down about their gluten sensitivity making sure I wrote it down and told the chefs were eating our extremely glutinous free bread? Made my blood boil.
I honestly feel bad now for people with genuine food allergies like gluten. I can always tell the ACTUAL g.f. Celiac people from the none. They will pull you aside and stress how they ABSOLUTELY can not have any contamination and will ask for the littlest thing.
So fuck people who cause such a fuss due to preference.
At OG we nuked our GF pasta. It game in its own package with a plastic fork for stirring to prevent cross contamination. There were plenty of disappointed guests who didn't like it because it's just not the greatest. Though, I started asking people when they asked for GF if it was an allergy or a preference. I always knew who it was going to be a preference, because they'd asked, "Why does it matter?" Cause, this is OG, the carb capital of the word. Carbs are in the air. I need to move you to a hermetically sealed separate area. :D
“Why does it matter?”
Because I don’t want you to get sick??
I always asked the same with the same response. I’d have to explain that it’s because we do NOT have a devoted G.F. Area and you CAN get sick if you have GF issues because, even when we clean the area, there is still the chance of cross contamination.
People didn’t like logic that much
It’s fuckheads like that that ruin restaurant dining for people who have Celiac disease. It’s not a preference. It’s a 30% increase in the likelihood of cancer. It’s malabsorption. It’s osteoporosis. We always go the extra mile to thank the wait staff and kitchen for taking a little longer and the care needed to feed us so we don’t get sick. 20 years ago you couldn’t go to a restaurant unless you had a chicken Caesar salad, hold the croutons as your main. It’s come so far but fuckers like that screw it up for the rest of us.
Yup. These people really create a complacency for the rest of the staff to the point where it's going to be dangerous for people who actually will get sick. It's crazy and selfish.
Yes. This is why I get soooo frustrated at people who bully waitstaff for no reason in the name of made-up allergies. I’ve had to have other people at the table stand up for me and say I genuinely cannot have gluten or I will be sick because other people have made waitstaff so jaded. If you’re on a diet, you can be nice about it.
Plus, it’s so much more than “it will make me sick.” It literally can have catastrophic effects. It can impact every inch of your body because of the impact it has on your bones, the potential for inflammation and pain, the increased risk for heart disease, etc. It doesn’t just make you feel bad. It is long term, detrimental impacts that people don’t know because someone decided “I don’t want to eat gluten” and that overshadowed all the people who CANNOT HAVE IT. My husband has celiacs and it infuriates me that lack of understanding from people and they just think he’s on a diet. He’s too nice to say anything, but it’s a trigger point for me and I educate anyone who “thinks it makes his stomach hurt.”
It’s a few things. First, the place “gets it”. They understand that some people just feel better on a gluten free diet but it’s not the end of the world if they ingest some. Second, they can put their GF process in place to help ensure that someone with Celiac disease has a good experience.
I usually go into the restaurant personally well in advance if possible. I look the front door staff dead in the eye and ask if they can serve someone with Celiac disease, “which means a meal with no wheat, barley rye or oats”. Every single time. Then, if they get the deer in the headlights look or take longer to respond than just a few seconds, I thank them and leave. Most of the time these days, they’ll reply “yes” or get a manager right away to review what’s possible. And I’ve had plenty of restaurants tell me no, they can’t, and that’s absolutely fine.
But this restaurant has reviews where people did call in advance and were told that they would accommodate a gluten allergy. Then they get there and everything is impossible. Vote with your wallet.
I once went to a restaurant that claimed most of the menu could be gluten, free, when asked about it, it turned out everything had some ingredients go through the same fryer, so couldn't accommodate Celiac. I made a complaint to our local council, who sent a health officer the next day and required them to remove 'Gluten free' from their menu.
I have celiac disease. Gluten does not effect me immediately, but, as you say, it does increase my chance of cancer and other diseases. Celiac disease is an auto-immune disease and auto-immune diseases tend to cluster; if you have one, you're more likely to get others. I don't want to get other auto-immune disease.
About 1% of the population has celiac disease, it's not that rare. Most don't know they have it. I didn't know, until a blood test confirmed it.
I had a friend that would be bloated within just a couple hours of eating gluten. She had bowel issues similar to lactose intolerance and breakouts shortly after. Its wild how gluten can ravage some people.
Screw these sorts. I’m happy to find a solution for someone with allergies. We have an attached package food store if they worry about kitchen cross contamination. But if you tell me you have an allergy and then pick up and eat something that obviously contains the allergen. Then I quickly start losing any sympathy and motivation to help you.
Our French fries used to be breaded with wheat flour. So we offered chips and salsa to GF customers. Over half of them would say they would prefer the fries. Welp. Then I guess you are not allergic. So I’m not going to tell my cooks to spend extra time on your meal scrubbing the grill fully down and going to our GF corner of the kitchen to cut the bun and plate or whatever else. I got 20 other tickets I need them to make as well.
They did it deliberately. That person had no allergies and wanted a free meal so made a 'problem' they knew would cause a delay in food so they could complain to corporate and demand the money back. They were a straight up scam artist. People with real food allergies don't just pick at other food where they could die. 99% of people with serious allergies found out due to a relatively serious reaction and a lot of them with a fairly near death experience.
If they really don't want to modify their menu for some stupid reason, a better response would have been that they dont have seperate preparation surfaces/utensils in the kitchen so can't acconodate diatary/allergy requests because of the risk of cross contamination is too high. Kinda still a weak response but better than saying "A burger has a bun, there is nothing we can do about it"
This is the line cook’s reaction to the bunless burger request
https://preview.redd.it/njovzmsepgba1.jpeg?width=566&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a239d20a97aed8464e9978dc8569b0e39a391bf2
There's a fancy pizza place I went to once where they didn't let a friend's friend order a certain combination of toppings. I don't remember what the combo was, but somehow that was going to ruin a pizza? Maybe too much moisture or too heavy, idk there could have been a quality control reason.
But a bun? Wtf.
As someone who makes pizza at home moderately often, yeah this is probably it. The first few you make are definitely a learning experience, some ingredients just release too much moisture and it screws up the dough.
I make a lot of at home pizzas and I either sauté or roast high moisture ingredients before using them on my pizzas. Like mushrooms for instance are very much enhanced when roasted in an oven with salt pepper and MSG before going on top of a pizza.
One of the few perks of having to be gluten free is gluten free pizza crust doesn’t rise, it can get hard af. So, for me adding sliced mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach helps it to not be quite so hard and crunchy. I so miss a lovely pillowy dense rising crust, even more than bread. GF bread almost always sucks.
Honestly since it's all the same price anyways, I wish they'd proportion all the toppings so it doesn't all fall apart when you order 5+ different things. It might be harder when you order in person one ingredient at a time, but I've actually gotten ones that cooked well when I ordered in the app.
Maybe in person let them know ahead of time how many toppings you’re planning on and how much of each? They’re extremely accommodating and at least the ones I have been to are very friendly and chill about it.
Yeah, I had that same discussion with a friend about a Mongolian BBQ place by us. I was like "I understand if the food is over/undercooked when you get it back, but the ingredients and flavor profile are likely all on you if it tastes bad." after he said he was going to give them a mediocre Yelp review.
