Disappointed with Allergy Menus

We saw this coming. At least once a week we all see posts from various people who want to tell teh servers taht tehy suffer from some food borne allergy so they can have special meals created for them at any given restaurant. Who goes to a buffet and insists on a special meal? For instance, a woman posted that her daughter wanted to try the millet bread at BOG so they were going to say she had a gluten allergy. Her issue was that she wanted the pastry plate for her daughter. WHAT?????? These people have taken a special courtesy that Disney offers and have abused it to the point that Chefs are either so overwhelmed with special conversations and conflicting information that I think DIsney is backing off their personalized services.

AS a grandparent, I was forever grateful that we had a safe place to take oour Kady when she was younger. Even the CS restaurants were helpful in ensuring her food was safe for her to eat. I have joined the voices of those people who were afraid that the abusers would destroy the abiity for Disney to continue to provide the safe environment to those people who rely on this special place as a vacation destination they can trust.

You can thank the cheaters for the reduction in care. It happens with evey special thing Disney does.
 
I like them, they're great for ' basic' allergy needs and cover the 4 big categories pretty quickly. This helps me a lot, since all I need to know is if a certain item is wheat free or not....in the past it involved lengthy waits at qs just to order....now if I was concerned about something more specific,I can still ask to see a chef,but for simplicity I like it. And I can see their point on guest demands outstripping what they can provide.
 
I have multiple allergies and was in Disney in October. I actually love the new menus. It gave me an idea of what was available. If you have allergies outside of the ones on the menu the chefs still come to the table. I never had to ask for someone. With that menu in hand, I had an idea of what could be customized for me to avoid my "other than the big 8" allergies and it didn't seem to take as long to communicate my needs, which meant the chef was back in the kitchen sooner.

They worked well at CS too. Once I mentioned I had multiple allergies the manager would come out, but since I had the menu in hand I could order quickly.
 
KimberlyE said:
I am fine with an allergy menu as an option but this new push to replace a discussion with the chef with just the menu has me extremely concerned.
On our September trip, my daughter's dairy free dessert was not dairy free and she came very close to dying. This was our first experience with the allergy menu and we were told to order from the menu and that a chef consult wouldn't be needed. (This was a table service restaurant where her dairy allergy had been reported with our reservation, mentioned at check-in, mentioned again to the server, ordered from the allergy menu, and the dessert came with the wooden stick labeling it as an "Allergy Meal" item.) She went into an immediate anaphylactic episode with vomiting, wheezing, and nose watering. We ran with her to first aid (the restaurant was just around the corner) where we administered the epi pen in the waiting room. Within 3 minutes of arriving at First Aid, she was hooked up to monitors and being attended to by EMT's. Disney evacuated us to the hospital where she suffered a severe allergy asthma attack en route. We spent the next 5 hours in the hospital receiving more epi, steroids, & oxygen. This was day 1 of our trip.

For the remainder of that trip, the allergy menus were presented each time we reminded them of her allergy at check-in (or at counter for QS meals). In a few places, there were hesitations when we asked for a chef. We actually had to become very firm with our request to see a chef in 2 restaurants. The chef's were all amazing and did a fantastic job - as usual - of making suggestions and giving us information. One chef at a QS told us that in his kitchen line only certain staff were allowed to handle allergy orders. He reviewed our tray before we left the counter and discovered that the dairy free cookie had been substituted with a regular one. It was on his recommendation that we called Guest Services to discuss our experiences that week with allergy menus and the pushback about a chef consult.

We told Guest Services that the hesitation we experienced came from regular CM staff (all Chefs were very accommodating). It seemed as if to those CM staff members, the allergy menu had replaced the need for a chef meeting. We wanted to make sure that this was just some isolated misunderstanding that could be resolved with further training and not a trend that Disney was moving towards. Guest Services assured us that it was not a new procedure or a trend - guests should always be offered a meeting with the chef. But after reading this thread, I am fearful that it has become standard practice now. We leave for a Thanksgiving trip in a few days and I will be taking careful note of how our requests (we will continue to request one for every meal) for a chef consult are handled. Those allergy menus are not a fail safe.
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How awful! So sorry you all had to deal with that. Just out of curiosity, do you know what went wrong? In other words, was a dessert that was supposed to be safe for dairy allergies not actually safe after all, were you given the wrong version of the dessert, was it cross-contaminated, etc.? Which restaurant and what was the dessert? My younger DS has peanut and tree nut allergies, so I feel like they're "simple" enough where the allergy menus are helpful to us. Some of the other food allergens aren't quite as easy to avoid, especially due to cross-contamination, but I agree that anyone who wants to speak with a chef should have the ability to do so without being made to feel like if their allergen is in the top 8, that they should just use the menu. Again, so sorry that happened to your DD!
 
