To all you sugar-free, dairy-free, wheat-free fake celiacs from South Beach, please stop coming to my cafe. I know it’s trendy in Seattle to be healthy, and even trendier to be gluten-free, but don’t come to a fucking sandwich and crepe shop and
expect us to have multiple options for you. When I ask, “Are you allergic or are you wheat-free by choice?” don’t be a smart-ass and ask me, “Does it matter?” YES, IT FUCKING MATTERS! YOU CAN DIE! We had one customer who carried an EpiPen around with him, he was that allergic to wheat. It was a pain in the ass trying to find something for him to eat, but he’s lived with the allergy all his life and was not even half as entitled and narcissistic as all you health freaks. I’m sorry our crepes are made out of flour and our wheat bread is full of wheat, but I don’t know what you were expecting. Also, stop giving me shitty tips because we don’t have anything that works for your self-inflicted diet. I’m just a fucking waitress and have no control over the menu. Go find a PCC. The employees there are better trained to deal with your bullshit.
I, Anonymous
WARNING: WHEAT MAY CONTAIN WHEAT
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The core problem here is that no one gives a shit about anyone else anymore. You’re all a bunch of selfish assholes who think the world should cater to you, but you shouldn’t have to cater to anyone else. Have a little respect for people who have shitty health, because you won’t be young and healthy forever.
In an area filled with pizza and crepes and sandwiches, sometimes a celiac ends up in a place where it’s going to be hard for them to find something to eat. If you’re tired of fielding questions, here’s an idea – print the fucking ingredients on the menu. Many places already mark items with a “GF” or “DF”. It’s not the end of the world, whiners.
Slowclap @62.
I hate all of the fake, self-imposed celiacs with a passion. But then again, their over abundance has made a lot more options available. More websites and info, more things on store shelves, better ingredient listings, etc. Basic supply and demand I guess.
Oh, and to all the BS “natural selection” chest beaters, if this was the stone age, or a Cormac McCarthy armageddon, I’d just eat you. And then I’d pass my genes on to your wife.
Employers anticipate servers getting paid in tips (they also tip out portions of that 15-20% to non-server help – bar-backs, hostesses, etc). Most servers only know a little more than what is printed on the menu as far as ingredients in a dish go *SO* if you want specifics, as with people with genuine allergies, you’ll have to speak with a chef (or at least someone who made the food…seriously). Maybe you don’t want to seem like that big of a P.I.T.A. to anyone other than the server for not going to a restaurant that advertises options that cater to your wants/needs, but that’s how it is… $9/hr + tip doesn’t make anyone turn into a human computer that memorizes menus which can change daily. ALSO, snapping at the server does little for the overall products being offered. You will actually have to talk to people who make real decisions about the menu options rather than getting bitchy with someone who has little to do with them.
@29 – I hear ya on that…
@100: No, the real reason we tip is cos no one in their right mind would work a service industry job for $8.25 and hour. Also, any less than 20% and your server will still hate you even if you don’t ask stupid questions about gluten and then decide to eat it anyway even though I have no fucking clue whether there’s fucking gluten in it or not.
The reason it matters whether someone is wheat-free by choice or is a true celiac patient is this–if you have celiac disease a tiny amount (a few molecules) of gluten can trigger a response. If you’ve self-diagnosed a gluten intolerance you may not have a problem with a stray few molecules. It is almost impossible to serve truly gluten free food in any kitchen which also contains gluten-containing foods.
Word. I can’t stand the people who are “a little celiac.” Celiac Sprue is a DISEASE that you either HAVE your you DON’T.
You can’t have a little Lupus or a just a smidge of Multiple Sclerosis. You have them or you don’t. Symptoms may vary, but no one has “a little celiac.”
It’s like everyone wants some interesting and unique thing about them that they are required to parade in front of everyone every time they eat or walk out the door. Stop it. You’re making people who actually suffer with the disease look like assholes, and they don’t deserve that.
Oh, as a server, there is a TOTAL difference between the honest to God allergies and the “some celebrity/trendy diet told me it was healthy… so I don’t eat _____ and I expect you to cater immediately to my OCD eating disorder.” There was a lady who was allergic to anything in the onion family. When she would come to an event, she would identify herself IMMEDIATELY, and let the host of the event know WELL BEFORE HAND that she required a special meal. She was always grateful that we accommodated her, and thankful for having a meal. Since it’s catering, occasionally meals for folks with allergies don’t get order (like someone’s a plus one or whatever, gets lost, ect) and the folks WITH MEDICAL ISSUES ask politely, are willing to wait until everyone else is served, and aren’t total d-bags if we just don’t have anything.