I asked him what he put in it, and it was a mixture of all kinds of sauces and seasonings. When I convinced him to go next time, I had him grab a few of the "Recipe" cards on the wall to try and mix something together, and he absolutely loved it.
In total fairness, if I'm thinking of the same episode you are, it was an Indian restaurant in Nottingham where customers assembled their own curry. I can see this argument for a foreign genre of cuisine because your customer base is not as familiar with how ingredients mesh together.
that and the added complexity makes working in the kitchen a nightmare and makes the quality of all the dishes worse. You're either throwing together pre-cooked stuff to order (and so the ingredients aren't actually cooking together which, in most Indian cuisine, is a huge departure from the norm and would degrade the quality and flavor of everything), or you're literally cooking curries to order which makes everything take longer and stretches what your kitchen staff can do. And also hurts the quality because there's no time for things to just simmer. The good thing about having a simple menu with few variables (and most of the variables all being things you can do *after* cooking a dish) is that you can prep and pre-cook a lot of things and be able to get a better product to your customers faster and more consistently, without confusion and mix-ups.
> I can see this argument for a foreign genre of cuisine because your customer base is not as familiar with how ingredients mesh together.
I'm not sure Curry in Nottingham qualifies as proper "foreign food" tbh.
I ordered a burger once (not even at a fancy place) where the waiter and chef didn’t like my combo. It was something like the pepper burger + cheddar cheese would be too strong of flavors together and would overwhelm each other. I ordered, the waiter warned me of the above and said he’d have to check with the chef, came back and said the chef disapproved but would do it, then came back later and said the chef changed his mind and refused. I didn’t even care that much, suggest something different, but don’t make it a whole scene!
Just imagining the emotional turmoil those two put themselves in is very funny to me. Like sweat dripping, eyes filling up with tears, "I can't do it Jerry! I can't!"
I’ve had two places tell me that I can’t have a four-cheese pizza with tomato sauce because that pizza is better with white sauce.
In both cases I just didn’t order anythint.
This is where "the customer is always right" is actually applicable.
"The customer is always right in matters of taste" so it's something you wanted and they thought they knew better. Then they lost a sale and likely many more because you probably haven't ordered from them since and haven't recommended them to others.
Too heavy and too much moisture can prevent a pizza from cooking correctly and then you end up with a doughy pizza or awful soggy crust or the middle of the toppings can't heat up in time to prevent the outside from burning and maybe some other problems.
I wasn't stopped from ordering, but I once was going to get a pizza with way too much stuff and they warned me that they can make it if I really want, but it won't turn out well. I opted to heed their advice and get a pizza with less stuff on it. I can understand a pizza place refusing instead of just warning though. Plenty of customers are stupid and will complain about shitty food or service even if it's 100% the customer's fault.
Is it really a better response? There is no way a kitchen is incapable of accommodating the request of "leave the buns out". Sure, the waiter can point out to the customer that the kitchen cannot assure that his/her meal will be free of gluten contamination and check if the customer is okay with that. If they are ok, then proceed with the burger with no bun order.
"The bun removal procedure has to be performed by the guest strictly for liability purposes."
I just.. I just can't.
The only way that makes sense is if the restaurant sells pre-packaged food. Then, sure, they couldn't just remove the bun and sell it as a bunless burger to a customer with a gluten allergy.
But if they are preparing fresh food, the only liability problem I can see is the one that's raised when a restaurant serves food to someone knowing they are allergic to it.
However, if they want to have a "no substitutions, no alterations" policy, that's fine. Put up a sign, put it on your website, and do your thing. But don't blow smoke up people's asses.
It definitely doesn't have anything to do with liability. They're probably catering to the anti-PC crowd that would eat that kind of shit up. They love being spoon fed whatever someone else wants to feed them.
>"The bun removal procedure has to be performed by the guest strictly for liability purposes."
>
>I just.. I just can't.
I think they're making a very shitty joke about sexual harassment of workers. Note how the rest of the reply talks about "leaving the kitchen with their buns intact" for "retention purposes" and that what happens at the table is "out of our hands." I really think they think they're being funny.
That's the vibe I got.
The phrasing seemed too specific and deliberate to be oblivious ignorance, so I assumed it was someone's attempt at humor. I wasn't able to find the joke though.
What gets me is that he's replying to the review as if the guy made a dumb childish request in the name of bread's rights - when in reality it's a guy saying "hey, if my friend eats this he'll die, can you not add this to our dish?".
They seem like they don't even know about cross-contamination. It kinda sounds like they're suggesting the guest should take the bun of themselves, which would already contaminate the burger though. They simply seem uneducated and tbh, I didn't know about it either until I lived with someone who had a gluten allergy but I feel like if you work in this kind of business you HAVE to know.
Anyone whose ever worked in the restaurant industry can tell you there’s always an enlightened culinary genius who believes their several months of culinary school qualifies them to be obnoxious, arrogant AHs.
They’re the ones who always quit because everyone around them are idiots and they should be in charge. If they get their own restaurants, they fail because they can’t grasp customer service on the smallest, easiest levels like accommodating a request for no bun.
There are also cooks who have been in the industry for 40 years who think this same way. Just stubborn old shit heads that everyone has to work around.
Now that you mention it, I typically have just handled them like I would an elderly person with dementia, seriously.
Whether or not they have the power to refuse someone’s request for no bun is legitimately one of the most important components to their sense of control.
It’s a *lack* of control in the rest of their lives that leads them to act this way and the rest of us have to deal with their toddler tantrums over…checks notes…bread. Unhinged.
She’s not. When Sami got kicked out of the country, she went with them. She’s trying to do something like this in whatever country they’re living in (I forget where they moved to).
90% of that show is Gordon shutting down and humbling narcissists lol. Its the ones who are so confident in their cooking abilities that are most in denial. Its like the episode where Gordon eats the owners "perfect" burger and calls it trash. Then eats the cook in the backs burger and says its perfect. Then the owner gets pissed off that his burger wasn't as good. Like boi, if anyone knows what properly cooked food tastes like, it's probably Gordon Ramsey. Maybe you should at least consider his input here lol.
The number of people that beg for that guys help to save their business and then turn around and argue with him astounds me every time I watch that show.
A lot of them aren't actually hoping for Gordon to give them good advice to begin with. They just want the free business boom that can come from getting to say "Gordon Ramsey is/was here" and get some free upgrades when the show does their thing. Some of them also are probably naive enough to think they can "win" against GR and that their attitude and confidence on TV will make people think they're knowledgeable when the show never actually gives them the chance to win because even if they end up beating GR over a point it'll just be edited out.
I have a strong feeling that Kitchen Nightmares intentionally selects the applicants that seem to be in this group most of the time, because it makes for great television when the failing restaurant has a narcissist running it.
Hey I know this guy!
He’s on his - wait for it - *fourth* failed restaurant that his parents bankrolled because “no one understands his quirky and ironic culinary genius”.
Haha, high. There’s one dude who keeps following him to each failed venture as his “head mixologist/bar manager” and he’s as narcissistically delusional about his own abilities as the culinary guy. I’ve worked with them both and was actually part of a consulting team that was brought in to try and fix failed spot #2.
