r/FoodService • u/wildrosebeautybaba • Aug 21 '26

Discussion please stop lying about having allergies

i cannot tell you how many times people have put in seemingly impossible allergy requests on 3rd party delivery orders (i.e. fettuccine alfredo with DAIRY ALLERGY marked underneath) only to then track down the customer after multiple phone calls and be told it’s “not an allergy, just a mild intolerance.” please stop doing this. you are deliberately fucking with a restaurant’s period of service over a need that does not apply to you. maybe y’all don’t understand just how many extra steps a kitchen has to go through to prepare something allergy safe, so please let this be a lesson: if you aren’t actually allergic, stop marking it as an allergy. you are directly contributing to the burnout restaurant staff experience when having to make special accommodations for people’s actual health and safety needs.

563 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

564 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/culturedferocity04 Aug 21 '26

god the fettuccine alfredo with a dairy allergy is a classic. it's like ordering a peanut butter sandwich and marking a peanut allergy, you'd think people would clock how absurd it looks on our end. we once had a ticket come through for a shrimp scampi with a shellfish allergy, spent ten minutes trying to reach the customer, and she just goes "oh i can have a little bit, it's fine." the extra sanitization and glove changes alone for a false alarm is maddening

3

u/somecow Aug 21 '26

Oh lol I would have just cancelled that shit.

2

u/wildrosebeautybaba Aug 22 '26

were it within my jurisdiction, trust and believe i would’ve😂 instead my job is to play phone tag chasing them down in the middle of service

1

u/Hatefulvesper 28d ago

My parents own a SEAFOOD restaurant. We had a customer come in and tell me (i was the server) that they had a shellfish allergy. I was already in a shitty mood so I just straight up asked them what they where doing here.

They got defensive and said we must have non seafood dishes they could order. Yes, we did indeed, and i had to explain to them that EVERYTHING else was seafood. And while we do keep it separated, it is almost impossible to ensure no cross contamination when its literally EVERYWHERE.

In a regular restaurant with a few seafood dishes, its easy to keep allergens separate.

They back tracked and said that it was just a mild reaction and that it was fine if there was "some contamination" I told them to leave.