I am a professional chef with my own catering company. Up until the last 2 years, I have loved every minute of what I do. My profit margin is very low as I pay all of my employees a generous living wage so I'm definitely not in this for the money. Unfortunately, I will be closing up shop soon and sadly so. Clients have no idea how expensive and time-consuming it is to prepare the enormous amount of special diet foods they require for a single event. Last night we had a party for 30. I was asked to make nut-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, organic and low-salt items along with the 20 people who wanted their food prepared without restriction. After I purchased all the special foods and stayed up all night preparing them and then had my sous chef working overtime to make ingredient labels for the display stands, I decided that I can't do this anymore. I NEVER have a client these days without them requesting multiple special orders. Rarely will that client want to pay for the high costs associated with their special requests. I love my clients and I have more business than I can handle, but I'm worn out.

The only relief has been the swing toward many fewer people wanting gluten-free. Some research has apparently shown in an increase in cancer and long-term intestinal issues in a gluten-free diet so now my celiac clients still want the gluten-free but my gluten sensitive clients have all but disappeared. And the poster who said that chefs do not have the time or staff to keep leaving a busy kitchen are absolutely right. When I leave the kitchen to keep answering questions, the person in charge(me) is hoping and praying that nothing untoward is going on and that the lean staff can hold it together while waiting for me to return.

I am very sympathetic to allergies of any kind. My children and I have them. I am just speaking from a chef's point of view and obviously only reflecting my company's experience.
 
Threehearts said:
I am a professional chef with my own catering company. Up until the last 2 years, I have loved every minute of what I do. My profit margin is very low as I pay all of my employees a generous living wage so I'm definitely not in this for the money. Unfortunately, I will be closing up shop soon and sadly so. Clients have no idea how expensive and time-consuming it is to prepare the enormous amount of special diet foods they require for a single event. Last night we had a party for 30. I was asked to make nut-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, organic and low-salt items along with the 20 people who wanted their food prepared without restriction. After I purchased all the special foods and stayed up all night preparing them and then had my sous chef working overtime to make ingredient labels for the display stands, I decided that I can't do this anymore. I NEVER have a client these days without them requesting multiple special orders. Rarely will that client want to pay for the high costs associated with their special requests. I love my clients and I have more business than I can handle, but I'm worn out.

The only relief has been the swing toward many fewer people wanting gluten-free. Some research has apparently shown in an increase in cancer and long-term intestinal issues in a gluten-free diet so now my celiac clients still want the gluten-free but my gluten sensitive clients have all but disappeared. And the poster who said that chefs do not have the time or staff to keep leaving a busy kitchen are absolutely right. When I leave the kitchen to keep answering questions, the person in charge(me) is hoping and praying that nothing untoward is going on and that the lean staff can hold it together while waiting for me to return.

I am very sympathetic to allergies of any kind. My children and I have them. I am just speaking from a chef's point of view and obviously only reflecting my company's experience.
Click to expand...

As the mom of a kid with celiac, I am very happy that "gluten sensitivity" is going away. It is really hard to convince servers and restauranteurs that my 5 year old actually has celiac and I'm not just making her follow a fad diet. While I love all the gluten free food available, I am fine with making her those items if it means her disease isn't trivialized by people who pretend to have an issue but order bread.
 
I can say I'm glad too if gluten sensitivity is less prevalant. We've had the issue that people tend to equate 'allergy" to "gluten' or to nuts. DS, who, among other allergies, has an egg allergy was served/or they wanted to serve gluten free items which tend to have egg. (and he has an ANA reaction). Allergies are just way too prevalent now, as are sensitivities (and people paying attention to that). DS has a soy sensitivity and I don't even bother with that when we are out and about because the actual food allergies are hard enough to deal with.
 
Cgh that's it exactly! I only tell the chef on the res. about the " major" no-nos for me... The " minor" issues I have with certain other items I keep to myself.(and eat carefully) the world seems to be full of people who for one reason or another restrict their diets,and I agree that those who needlessly abuse a good thing cause so many problems for others who truly need it.
 