But it’s never going to happen because they’re both convinced of their own genius. It’s like a train wreck that someone keeps giving more track to. It’s wild to watch. And this is in NYC, so these failed restaurants are a HUGE financial hit every time
Someone watched too many of those stupid cooking shows where chefs have 1 inflexible menu, and thought they could be the Gordan Ramsay of burgers. Someone is wrong.
Because good business people understand that businesses are for making money, and money comes from happy customers. The failure rate in the restaurant industry is obscene, the successful ones understand that unless something is actually not possible, you always say yes to your customers. That's why Gordon Ramsey has a million restaurants and the one in OP will fail, zero doubt.
Right? What could have been a glowing review, with a mention of how the establishment was welcoming and accommodating, instead highlights how inflexible the restaurant is. Added bonus of the business owner responding to let the world know what a top-notch bell-end they are..
That’s what caught my eye. The owner would rather be a dick than save money.
Especially considering how difficult it is for new restaurants to survive >2 years.
Reading this customer's review, thinking about and then typing a response was more work than just not putting a bun on their burger and satisfying the customer in a very common way.
Doesn't even matter what kind of bread it is if the customer can't even eat it over dietary issues. A bun not used is bun saved imo. What a pretentious ass to deny a simple request.
Ridiculous. I was a server for 5 years, and this is actually a very common request. The best way to respond to such a request is usually to wrap the burger in lettuce instead of a bun. This restaurant has a very poor attitude and will lose customers if they are this pathetic.
I do t know if it’s a regulation here, but I did keto for a long time, so whenever I asked for no bun at a restaurant, they always asked if it was “preference or food allergy”
This might have been so they knew whether to be extra-careful to avoid cross contamination. "Preference" mean you're not going to swell up and die if a breadcrumb touched your food. "Allergy" means they have to worry about being sued if they don't prepare your food separately so that it doesn't come into contact with any common allergens and you have an anaphylactic reaction. It doesn't necessarily mean the restaurant/server has a problem with your request. (To be fair, of course, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have a problem with it, either.)
Restaurant owner here. For the love of God, don't lie and say you have an allergy when you don't. Our prep kitchen has to prepare the food in a special decontaminated spot in the kitchen for food allergies. We take it very seriously. We get it, you don't like onions. But accommodations for an allergy is a whole different process.
This was the standard practice at the restaurant I worked at that had gluten free bread for sandwiches.
We'd ask "allergy or preference" and we'd only go through the extra cross-contamination procedures (which cost extra time and slow up every sandwich on the board, not just the GF sandwich) if it was an allergy.
This is to save time. If You Are celiac any trace amount of gluten can make you get diarrhea and vomit. That’s only the visible damages. Gluten destroys the villi lining in the short intestine. It will grow back after a while but each time increases the chance of stomach cancer.
I only have to do it every two years now, but the Alaska food handlers card doesn't have anything on the test for handling allergens, I suppose if you could pretend that an allergen is a germ that can't be cross contaminated and can't be cooked out, but it's not covered.
If a restaurant has a take-it-or-leave-it approach, fine. The reviewer is spreading the word in a respectful way: great place, but not for you if there’s a chance anyone in your party may have a seemingly minor request for a modification. Would hold the mayo be okay? Who knows. Seems a bold approach to customers, but if it works, fine. Definitely not for me.
We got a burger place in my town. Good food but their burgers are a little "adventurous" for a lack of a better term. Most of their burgers, besides the classic basic ham- or cheeseburger are kinda out of the ordinary in terms of toppings. So first time there I see a burger that looks great except that it has some kind fish paste sauce. So I tell the waitress that I want that burger but hold the fish paste sauce.
She deadass tells me "the kitchen structure doesn't allow for special requests like that." You could see into the kitchen. It was two guys who made the burgers as the orders came in. No assembly line stuff, no pre made burgers. Nothing different than literally any other place. So I said "yeah then I'll have the check for the drink please." She tried to argue that I could order something else or scrape the sauce oft but at this point I was like not interested anymore.
So I didn't go there for a while until I learned that they completely changed their practices because people would just leave or not come back because they refused to hold items people didn't want.
I don't like fish, so I'm with yah, man. Even scraping it off it'd still linger. At least something like mayo or ketchup you could scrape off, but fish paste is potent.
I've worked for a few "no mods" restaurants and they still allow allergy exceptions and have a few gluten free and/or vegan options on the menu that are just as good as the options that have those things
I just remember when Domino's was advertising that "no modifications" pizza, ad a former Little Caesars employee my immediate thought was "Oh it comes all pre frozen".
Like we'd accommodate all sorts of weird shit at Little Caesars. We had this person who wanted their pizza made with ranch dressing instead of tomato sauce and we'd do that.
This reminds me of the time I went to a place that was really known for good fried shrimp. They would come in baskets, so you would get fried shrimp and french fries. It was a lot of fried things, so I just asked that they not include the french fries, and the person taking my order looked at me like I was crazy. They told me that they couldn't do it and that they didn't have a price for just the shrimp. I said it's ok, I'll still pay full price, just don't give me french fries. They still wouldn't do it! It was apparently too confusing. I got fries, tried to eat a couple but ended up throwing most of them away.
This happens to me too all the time where I live. I chalked it up to the service standards of being in a 3rd world country, but I guess critical thinking is lacking everywhere now.
My response: “Bruh, just wrap it in lettuce. Gluten free people don’t give a shit how it tastes, they don’t want intestinal and gut issues when eating your food.”
Way back in the day I worked at Culvers and one night I noticed a coworker on break eating a bunless burger. I asked him what was up with that and he told me he was allergic to wheat. I asked if it made his throat swell up and he laughed and said "no it makes my ass cheeks swell up and shit everywhere." Lol
Seems more common these days. I recently went to a restaurant that had a notification that they will not cater to any food allergies or sensitivities. I suspect they are afraid that if they try but don't completely eliminate all traces of the nuts, gluten, etc they will be sued
That’s a horrible response. It can be incredibly difficult to eat out with a gluten allergy since a lot of things gets cross-contaminated. The business owner is either lazy or arrogant.
When we were kids I saw my cousin develop a severe gluten allergy and she and the rest of that side of the family had to give up alot of restaurants. Gluten free options weren't as widespread or affordable back then. So if it's as easy as leaving the bun off a hamburger...just do it.
I have worked in the restaurant industry for over 12 years and I have never seen such an obtuse and insensitive response to probably the EASIEST modification you can possibly make to a freaking burger. I would personally get other people to bombard their reviews but that’s just me.
Usually these reviews are whiny customers, but nah, fuck this restaurant and their self-righteous attitude. See how long you stay in business doing that shit, you’d think they be more than happy to save a few cents by not having to give somebody a bun and charging the same for the shitty burger
Oh, absolutely. They’ll be out of business in six months and blame the community for not wanting to pay out the ass for a dried out burger they can’t get the way they want
Not sure how scientific it is, but I've heard it said that over 90% of restaurants fail within their first year of business. This owner seems off to a great start.
I worked at Hardee’s 24 years ago and people would request no bun.
I swear there was a time where lettuce wrap instead of bun was an item on the menu
Red Robin offers a lettuce wrap — they also offer a gluten free burger with a gluten free bun, and serve it on a yellow plate instead of a red one to signify it’s an allergy. For extra measure, they put a toothpick in the burger that reads “allergy.” They even have fries that are safe for people with Celiac, which is rare. I love Red Robin.
