Nodno L.
Yelp
This place is right next to our movie theater so we sometimes go in for a drink prior to a movie.
This time around, it was a later movie, and we hadn't eaten, so we ordered some fries and onion rings so as to not hurl an alcoholic drink in on an empty stomach. Busy day, and neither of us had eaten...
We gave the usual mention that we have a nut allergy in our situation. Seemed like it had been heard... All good.
Drinks were fine... Food seemed fresh, and came with three unspecified dipping sauces. We assumed they were the usual range of chipotle honey ketchup ranch 'aioli' fusions you usually get.
It wasn't until we were in the movie theater, watching trailers when my girlfriend said she felt unwell and needed us to leave and so off we went...
We got home, and prior to using an expensive and evening ending epipen, I called through to them.
Whoever picked up the phone went away to find out. They specified that there were walnuts in one of the sauces. None of them were advertised on the menu as coming with sauces. To note, they were very honest, and not unfriendly.
The fact that they didn't know immediately, and weren't sure, is exactly why it happened in the first place.
I work in the food industry.
Having nuts in anything is risky at the best of times, but handing them out unspecified, is quite literally madness. It just doesn't happen. It is THAT dangerous.
The reason she felt safe in even trying the sauces is because nobody does this without stressing there's nuts in the food. It is a complete, and solid standard... None of the menu's said what these sauces were, in fact they don't say they come with sauces at all.
If you're going to stray into the realms of allergen usage and away from norms, you have to specify what they are, because they all looked like the usual thing you'd expect, and the expectation is that they are then on the safe side of the spectrum, and that is exactly why you haven't listed them.
Please don't do that, guys. You can seriously unalive people.
Adrenaline shots and ER visits are very expensive and weekend ruining.
The industry standard is, don't use nuts for basically no reason. It's a very big problem waiting to happen. They haunt both a kitchen and the cook's job, and generally cross contaminate, and pollute everything if extreme measures are not taken to keep them away from everything else.
There are very few things recipe-wise, that are so stunning that they're worth risking the life threatening implications of anonymously giving them out, unspecified. Especially at a burger restaurant.
Not to be dramatic, but here's a picture of the epipen. Retail value 344 dollars that we used that night.
Really happy she didn't go into anaphylactic shock, which she has experienced before... Very unhappy that they put us in this expensive and dangerous situation that hints at poor communication at a restaurant in general.
The thing about nut allergies is you can push eating out to safe places. You tend to avoid middle eastern restaurants, and perhaps genuine Asian restaurants, as so many items to contain nuts as a very staple ingredient.
Burger places, not so much...
Unfortunately, nut allergies are not a trendy once in a blue moon situation you can group with made up diet trend allergies. It's not that uncommon and you can really hurt people.