The folks who have decided that ______ will now definitely kill you, only fat people eat ______, and I’m living a healthier lifestyle now? They fucking suck. Like when Atkins was trendy, and they would have a pizza buffet for the students, and some asshat would walk through, grab 12 slices of pizza and eat only the cheese and meat, throwing away the crust, and leaving the people at the end of the line pizzaless? Or the dumb twat who sits down to an off premise event 45 minutes away from the kitchen and announces she’s a VEH-gan (how she pronounced it.) Yeah, you’re shit out of luck, dipshit. Or the broad who sits down to a $50/plate dinner and announces that she doesn’t eat dairy, sugar or whatthefuckever else as the salad is being placed in front of her? Guess you’re gonna be hungry then.
I don’t think iAnon is against the people with real medical issues, who have been doing this long enough to realize that they are more likely to get what they want if they are nice, and are also smart enough to figure out that some places are able to accommodate them and some aren’t. S/he’s after the asshats who wake up one day and decide that they’re on this freaky ass diet, and demand that everyone from their restaurant to their in-laws cave to their dumb ass diet.
@54. Yes.
Lifelong peanut/legume allergy. I am bitter that gluten-free is trendy. Recently I have heard from friends:
“I’m going gluten-free to lose weight.”
“When I eat bread I get sleepy and lethargic.”
My understanding is people with REAL celiac can’t…eat. So, way to undermine appreciation of for-real gluten intolerance and allergy. And all other food allergies, for that matter.
When will Seattle go peanut- and soy-free for their “health” and I can be trendy too??
Any lifelong Epi-Pen carrying allergic knows how to treat waitstaff, and knows what kind of food-serving establishments to avoid. Thanks to Anonymous for making that distinction.
Actually – No, it doesn’t matter because if someone asks for wheat free food then you should either give it to them or tell them you can’t help them, not make some internal judgment call about how appropriate you think their diet choices are. Do you feed the vegetarians meat products too, because their lifestyle is a choice and it’s not like a little meat will kill them?
LOL! I love you, anonymous.
p.s. I thought peanuts were legumes…
Here’s the difference, and here’s why it matters:
As waitstaff I ask you: is it an allergy or preference? I am mentally calculating whether you can safely eat at my establishment. I may have to tell you that I cannot guarantee your safety, because of the way our food is prepared, and I have the right to know whether you could keel over and die if we’re not careful enough.
If you are deathly allergic, I will launch myself and the kitchen into a twenty minute mission to make sure that everything about your food has nothing to do with the allergen. I will go get plates from the back room, I will sanitize my hands within an inch of their lives to prevent cross-contamination, and the kitchen will reorder their entire kitchen (new knives/cook on a separate grill/chop on a separate board/prepare you an entirely different salad. If you merely DO NOT WANT garlic in your food, that is totally fucking different, and I will not send the kitchen into red alert/paranoia mode…I will simply tell the chef ‘no garlic’.
Also, as your waiter, I found I knew way more about people’s allergies than sometimes they did. IE the celiac who ordered asian food and reached for the soy sauce…I quickly brought him celiac soy sauce (which is effing expensive) because there are very trace amounts of wheat in your run of the mill soy sauce. I think as a waiter, I have the right to know if you have a chance of dropping dead from the food I’m going to be serving you. And no, I cannot put the kitchen into such high amounts of alert for everyone who asks a substitution. We have the right to reserve special measures for the people who die.
Also, this paranoia is ridiculous. My friend is now banned from sending her kids to school with FREE-nut butter sandwiches (a paste specifically made to taste similar to peanut butter without any peanuts) because the APPEARANCE of a brownish substance on bread might send a child sitting close into a PSYCHOSOMATIC reaction. Even if she food dyes it blue, the school board isn’t budging. That’s fucked.
My sister is dairy-free and gluten-free by choice and it’s the most obnoxious, annoying thing ever. Going to restaurants with her is terrible. She gives the server her whole life story. If asked if she’d like any dessert, she’ll tell the waitress, “I can’t eat anything on this menu”, in an almost holier-than-thou fashion. Soooooo brutal. How am I related to this person???