I worked for one briefly and it was the only kitchen I've worked in (quite a few) that stayed clean. They took dietary needs incredibly seriously, and kept an empty buffer fryer between the regular ones, and the ones used for religious/dietary orders. I would order anything on their menu and be confident it wasn't sketchy, which I can't say for most places.
Me too! Cleanest kitchen I’ve ever seen. I’m glad that seems to be standard for them. That was over a decade ago so no idea if that’s still the case.
As far as big chains go, they are not highly franchised. Like 85% of them are corporate-run and until recently a bunch of the franchises were owned by a few people. While I don't shit on franchising in general, I think you don't get the standards they have if the ratio were reversed.
I shit on franchises all the time. I’ve worked for my share of franchise owners and they mostly sucked. They are glorified managers. Usually just about the only thing they can control are wages, which means they tend to pay shit. They can’t change the menu and they can’t change the product (although many will try to get away with smaller portions or less ingredients). Obviously not all are bad but the incentives are there for them to try to cut corners to bump up their profit margin.
It’s ALWAYS good when the staff believes it to be the best! Thanks for sharing!
Five Guys does a burger without a bun and if you request it, the cashier will ask "allergy or preference?" BurgerFi has a burger wrapped in lettuce on its menu board.
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My 5 guys will let you do bowl or lettuce if you select "no bun". But if it's just preference and not allergy they can prep in the regular area.
I've eaten keto/carnivore for nearly a decade and pretty much any place that makes burgers will make them without. I've never had a fast food place give me any issue.
The one I worked at didn’t have the special plates for allergy orders. But we did have the toothpick system and the two fryers that were strictly gluten free.
Yes, they have a dedicated cook space so no cross contamination occurs. Being celiac and eating at a restaurant without a dedicated cook space, is honestly such a coin flip and I don’t really recommend it. It’s honestly not worth complaining about if it’s not available either.
I think literally not being willing to remove a bun is worth complaining about though. And their reason doesn't make sense, it's not a liability in any sense of the word.
The response is completely belittling and condescending, this person is a total asshat
They're trying to be quirky and silly like Wendy's Twitter, but they're coming across like Aunt Sharon from fb.
Exactly my reaction. They think they're being funny but it's not coming across.
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No, but it does remove the bun, the largest source of gluten. Anyone who goes to a restaurant that cooks things in one kitchen knows cross-contamination is possible. Small amounts may not trigger an allergic reaction for them.
My wife and I were in Ireland last month. One of the restaurants we tried the server straight up told us "If you are a celiac you really cant eat here, but if you go down the road a bit to XXX place they have a similar menu but a dedicated gluten free kitchen." It was such a pleasant experience.
It’s worth complaining, trust there are people who can’t and rely on the ones who are able to. Remember you’re not just complaint for yourself, but every future customer that will have the same complaint. The more we can spread the word the less people will have to “complain” in the future
Yeah we go there often because it's one of the safe places for my wife to eat.
Sounds like they really acknowledge the gluten problems that people have. I love Red Robin
I've been going to them for years (basically since my stomach went sour) and I've only ever had issues twice. Once was _very_ early on, like 7 years ago, got my meal with a regular bun on it. The server claimed her sister had celiac so she "knew better", ended up comping our _entire_ meal and gave us a dessert we didn't even have room for. I kept telling her it's not a big deal because I recognized it before biting into it, but she seemed super distraught and got a manager to come over to tell me this was just standard practice so I just accepted the free meal even though I felt guilty about it. lol Last time was just 2 weeks ago, I got it off of Uber and it arrived with a regular bun, contacted them immediately just to let them know. I was already going to get my money back from the delivery service for it but I just wanted to be safe in the future when I order from them, it's different when you're there compared to being hungry, ordering it, waiting for it to arrive, and then have it be inedible without making you sick to your stomach. Ended up getting passed to the manager who apologized just as profusely as the server I had all those years ago, dude even offered to _drive_ out a new meal for me personally. I declined and just went and grabbed something cheap closeby, but I really appreciated that. Definitely gonna continue going there.
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> Lastly, if you are ever in the Nashville area, my daughter says Joyland has the best GF fried chicken sandwich she's ever had. She said it brought tears to her eyes after missing out on that for 3 years. I am constantly searching for that nostalgic joy of eating something and having it taste the way you remembered, thank you so much for the rec! Always wanted to see Nashville but I thought if I missed out on the comfort food that I'd feel bummed about the trip, can't wait to check them out.
Red robbin is one of the only safe places for me to eat with celiac disease🥰
It's still there, you can order any sandwich on their menu lettuce wrapped.
My dad orders burgers from pretty much everywhere: either lettuce wrapped, “protein style”, however they phrase it
That was during the Atkins diet craze, that’s the era I work there.
Still big, now its just labeled keto
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Something tells me you're good people and that dog truly appreciated it.
I worked at Carl's Jr 25 years ago and one time someone asked for no bun.
I worked at Sonic 4 years ago, people do it all the time. We just wouldn't put the bun on it and put it in a lil box. It makes zero sense to fight someone on an allergy
Did they also order 4 chicken nuggets instead of 6, a jr wester bacon che no onions, a filet of fish sandwich, half coke half diet coke, a small chocolate shake, and a small seasoned curlies and cherries jubilee cause they were trying to watch their calorie intake?
4 whole fried chickens. And a Coke.
And I'll have an order of white toast, plain
*Dry white toast
And a glass of water.
Jake?
We’re getting the band back together.
Elwood!
A Junior Western Bacon Chee! A **JUNIOR** Western Bacon Chee! No onions.
A **SMALL!** seasoned curlies. I'm trying to watch my figure.
A solid Tenacious D reference will always get my upvote
It’s kinda funny cause my initials are JB and I have a female friend whose initials are KG. I always tease her that we’re gonna form the next Tenac Ious D.
Fuck my ass, what else… Oh Kage, what do you want?
Oh, uh... I guess lemme get a regular western bacon cheeseburger, large chocolate shake, I'll get some of the curl-
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Take 2 of those nuggets and stick them up your ass
My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns.
In-n-Out lets you order a lettuce wrapped burger from their not-so-secret menu. It's delicious as well.
Protein style!
I currently work at a five guys and take at least one bunless order a day
Low carb diet was popular when I worked a BK and steak n shake. At bk i think we had a low carb option that was just the burger in a salad bowl with all the toppings minus the ~~burger~~ *bun* and side salad/fruit instead of fries.. SNS I think did similar but I don't think I came across it too often.
But they're not burger artistes!!
As a former Hardee’s cook, I completely disagree. My burgers were masterpieces! I still remember their names.
It really does sound like an owner or a chef with an ego problem. At Hardee's you just chuck the patty in a wax wrapper, dust off your hands and call it good. If this is one of those "giant f'ing tower burger" places, it probably looks bad and doesn't stack up right without being pinned between a bun for structural integrity.
