An allergy notification card I received on one of the busiest nights in December.
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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Dang. It sucks to say, but you made the right call.
Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Legumes, Seeds, *and* Pit Fruits is one hell of an allergy cocktail.
It’s like trying to disarm explosives.
I just wish the card was organized better – chickpea and lentil and pea protein are here, but peas are WAYYY AT THE END? come on. Nuts and peanuts should be near legumes also. Shellfish should begin the list, gluten after, sesame and flax next, nuts and legumes next, and then all the fruits in one stack.
Sesame Flaxseed **All Shellfish Gluten All Tree-nuts**
Peanut Peas Pea protein Lentils Chickpeas
Cherry Plum Peach Kiwifruit Mango
Better organization increases readability and increases the ability for someone to understand “oh, here are all the fruits, here are all the legumes and possible protein sources, and here is gluten and a bunch of other shit” done
EDIT: Also probably make some of them **Bold**, when theyre very important
I have a friend (who has a nasty cocktail of intolerances, although it’s not this serious) who ordered an _allergy meal_ in Japan and they tell the tale to this day of the restaurant that got their “allergy meal” bags out of the freezer, boiled them while sealed in the plastic bags, brought the bags to the table, and opened them (curry and rice) right there at the table over a clean plate.
The flavor was very spartan but they were pleased at how safe it felt.
You did the right thing.
I don’t know if you’ll see this OP, but as a person with severe food allergies I respect your decision to say that you cannot safely accommodate them and thank you for your honesty. I would much rather have a food service worker consider the risk to my wellbeing and say that it isn’t safe to eat here today, rather than just be told what I want to hear. Thank you!
Why do people not call ahead of time with this amount of allergies, one or two is feasible to work around but when your producing a list it’s unreasonable at this time of year
Let me just change my fryer oil real quick for yoy
Perfectly reasonable to deny service. As someone with celiac I’m very happy to find a place that’s not crazy busy and can actually accomodate me rather than a place that will make me sick because they don’t have capacity to do all the finicky things involved with accommodating food allergies. I also try phone ahead or go to places that I know are safe especially during busy times.
Had to give a similar response to someone once. They were deathly allergic to tomatoes and didn’t have an epipen with them. When they came in I was in the middle of preparing a batch of tomato sauce and assembling a couple pans of lasagna. Needless to say I couldn’t safely prepare their food so i refused to serve them.
LPT for people with severe allergies, call ahead at least a day and arrange with the chef what you would like to have. This gives us time to prepare and store your meal away from allergens before the entire kitchen becomes contaminated. I don’t mind accommodating allergies or specific diets if possible, but I am not going to stop service for the rest of the restaurant to cater to one person. Especially if you indicate that you will die if exposed.
Two things.
1. People with allergies that are as wide as this and know well enough to have an allergy card like this. Should also know they can’t just walk into any restaurant and dump this truckload of restrictions on them. You know if you are going out. It’s not that hard to call beforehand and notify the restaurant and give them the allergies and see if the visit is feasible. Clearly this wasn’t done and they expected this would be okay on a busy night.
It’s not.
I don’t mean we should keep people with special requirements from living a good life. But this is like walking into a bar and asking for a baby seat. It’s not really reasonable.
2. Do people not know how time consuming it is to change fry oil? Nevermind the cost.
Don’t go asking for clean fry oil in the deepfryer. It’s not going to happen. Don’t ask. A kitchen isn’t going to cool down a fryer and dump 50+ litres of good oil, clean the thing out, refill it and heat it all back up. That happens after close if you are lucky.
As a lawyer, you did the right thing
If I had this many allergies, I would contact any restaurant I was going to the day before to figure out what I could eat there.
People with multiple allergies deserve to enjoy their meal in comfort as much as anyone else, but they need to take some responsibility for making it happen instead of dumping it on an overworked kitchen.
You made a good call, not worth the risk. Z bit on them too, i have a son with allergies but just don´t go to crowded places where they are not equipped to handle this…
Or i just get him some Fries while the rest can eat what they want
I feel for the customer and know it’s not their fault, but if you tell a restaurant they need fresh fryer oil and it’s the middle of the rush you’re fucking high.
I’m not going one fryer short while I’m in the weeds, *simultaneously* putting new oil in while getting more in the weeds, and then letting the oil heat up just for one, maybe two aspects of this persons meal.
If we’re not busy I’ll do everything I can, but trying to do all that is too risky when busy.
“The water fountain is out by the salad bar.”
I am allergic to lots of nuts and soja. Mostly in raw condition. My brother too and he had an anaphilactic shock as a child. As long as it seems logic I dont have a problem with preparing food for them.
But ffs, just inform us with your reservation and not when you are already seated.
Also when they are gluten sensitive and order a lava cake for dessert I get angry. So many ppl are so uneducated on their own condition. Like lactose intolerance and especially gluten.
“clean frying oil” is crazy work. Yeah sure bud, I’ll just stop everything so I can completely empty the fryer, clean it, and then replace it with fresh oil just for you! I think people don’t understand how restaurants work.
Obviously sucks for them and good on them for having such a clear card prepared but I still fail to understand why people with such complex allergies don’t call ahead to book/advise/check? It must make eating out a complete crapshoot for them..
That was the right thing to do. That person really ought not be in a restaurant on a busy night, at least without calling ahead.