Threehearts said:
I NEVER have a client these days without them requesting multiple special orders.
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1) We have major ownership position in two Ohio eateries.
. . . a breakfast-and-lunch-only diner (5:00am-2:00pm)
. . . a dinner-only fine dining restaurant (5:00pm-Midnight)
2) We will assist with allergies, until they become overwhelming
. . . we do the gluten-free, nut-free, and dairy-free (these are the most common, and actually easy to circumvent)
. . . we don't do other allergies (as you mentioned, too costly and time consuming)
3) We do VERY FEW menu changes and/or substitutions. **
. . . only infrequently do we go "off menu" with dishes, and only for well-established customers
. . . our chef takes great pride in matching food and sides to compliment each other
. . . he has a SMALL list of veggies that can be swapped without altering the experience of the meal
. . . our menu clearly states what and where things can be subbed
. . . we have several dishes with a "no substitutions" comment
. . . the menus for both eateries are published on the front window, for sidewalk viewing

** And, before there are remarks, the eatery is very profitable, and has been for twelve years.
 
TheRustyScupper said:
1) We have major ownership position in two Ohio eateries.
. . . a breakfast-and-lunch-only diner (5:00am-2:00pm)
. . . a dinner-only fine dining restaurant (5:00pm-Midnight)
2) We will assist with allergies, until they become overwhelming
. . . we do the gluten-free, nut-free, and dairy-free (these are the most common, and actually easy to circumvent)
. . . we don't do other allergies (as you mentioned, too costly and time consuming)
3) We do VERY FEW menu changes and/or substitutions. **
. . . only infrequently do we go "off menu" with dishes, and only for well-established customers
. . . our chef takes great pride in matching food and sides to compliment each other
. . . he has a SMALL list of veggies that can be swapped without altering the experience of the meal
. . . our menu clearly states what and where things can be subbed
. . . we have several dishes with a "no substitutions" comment
. . . the menus for both eateries are published on the front window, for sidewalk viewing

** And, before there are remarks, the eatery is very profitable, and has been for twelve years.
Click to expand...


I have shellfish and mango allergies. Sensitive to berries. I avoid, and never ask for something instead. I might ask for something to be left out. Case in point, one of the apps at Jiko had a green mango sauce, easy to leave off. The rest of the app is safe for me to eat.

Seriously, if you have a true allergy, you just don't eat it or come close to it. Choose something else. That's how you know who is truly allergic.

We do eat Japanese/sushi regularly. I have my own order, I write allergic to shellfish on it, and order items off the menu that are safe for me. I don't do anything that's fried and I don't order rolls that have tempura crunchies on them. I don't order rolls and ask for them to be modified, that's just asking for issues at any restaurant. Seriously, it's not worth the risk.
 
TheRustyScupper said:
1) Due to the Internet, more and more people are claiming allergies.
2) So many, that chefs may not have time to supervise the kitchen - and that is their job.
3) The chefs NEVER minded speaking to guests about allergies, but things are getting out of hand.
4) Many people use this as an excuse to get a special meal prepared. *
5) I have nothing against people with real allergies, but making a menu list seems like it might solve both problems.
. . . the guests that must avoid allergens
. . . the guests who try to get an off-menu item

* I have seen a first-hand witness to a lady who DEMANDED to speak with the chef. She rattled off a series of allergies and wanted a meal that met those requirements. OK, fair enough. After the chef left, she signaled the SERVER and ordered an appetizer from the menu that obviously had the ingredients she needed to avoid. When the SERVER reminded her of the ingredients, the lady said something like, "That's OK, I can get by with that.". The SERVER came back shortly and said the chef would not allow her to be served the appy, because it might make her ill. The lady guest became almost livid, and actually left the eatery. It appeared to us (rightfully or not), the whole scenario was a scam to order something off-menu.
Click to expand...
This is what I suspect is happening. No doubt things have gotten out of hand and of course there are some that claimed allergies just to get something special prepared. Usually Disney changes things when they suspect people are taking advantage (refillable mugs come to mind). Think about how often the chef has to leave the kitchen to talk to customers whenever someone needs to speak to a chef due to an allergy. If the chef is doing this all day, how is s/he suppose to supervise the kitchen or prepare allergy meals in a timely manner, then move onto the next customer with an allergy? That would be very difficult to do. Of course everyone would like to see a chef but sometimes its not possible. I think an allergy menu is a great idea.
 
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Threehearts said:
I love my clients and I have more business than I can handle, but I'm worn out.
Click to expand...

Threehearts said:
Unfortunately, I will be closing up shop soon and sadly so.
Click to expand...