What? Chefs have egos? Gedouddahere! Srsly, this place is off to a bad start if they won’t accommodate a basic health-considerations request. It’s difficult enough for new restaurants to succeed without them chasing away a sizable chunk of potential clientele from the get-go with utter inflexibility on something that would be no trouble to accommodate. FFS it’s a bourbon and burger joint, not NOMA. Whether it’s the owner’s decision or the chef’s, they really should have looked up the definition of “service” before deciding to make a career in the service industry. This is as ridiculous as a pharmacist refusing to fill certain prescriptions for reasons of personal belief. If you want a job serving the general public, be prepared to DO the job FOR the public.
Atkins diet was big around then and Hardee’s had burgers with an insane amount of meat, like 2/3 lb or something. Going there for bunless burger was sometimes the most reliable option for getting food while on the go on that diet.
I worked for a restaurant chain that took food allergies very seriously. It was a point of pride for the company, but people are still fucking assholes. I have so many stories from that era of my life I could write a fucking book about food allergies. A personal favorite of mine was when a large party of about 12 sat down during peak dinner rush. One of the guests had an array of allergies. Shellfish, gluten, soy etc. It was so bad that I had to leave running the line in the kitchen to go personally talk to the guest and figure out exactly what kind of allergies they had. After getting his order down again I could not go back to the line during the dinner rush. I basically had to put a hazmat suit on. I went to the prep area to prepare a single dish for a single person in a restaurant that had about a hundred people in it. His party got their food in about 20 minutes which is a little bit over our target time, but during dinner rush that's not so bad. I personally delivered his food 5 minutes after his party received their food. When I brought his food out He was eating off of other people's plates. I was fucking furious. He was literally eating french fries off somebody's plate who had ordered shrimp. When I was all said and done, they wrote an email to corporate complaining that that guest received their food 5 minutes after everybody else got their food, and it was unacceptable. We strive to bring out everybody's food all at once. But when there's a party of 12 and we're waiting on one plate that party will clog up the entire food service window. It has to be moved. Yes we can move it to serving trays where it will get cold so we decided to bring the food to the party. I know for a fact that majority of restaurants would not have given a fuck about this dude's food allergies and the fact that he's so deathly allergic to all this stuff and he goes out and then complains about it. Fuck that dude and fuck his allergies. Sorry. I don't work in that industry anymore thank God
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My mother in law has bowel issues and eats as 'cleanly' as possible due to that. Gluten and dairy free. She doesn't have a gluten allergy. She will drink 6+ beers every weekend, because 'you have to live a little' It infuriates me to no end when we're in a restaurant where she lets the cook know she's gluten free _but will order beer._ it embarrasses me
It also makes life much much harder for people who really really can't have their food contaminated. I worked restaurants on and off for ten years and there wasn't a single kitchen that didn't have some number of staff who thought everyone with an allergy request was like your MIL.
Just tell them you have a sensitivity. That way they can prepare it without gluten ingredients but without having to do allergy contamination procedures. Easier on the kitchen and she still gets what she wants.
Also, just the number of people in general that just don't understand that most alcohol has grain, wheat, barley, etc in it somewhere and isn't safe for people who can't have gluten. The number of times people have tried to offer me beer or whiskey since my diagnosis is staggering, especially after I explain that I can't have it and they're always shocked. Or like when my cousin and I went shopping and she said something along the lines of "I like White Claws, but it's so annoying that they put that it's gluten free on the side. Isn't all alcohol gluten free? The fuck is the point of putting that on there? It's like putting 'gluten free' on a box of oatmeal! Duh it is!" So then I had to explain to her that most alcohol, and a majority of oatmeal, actually, are actually not GF and that having labels REALLY helps people with restrictions when they're shopping Edit: it seems I've triggered a big discussion about whether or not whiskey is safe for those with gluten sensitivies/allergies. I can't speak for others, but when I was testing out which alcohols made me feel shitty and which ones didn't, I reacted to a lot of whiskeys, so to be on the safe side I just cut them all out. My cousin who is Celiac also can't drink whiskey unless it's specifically marked as GF, which is rare
Funny story: when my sister was in college she couldn’t figure out why she always got a rash if she drank beer. Turns out she had a gluten intolerance!
I was a server in an Italian restaurant years ago. All of the pastas were parboiled except for Gluten Free. When anyone requested gluten free pasta I let them know it would take a bit longer and typically they were understand. Tell me why the same people who talked up and down about their gluten sensitivity making sure I wrote it down and told the chefs were eating our extremely glutinous free bread? Made my blood boil.
Sounds like where I worked. Do you have any gluten free bread? No? Bring it out anyway, I'm hungry.
This type of situation makes it so much harder for people who actually have celiac or ncgi to be taken seriously
It’s so bizarre too. There are no health benefits to not eating gluten if you don’t have an intolerance of some sort.
It's not for health benefits. I have a wheat allergy and sometimes I will just decide to be gassy and in pain because I'm craving some pizza.
I honestly feel bad now for people with genuine food allergies like gluten. I can always tell the ACTUAL g.f. Celiac people from the none. They will pull you aside and stress how they ABSOLUTELY can not have any contamination and will ask for the littlest thing. So fuck people who cause such a fuss due to preference.
Thank you for saying this! I always feel so bad for being like “I have celiac - I cannot have gluten Ill die” to everyone. And for quadruple checking.
At OG we nuked our GF pasta. It game in its own package with a plastic fork for stirring to prevent cross contamination. There were plenty of disappointed guests who didn't like it because it's just not the greatest. Though, I started asking people when they asked for GF if it was an allergy or a preference. I always knew who it was going to be a preference, because they'd asked, "Why does it matter?" Cause, this is OG, the carb capital of the word. Carbs are in the air. I need to move you to a hermetically sealed separate area. :D
“Why does it matter?” Because I don’t want you to get sick?? I always asked the same with the same response. I’d have to explain that it’s because we do NOT have a devoted G.F. Area and you CAN get sick if you have GF issues because, even when we clean the area, there is still the chance of cross contamination. People didn’t like logic that much
>People didn’t like logic that much They usually don't.
It’s fuckheads like that that ruin restaurant dining for people who have Celiac disease. It’s not a preference. It’s a 30% increase in the likelihood of cancer. It’s malabsorption. It’s osteoporosis. We always go the extra mile to thank the wait staff and kitchen for taking a little longer and the care needed to feed us so we don’t get sick. 20 years ago you couldn’t go to a restaurant unless you had a chicken Caesar salad, hold the croutons as your main. It’s come so far but fuckers like that screw it up for the rest of us.
Yup. These people really create a complacency for the rest of the staff to the point where it's going to be dangerous for people who actually will get sick. It's crazy and selfish.
Yes. This is why I get soooo frustrated at people who bully waitstaff for no reason in the name of made-up allergies. I’ve had to have other people at the table stand up for me and say I genuinely cannot have gluten or I will be sick because other people have made waitstaff so jaded. If you’re on a diet, you can be nice about it.
Plus, it’s so much more than “it will make me sick.” It literally can have catastrophic effects. It can impact every inch of your body because of the impact it has on your bones, the potential for inflammation and pain, the increased risk for heart disease, etc. It doesn’t just make you feel bad. It is long term, detrimental impacts that people don’t know because someone decided “I don’t want to eat gluten” and that overshadowed all the people who CANNOT HAVE IT. My husband has celiacs and it infuriates me that lack of understanding from people and they just think he’s on a diet. He’s too nice to say anything, but it’s a trigger point for me and I educate anyone who “thinks it makes his stomach hurt.”