That list is so bad it makes me doubt its veracity. Because if it’s true and they’re still going to eat in restaurants (and they are because they had this card and felt confident giving it to a server and not talking to the kitchen directly) then they’d be dead–or close to it–already.
Sorry you had to stop what you were doing to try and figure out that cluster fuck.
I’m a Chef with 34 years in the business. I have developed severe food allergies in the past 15 years. You made the right call . Anyone with allergies appreciates honesty over a trip to the hospital from a failed attempt.
Allergy sufferer here. You played it right. I NEVER expect any kitchen except my own to be as careful as me. This person is delusional.
“Thanks for letting me know. Unfortunately I unable to serve you due to cross contamination risks. Have a great night!”
**EDIT:** just saw that you posted the story with the pic, and yeah, sometimes it’s the right call.
As someone with 25 allergies (Tho’ not all of them are that dangerous) you did the right thing. Whenever I do really want to eat somewhere like a fine dining or simply a place I’ve been looking to try, I just make sure to add a note when booking my table, not last minute. If randomly I gotta go somewhere with friends, I will just stick to things I know they’re safe, point my main allergies and ask if it’s possible. If it is not, not their fault.
At this point… it’s easier to list exactly what two things you CAN eat, I swear.
Don’t go to restaurants if you’ve got this many issues. Maybe call ahead, but you can’t just show up and hand people a card.
If you have that many food allergies then you NEED to call in ahead of time to make sure that the restaurant can properly prepare food in a safe manner. Can’t expect them to accommodate your specific needs by showing up on the spot with an allergy card. Rough to have that many allergies though. Feel for them.
This is ridiculous. Restaurants should always deny service because it is a huge liability & the individual handing out the cards is putting your business & livelihood at risk. 🤦🏻‍♀️
If their allergies are this severe, they either check the menu beforehand & pick something that can be consumed or cook at home. Don’t make it someone else’s problem.
And how rude of the Caution! section. Make sure you are clean for me! 🤔
So I am severely allergic to shellfish and I can’t eat from the same pans that have cooked shellfish. If this person is THAT allergic, they’re still putting their life at risk
If there’s rock fruits, shouldn’t all of them be listed? 🤔
to the community, genuine question from someone with no allergies who ADORES food – when someone like this comes in, what is the best course of action? I see some good explanations in the comments here, but should people who have severe allergies like this really expect that they can walk in anywhere and get a full-up meal AND enjoy the experience a chef can provide a person? I don’t meant to sound exclusionary, but is there a way to circumvent this so people with severe allergies can enjoy food out like people without them? And also, how do chefs/kitchen personnel feel about getting these cards, across the board? Genuinely curious. I think it if were me, I might be frustrated. Especially on a busy night.
I would feel zero guilt about immediately denying this person service even on a slow day.
I would tell them to go somewhere else
I have a good friend with a similarly long list of very serious allergens. She calls the restaurant the day before during non service hours to check if they can accommodate her. Saves a lot of time and hassle
And why they think it’s feasible to just…change out the fryer oil for them midshift is infuriating. I’ve had so many people try to tell me to tell the kitchen to change out the fryer oil for them…like honey how long do you and everyone else in the restaurant want to wait for food?? That’s at least an hour or more operation and then I’ve got to excuse at least 2 cooks to do it, so nothing unfried is getting made either. Are you gonna stand up and explain to the entire place why they have to wait 2 hours for food now?
It’s always better to potentially ruin someone’s night than it is to risk their life. You made the right call.
So this is when “we ask them politely yet firmly to leave” is applied.
Hot take: I assume anyone who prints something like this is only begging for attention, since anyone with actual allergies will talk to the restaurant beforehand (as many other comments have said) instead of showing up and trying to “gotcha” the staff like this
Good call!! Never take that chance
Define “small amounts.” Are we talking one stray molecule floating in the air? Or one sesame seed? Or a drop of cherry juice? Not gonna take this risk.
No you phone ahead with that sort of bullshit. Had someone today demand all egg and dairy free. FOH kept coming in asking for specialised meals. I said you know what… tell them no. If they had organised prior sure. Not a walk in when I have 80 dockets backed up.
I currently work at a bakery in a destination town for boating, hunting, skiing. You can always tell when we have a lot of out of towners because we get an influx of people asking if we have anything that is gluten free, nut free, dairy free, egg free.
That’s fine to ask but we don’t advertise as an allergy safe kitchen, in certain custom orders, like for weddings we will do gluten friendly cakes or specific things where we can plan time to sanitize things really well and make it safe but still let out customers know its only gluten friendly because there is just flour following throughout the building.
So when they just pop into town and are annoyed they came to a bakery and 95% of our product has egg, 100% of our products have gluten, etc it’s a hard no from me about if it’s safe for those people to try our stuff, I feel bad im not purposely excluding them but we have a lot of allergens in our kitchen and I’d rather you be annoyed and safe than have a reaction of any kind.
We still have a duty to be knowledgeable about our food to the point that if it’s unsafe we should make the hard call to deny service, it’s unfortunate but a reality if you have any integrity. I wanna feed people not make them sick or kill them!
They really shouldn’t have ordered the Oyster Fruit Salad.
I’m surprised they didn’t call before hand. That was really rude of them and incredibly poor planning. I have quite a few food sensitivities and will become extremely ill if I eat onions. I like to dine with my friend who is celiac. We will call in advance to ensure we can eat even if it’s 3 PM on a Tuesday. It’s just called common courtesy.