Hey, 116. Thanks for giving a shit! Where do you work!?
To the rest: you wait tables. Get used to the bullshit. It NEVER STOPS.
MrB,
Right on. Seriously.
I, too, hail from that mythical bygone era of yore – aka, growing up in the 70s – and can remember a time when the twin vice clamps of “Health & Safety” and “For The Children” had not yet completely closed on American culture.
I feel sorry for kids today, truly I do. They have no idea what they’ve missed. When I compare my quite unexceptional suburban childhood to how I see kids being raised today – the absolute mania for protection, hygiene and surveillance – I feel like Conan the fucking Barbarian. With peanuts.
My husband’s grandfather is actually a Celiac. Gluten makes him very ill. We make stuff out of rice flour and cornmeal and stuff for him, and it takes a lot of work, but we’re happy to do it for his health.
I have friends who don’t eat dairy or wheat or red meat because they’ve heard those things are bad for you. Then they insist on going to lots of restaurants and yelling at waiters.
The two situations I describe are different. The first person has a health problem, and the second group of people are just obnoxious.
@116…about the prohibition on FAKE peanut butter… OMFG! You’re right, that’s fucked up!
As for the rest of your post, I wish I knew where you worked so that I could dine there when I visit Seattle- I have no special needs or restrictions but I ADORE attentive, kind servers who actually take some pride in a perfectly honorable profession. (I promise, the only special requests I’m apt to make are for extra hollandaise or dressing on the side)
Actual order: “I’d like fresh caught salmon grilled with no butter oil or salt. (This sticks to the grill) I’d like a baked potato with no butter, oil or salt. I’d like broccoli steamed with no butter oil or salt. And to drink I’ll have a White Zinfandel.”
@121, thank you. There’s concern and then there’s paranoia.
Thanks, but I’m actually Canadian, and I don’t wait tables anymore, I teach ESL. ^__^
@ Caralain… So, now I’m curious- are the “peanut butter police” in a Canadian or a US school district? Not that it really matters- it’s a crock on either side of the border.
I feel a turd crowning.
Must’ve been the Big Mac I had this evening.
I hate trendy fad diets as much as anyone, which is what made adopting a GF diet so hard for me. I’m not food paranoid, and I know that a small amount isn’t going to kill me. However, frequently eating wheat DOES give me terrible migraines, sometimes on a daily basis, in addition to the rash and nausea. What this person is complaining about is an asshole customer, not someone whose dietary restrictions don’t need to be justified.
Canadian.
I think people should treat each other with some level of respect. I agree that if you have an allergy that you should only support businesses that offer gluten free and such. These places are willing to go the extra mile especially in this economy and ever demanding gluten free market. Businesses that don’t offer gluten free will be the ones to suffer where 20% of the Seattle population eats gluten free. Here’s a great read “The Answer” at dogtorj.net
I think people should treat each other with some level of respect. I agree that if you have an allergy that you should only support businesses that offer gluten free and such. These places are willing to go the extra mile especially in this economy and ever demanding gluten free market. Businesses that don’t offer gluten free will be the ones to suffer where 20% of the Seattle population eats gluten free. Here’s a great read “The Answer” at dogtorj.net
There is nothing more annoying that someone with a restrictive self-imposed diet who doesn’t know how to cook but acts like lord of the manor when they go out to eat.
Everyone I know with a serious food allergy limits their eating out, makes careful choices and hopes for the best, or asks very politely to remove/ID the trouble ingredient.
Also, there are people out there with particular diets that are not a$$holes, you just wouldn’t know because like me, they just accept that restaurant food is not going to be as they would like, but they eat it and enjoy it anyway. It’s called being normal.
What if eating wheat makes you sick but you’re at the sandwich shop with a group of friends who wanted to go there. And you don’t need an epipen, but eating wheat will give you the runs? Ever think abut that?
All I can say to you people-whiners is you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. If you deal with gut-rumbling smelliness as a result of that “non-dairy creamer” being sourced from Bessie the cow, you’ll see what I mean.
Cain’t make no friends when you’re all stinky-pantsed.
In fact, I get rather disgusted with myself when I break world records for farting as a result of having milk in my coffee.
To those who decry the lost of civility in public discourse: you’ll be treated with dignity and respect when you’ve earned it, you sniveling retards.