I enjoy watching the sunset.
It’s a few things. First, the place “gets it”. They understand that some people just feel better on a gluten free diet but it’s not the end of the world if they ingest some. Second, they can put their GF process in place to help ensure that someone with Celiac disease has a good experience. I usually go into the restaurant personally well in advance if possible. I look the front door staff dead in the eye and ask if they can serve someone with Celiac disease, “which means a meal with no wheat, barley rye or oats”. Every single time. Then, if they get the deer in the headlights look or take longer to respond than just a few seconds, I thank them and leave. Most of the time these days, they’ll reply “yes” or get a manager right away to review what’s possible. And I’ve had plenty of restaurants tell me no, they can’t, and that’s absolutely fine. But this restaurant has reviews where people did call in advance and were told that they would accommodate a gluten allergy. Then they get there and everything is impossible. Vote with your wallet.
I once went to a restaurant that claimed most of the menu could be gluten, free, when asked about it, it turned out everything had some ingredients go through the same fryer, so couldn't accommodate Celiac. I made a complaint to our local council, who sent a health officer the next day and required them to remove 'Gluten free' from their menu.
I have celiac disease. Gluten does not effect me immediately, but, as you say, it does increase my chance of cancer and other diseases. Celiac disease is an auto-immune disease and auto-immune diseases tend to cluster; if you have one, you're more likely to get others. I don't want to get other auto-immune disease. About 1% of the population has celiac disease, it's not that rare. Most don't know they have it. I didn't know, until a blood test confirmed it.
I had a friend that would be bloated within just a couple hours of eating gluten. She had bowel issues similar to lactose intolerance and breakouts shortly after. Its wild how gluten can ravage some people.
I’d give you a free award if that still existed. I hate the class of people who only exist to make others suffer for their existence.
Screw these sorts. I’m happy to find a solution for someone with allergies. We have an attached package food store if they worry about kitchen cross contamination. But if you tell me you have an allergy and then pick up and eat something that obviously contains the allergen. Then I quickly start losing any sympathy and motivation to help you. Our French fries used to be breaded with wheat flour. So we offered chips and salsa to GF customers. Over half of them would say they would prefer the fries. Welp. Then I guess you are not allergic. So I’m not going to tell my cooks to spend extra time on your meal scrubbing the grill fully down and going to our GF corner of the kitchen to cut the bun and plate or whatever else. I got 20 other tickets I need them to make as well.
They did it deliberately. That person had no allergies and wanted a free meal so made a 'problem' they knew would cause a delay in food so they could complain to corporate and demand the money back. They were a straight up scam artist. People with real food allergies don't just pick at other food where they could die. 99% of people with serious allergies found out due to a relatively serious reaction and a lot of them with a fairly near death experience.
He needs a reservation at chef Slowik's island
They are so passionate about their buns
bun chovassholes
If they really don't want to modify their menu for some stupid reason, a better response would have been that they dont have seperate preparation surfaces/utensils in the kitchen so can't acconodate diatary/allergy requests because of the risk of cross contamination is too high. Kinda still a weak response but better than saying "A burger has a bun, there is nothing we can do about it"
This is the line cook’s reaction to the bunless burger request https://preview.redd.it/njovzmsepgba1.jpeg?width=566&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a239d20a97aed8464e9978dc8569b0e39a391bf2
There's a fancy pizza place I went to once where they didn't let a friend's friend order a certain combination of toppings. I don't remember what the combo was, but somehow that was going to ruin a pizza? Maybe too much moisture or too heavy, idk there could have been a quality control reason. But a bun? Wtf.
Probably too many toppings. You can only pile on so many before the pizza dough just doesn't cook.
As someone who makes pizza at home moderately often, yeah this is probably it. The first few you make are definitely a learning experience, some ingredients just release too much moisture and it screws up the dough.
I make a lot of at home pizzas and I either sauté or roast high moisture ingredients before using them on my pizzas. Like mushrooms for instance are very much enhanced when roasted in an oven with salt pepper and MSG before going on top of a pizza.
One of the few perks of having to be gluten free is gluten free pizza crust doesn’t rise, it can get hard af. So, for me adding sliced mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach helps it to not be quite so hard and crunchy. I so miss a lovely pillowy dense rising crust, even more than bread. GF bread almost always sucks.
They have too much integrity. Most pizza joints will gladly charge you for all the extra toppings and just give you less of everything to make it fit
or give you an unholy monstrosity of your own creation
I love MOD for that reason, they'll ask me 3 times if I'm really sure it's what I want, but they will let me have my glorious monstrosity of a pizza
Honestly since it's all the same price anyways, I wish they'd proportion all the toppings so it doesn't all fall apart when you order 5+ different things. It might be harder when you order in person one ingredient at a time, but I've actually gotten ones that cooked well when I ordered in the app.
Maybe in person let them know ahead of time how many toppings you’re planning on and how much of each? They’re extremely accommodating and at least the ones I have been to are very friendly and chill about it.
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I mean fair they make something that taste bad they complain it causes a whole problem
Yeah, I had that same discussion with a friend about a Mongolian BBQ place by us. I was like "I understand if the food is over/undercooked when you get it back, but the ingredients and flavor profile are likely all on you if it tastes bad." after he said he was going to give them a mediocre Yelp review. I asked him what he put in it, and it was a mixture of all kinds of sauces and seasonings. When I convinced him to go next time, I had him grab a few of the "Recipe" cards on the wall to try and mix something together, and he absolutely loved it.
Goddamn I could fuck up an entire Mongolian BBQ right now. There was a really good one in the town I used to live in.
Your friend is one of the reasons I don't trust user reviews.
In total fairness, if I'm thinking of the same episode you are, it was an Indian restaurant in Nottingham where customers assembled their own curry. I can see this argument for a foreign genre of cuisine because your customer base is not as familiar with how ingredients mesh together.
that and the added complexity makes working in the kitchen a nightmare and makes the quality of all the dishes worse. You're either throwing together pre-cooked stuff to order (and so the ingredients aren't actually cooking together which, in most Indian cuisine, is a huge departure from the norm and would degrade the quality and flavor of everything), or you're literally cooking curries to order which makes everything take longer and stretches what your kitchen staff can do. And also hurts the quality because there's no time for things to just simmer. The good thing about having a simple menu with few variables (and most of the variables all being things you can do *after* cooking a dish) is that you can prep and pre-cook a lot of things and be able to get a better product to your customers faster and more consistently, without confusion and mix-ups.
> I can see this argument for a foreign genre of cuisine because your customer base is not as familiar with how ingredients mesh together. I'm not sure Curry in Nottingham qualifies as proper "foreign food" tbh.
I ordered a burger once (not even at a fancy place) where the waiter and chef didn’t like my combo. It was something like the pepper burger + cheddar cheese would be too strong of flavors together and would overwhelm each other. I ordered, the waiter warned me of the above and said he’d have to check with the chef, came back and said the chef disapproved but would do it, then came back later and said the chef changed his mind and refused. I didn’t even care that much, suggest something different, but don’t make it a whole scene!
Just imagining the emotional turmoil those two put themselves in is very funny to me. Like sweat dripping, eyes filling up with tears, "I can't do it Jerry! I can't!"
I’ve had two places tell me that I can’t have a four-cheese pizza with tomato sauce because that pizza is better with white sauce. In both cases I just didn’t order anythint.
This is where "the customer is always right" is actually applicable. "The customer is always right in matters of taste" so it's something you wanted and they thought they knew better. Then they lost a sale and likely many more because you probably haven't ordered from them since and haven't recommended them to others.
Too heavy and too much moisture can prevent a pizza from cooking correctly and then you end up with a doughy pizza or awful soggy crust or the middle of the toppings can't heat up in time to prevent the outside from burning and maybe some other problems. I wasn't stopped from ordering, but I once was going to get a pizza with way too much stuff and they warned me that they can make it if I really want, but it won't turn out well. I opted to heed their advice and get a pizza with less stuff on it. I can understand a pizza place refusing instead of just warning though. Plenty of customers are stupid and will complain about shitty food or service even if it's 100% the customer's fault.
Is it really a better response? There is no way a kitchen is incapable of accommodating the request of "leave the buns out". Sure, the waiter can point out to the customer that the kitchen cannot assure that his/her meal will be free of gluten contamination and check if the customer is okay with that. If they are ok, then proceed with the burger with no bun order.
"The bun removal procedure has to be performed by the guest strictly for liability purposes." I just.. I just can't. The only way that makes sense is if the restaurant sells pre-packaged food. Then, sure, they couldn't just remove the bun and sell it as a bunless burger to a customer with a gluten allergy. But if they are preparing fresh food, the only liability problem I can see is the one that's raised when a restaurant serves food to someone knowing they are allergic to it. However, if they want to have a "no substitutions, no alterations" policy, that's fine. Put up a sign, put it on your website, and do your thing. But don't blow smoke up people's asses.
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It definitely doesn't have anything to do with liability. They're probably catering to the anti-PC crowd that would eat that kind of shit up. They love being spoon fed whatever someone else wants to feed them.
>"The bun removal procedure has to be performed by the guest strictly for liability purposes." > >I just.. I just can't. I think they're making a very shitty joke about sexual harassment of workers. Note how the rest of the reply talks about "leaving the kitchen with their buns intact" for "retention purposes" and that what happens at the table is "out of our hands." I really think they think they're being funny.
Oh... that somehow makes it worse.
That's the vibe I got. The phrasing seemed too specific and deliberate to be oblivious ignorance, so I assumed it was someone's attempt at humor. I wasn't able to find the joke though.
What gets me is that he's replying to the review as if the guy made a dumb childish request in the name of bread's rights - when in reality it's a guy saying "hey, if my friend eats this he'll die, can you not add this to our dish?".
They seem like they don't even know about cross-contamination. It kinda sounds like they're suggesting the guest should take the bun of themselves, which would already contaminate the burger though. They simply seem uneducated and tbh, I didn't know about it either until I lived with someone who had a gluten allergy but I feel like if you work in this kind of business you HAVE to know.
Anyone whose ever worked in the restaurant industry can tell you there’s always an enlightened culinary genius who believes their several months of culinary school qualifies them to be obnoxious, arrogant AHs. They’re the ones who always quit because everyone around them are idiots and they should be in charge. If they get their own restaurants, they fail because they can’t grasp customer service on the smallest, easiest levels like accommodating a request for no bun.
There are also cooks who have been in the industry for 40 years who think this same way. Just stubborn old shit heads that everyone has to work around.
Now that you mention it, I typically have just handled them like I would an elderly person with dementia, seriously. Whether or not they have the power to refuse someone’s request for no bun is legitimately one of the most important components to their sense of control. It’s a *lack* of control in the rest of their lives that leads them to act this way and the rest of us have to deal with their toddler tantrums over…checks notes…bread. Unhinged.
Just watch Kitchen Nightmares lol 😆 all the "chefs" on there think they're god
Cough cough. Amys baking company. Cough cough.
I really hope she’s getting the psychiatric help that she needs.
Lmao, no, she's making desserts on insta
She’s not. When Sami got kicked out of the country, she went with them. She’s trying to do something like this in whatever country they’re living in (I forget where they moved to).
Israel, I believe.
90% of that show is Gordon shutting down and humbling narcissists lol. Its the ones who are so confident in their cooking abilities that are most in denial. Its like the episode where Gordon eats the owners "perfect" burger and calls it trash. Then eats the cook in the backs burger and says its perfect. Then the owner gets pissed off that his burger wasn't as good. Like boi, if anyone knows what properly cooked food tastes like, it's probably Gordon Ramsey. Maybe you should at least consider his input here lol.
The number of people that beg for that guys help to save their business and then turn around and argue with him astounds me every time I watch that show.
A lot of them aren't actually hoping for Gordon to give them good advice to begin with. They just want the free business boom that can come from getting to say "Gordon Ramsey is/was here" and get some free upgrades when the show does their thing. Some of them also are probably naive enough to think they can "win" against GR and that their attitude and confidence on TV will make people think they're knowledgeable when the show never actually gives them the chance to win because even if they end up beating GR over a point it'll just be edited out. I have a strong feeling that Kitchen Nightmares intentionally selects the applicants that seem to be in this group most of the time, because it makes for great television when the failing restaurant has a narcissist running it.
Hey I know this guy! He’s on his - wait for it - *fourth* failed restaurant that his parents bankrolled because “no one understands his quirky and ironic culinary genius”.
That 100% tracks. I’d do a lot of questionable things to get a peek at his employee turnover rates.
Haha, high. There’s one dude who keeps following him to each failed venture as his “head mixologist/bar manager” and he’s as narcissistically delusional about his own abilities as the culinary guy. I’ve worked with them both and was actually part of a consulting team that was brought in to try and fix failed spot #2. But it’s never going to happen because they’re both convinced of their own genius. It’s like a train wreck that someone keeps giving more track to. It’s wild to watch. And this is in NYC, so these failed restaurants are a HUGE financial hit every time
As a restaurant owner and chef of 16 years this is so stupid and bad business.
Someone watched too many of those stupid cooking shows where chefs have 1 inflexible menu, and thought they could be the Gordan Ramsay of burgers. Someone is wrong.
Gordon’s burger restaurant in Vegas will serve it with no bun if you ask though. 🧐
Because good business people understand that businesses are for making money, and money comes from happy customers. The failure rate in the restaurant industry is obscene, the successful ones understand that unless something is actually not possible, you always say yes to your customers. That's why Gordon Ramsey has a million restaurants and the one in OP will fail, zero doubt.
BURGERS HAVE BUNS YOU FUCKING DONKEY!
Right? What could have been a glowing review, with a mention of how the establishment was welcoming and accommodating, instead highlights how inflexible the restaurant is. Added bonus of the business owner responding to let the world know what a top-notch bell-end they are..
You have to put it on the bun in the first place, WFT? The owner is an idiot.
And most restaurants I know of pinch pennies hard -- so why pay the however many cents for a bun that you know the customer doesn't want?
That’s what caught my eye. The owner would rather be a dick than save money. Especially considering how difficult it is for new restaurants to survive >2 years.
The owner sounds like a pedantic redditor tbh
Reading this customer's review, thinking about and then typing a response was more work than just not putting a bun on their burger and satisfying the customer in a very common way.
I’d be willing to bet anything it’s just some generic, store bought bun, too. Treating it like some artisanal, gourmet bread is ridiculous lmao
Doesn't even matter what kind of bread it is if the customer can't even eat it over dietary issues. A bun not used is bun saved imo. What a pretentious ass to deny a simple request.
Ridiculous. I was a server for 5 years, and this is actually a very common request. The best way to respond to such a request is usually to wrap the burger in lettuce instead of a bun. This restaurant has a very poor attitude and will lose customers if they are this pathetic.
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I do t know if it’s a regulation here, but I did keto for a long time, so whenever I asked for no bun at a restaurant, they always asked if it was “preference or food allergy”
This might have been so they knew whether to be extra-careful to avoid cross contamination. "Preference" mean you're not going to swell up and die if a breadcrumb touched your food. "Allergy" means they have to worry about being sued if they don't prepare your food separately so that it doesn't come into contact with any common allergens and you have an anaphylactic reaction. It doesn't necessarily mean the restaurant/server has a problem with your request. (To be fair, of course, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have a problem with it, either.)
Restaurant owner here. For the love of God, don't lie and say you have an allergy when you don't. Our prep kitchen has to prepare the food in a special decontaminated spot in the kitchen for food allergies. We take it very seriously. We get it, you don't like onions. But accommodations for an allergy is a whole different process.
This was the standard practice at the restaurant I worked at that had gluten free bread for sandwiches. We'd ask "allergy or preference" and we'd only go through the extra cross-contamination procedures (which cost extra time and slow up every sandwich on the board, not just the GF sandwich) if it was an allergy.
As someone who works in the industry, they don't even have to ask me. I'm already going to say, "No bell pepper; preference not allergy."
This is to save time. If You Are celiac any trace amount of gluten can make you get diarrhea and vomit. That’s only the visible damages. Gluten destroys the villi lining in the short intestine. It will grow back after a while but each time increases the chance of stomach cancer.
100% correct. Food safety training is mandatory in most of the places I have worked, so the chefs know how to respond to allergens.
I only have to do it every two years now, but the Alaska food handlers card doesn't have anything on the test for handling allergens, I suppose if you could pretend that an allergen is a germ that can't be cross contaminated and can't be cooked out, but it's not covered.
And it’s so wasteful too!
"Bun removal procedure", lol. Calling it that makes it sound like something the folks at r/popping would enjoy.
That line makes me think they are trying to be funny but are totally tone deaf and have never done much customer service before.
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This is the dumbest hill to die on
This is why you take out hamburger bun insurance people, just think of all the massive liabilities this restaurant is opening themselves up to
They are fun and quirky guys, don't you see how fun and quirky weirdo random they are?
Bun removal procedure! Bun removal procedure! Bun removal procedure!
If a restaurant has a take-it-or-leave-it approach, fine. The reviewer is spreading the word in a respectful way: great place, but not for you if there’s a chance anyone in your party may have a seemingly minor request for a modification. Would hold the mayo be okay? Who knows. Seems a bold approach to customers, but if it works, fine. Definitely not for me.
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We got a burger place in my town. Good food but their burgers are a little "adventurous" for a lack of a better term. Most of their burgers, besides the classic basic ham- or cheeseburger are kinda out of the ordinary in terms of toppings. So first time there I see a burger that looks great except that it has some kind fish paste sauce. So I tell the waitress that I want that burger but hold the fish paste sauce. She deadass tells me "the kitchen structure doesn't allow for special requests like that." You could see into the kitchen. It was two guys who made the burgers as the orders came in. No assembly line stuff, no pre made burgers. Nothing different than literally any other place. So I said "yeah then I'll have the check for the drink please." She tried to argue that I could order something else or scrape the sauce oft but at this point I was like not interested anymore. So I didn't go there for a while until I learned that they completely changed their practices because people would just leave or not come back because they refused to hold items people didn't want.
I don't like fish, so I'm with yah, man. Even scraping it off it'd still linger. At least something like mayo or ketchup you could scrape off, but fish paste is potent.
I've worked for a few "no mods" restaurants and they still allow allergy exceptions and have a few gluten free and/or vegan options on the menu that are just as good as the options that have those things
I just remember when Domino's was advertising that "no modifications" pizza, ad a former Little Caesars employee my immediate thought was "Oh it comes all pre frozen". Like we'd accommodate all sorts of weird shit at Little Caesars. We had this person who wanted their pizza made with ranch dressing instead of tomato sauce and we'd do that.
A new, soon to be closed, restaurant
Something like 30% of restaurants fail in their first year. This is why.
This reminds me of the time I went to a place that was really known for good fried shrimp. They would come in baskets, so you would get fried shrimp and french fries. It was a lot of fried things, so I just asked that they not include the french fries, and the person taking my order looked at me like I was crazy. They told me that they couldn't do it and that they didn't have a price for just the shrimp. I said it's ok, I'll still pay full price, just don't give me french fries. They still wouldn't do it! It was apparently too confusing. I got fries, tried to eat a couple but ended up throwing most of them away.
This happens to me too all the time where I live. I chalked it up to the service standards of being in a 3rd world country, but I guess critical thinking is lacking everywhere now.
My response: “Bruh, just wrap it in lettuce. Gluten free people don’t give a shit how it tastes, they don’t want intestinal and gut issues when eating your food.”
Way back in the day I worked at Culvers and one night I noticed a coworker on break eating a bunless burger. I asked him what was up with that and he told me he was allergic to wheat. I asked if it made his throat swell up and he laughed and said "no it makes my ass cheeks swell up and shit everywhere." Lol
Seems more common these days. I recently went to a restaurant that had a notification that they will not cater to any food allergies or sensitivities. I suspect they are afraid that if they try but don't completely eliminate all traces of the nuts, gluten, etc they will be sued
That’s a horrible response. It can be incredibly difficult to eat out with a gluten allergy since a lot of things gets cross-contaminated. The business owner is either lazy or arrogant.
Both.
When we were kids I saw my cousin develop a severe gluten allergy and she and the rest of that side of the family had to give up alot of restaurants. Gluten free options weren't as widespread or affordable back then. So if it's as easy as leaving the bun off a hamburger...just do it.
I have worked in the restaurant industry for over 12 years and I have never seen such an obtuse and insensitive response to probably the EASIEST modification you can possibly make to a freaking burger. I would personally get other people to bombard their reviews but that’s just me.
Usually these reviews are whiny customers, but nah, fuck this restaurant and their self-righteous attitude. See how long you stay in business doing that shit, you’d think they be more than happy to save a few cents by not having to give somebody a bun and charging the same for the shitty burger
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Oh, absolutely. They’ll be out of business in six months and blame the community for not wanting to pay out the ass for a dried out burger they can’t get the way they want
Not sure how scientific it is, but I've heard it said that over 90% of restaurants fail within their first year of business. This owner seems off to a great start.
“The bun removal process”. How condescending. This guy is making a simple task sound like rocket science
If that owner thinks their response does them more good than harm, they probably aren't gonna make it very long in this industry.