You are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Spend some time coming up with those specific menus and make them so they aren't *hard* for you. Those are your substitutions. No need to reinvent the wheel every time. Maybe make it so some meal can have mushrooms left out, or whatever, but other than that, those are those meals.

Just create *rules* and stand by them. Don't be rude about it, don't be offensive, but you are allowed to have rules. By closing, despite having a thriving company, you're doing what Disney is doing. They won't follow their own rules, so they just take their ball and run away. It's silly.

My cake lady for my wedding was terrifying with her rules. Now, don't do what she did; she had a very specific rule about *payment* in her FLAVORS pamphlet, and it was NOT in her PAYMENT pamphlet. This resulted in me having to pay an extra $100. Have payment rules in your payment info, and flavor info in flavor pamphlet. And she did bend the rules a little bit for me when I had an EXTREMELY bad reaction to one of the flavors of cakes she offered for tasting (she packed them up and we had the flavors on our own, so we were not there at her place where she could just pull out a different flavor at that moment), as well as when we had to postpone the wedding. So from her point of view she had bent the rules before so she stood firm, but it shouldn't have happened anyway, if the payment info had been in the correct pamphlet.

But I digress! The point is that you can create standard menus, you can stand firm with the charges and with the rules, and you will still get customers. You don't have to close down. That is, IMO, just ridiculous. If you were going bankrupt, then OK, but with a thriving business, it's nonsensical. Take a little vacation, take a break to reduce the burnout, then come back ready to go.

(closing a business for no good reason is something that will haunt you forever, I promise...BTDT)
 
KimberlyE said:
I am fine with an allergy menu as an option but this new push to replace a discussion with the chef with just the menu has me extremely concerned.
On our September trip, my daughter's dairy free dessert was not dairy free and she came very close to dying. This was our first experience with the allergy menu and we were told to order from the menu and that a chef consult wouldn't be needed. (This was a table service restaurant where her dairy allergy had been reported with our reservation, mentioned at check-in, mentioned again to the server, ordered from the allergy menu, and the dessert came with the wooden stick labeling it as an "Allergy Meal" item.) She went into an immediate anaphylactic episode with vomiting, wheezing, and nose watering. We ran with her to first aid (the restaurant was just around the corner) where we administered the epi pen in the waiting room. Within 3 minutes of arriving at First Aid, she was hooked up to monitors and being attended to by EMT's. Disney evacuated us to the hospital where she suffered a severe allergy asthma attack en route. We spent the next 5 hours in the hospital receiving more epi, steroids, & oxygen. This was day 1 of our trip.

For the remainder of that trip, the allergy menus were presented each time we reminded them of her allergy at check-in (or at counter for QS meals). In a few places, there were hesitations when we asked for a chef. We actually had to become very firm with our request to see a chef in 2 restaurants. The chef's were all amazing and did a fantastic job - as usual - of making suggestions and giving us information. One chef at a QS told us that in his kitchen line only certain staff were allowed to handle allergy orders. He reviewed our tray before we left the counter and discovered that the dairy free cookie had been substituted with a regular one. It was on his recommendation that we called Guest Services to discuss our experiences that week with allergy menus and the pushback about a chef consult.

We told Guest Services that the hesitation we experienced came from regular CM staff (all Chefs were very accommodating). It seemed as if to those CM staff members, the allergy menu had replaced the need for a chef meeting. We wanted to make sure that this was just some isolated misunderstanding that could be resolved with further training and not a trend that Disney was moving towards. Guest Services assured us that it was not a new procedure or a trend - guests should always be offered a meeting with the chef. But after reading this thread, I am fearful that it has become standard practice now. We leave for a Thanksgiving trip in a few days and I will be taking careful note of how our requests (we will continue to request one for every meal) for a chef consult are handled. Those allergy menus are not a fail safe.
Click to expand...

Wow. That sounds scary. So glad your daughter is okay!

I'm curious... At the QS, when you got a regular cookie instead of dairy free, do you have any idea whether it was an honest mistake? Or was it someone being neglectful or thinking it didn't really matter?
 
Dear bumbershoot- I am well-acquainted with how to run a successful business. As a matter of fact, I have received a prestigious award for my work teaching women in transition how to start their own small catering businesses. I do not have to have a business that caters to allergic clients but I have done so. It would not be difficult to adjust things to one or two allergens. The issue is that once you decide on a menu with a client, invariably their guests respond with a multitude of dietary requests. I could just say no or raise my prices considerably or just do what I have decided to do- focus on other work that I have waiting for me.

I am most certainly not making a bad decision. I am making the decision that is best for me. I will continue to bring volunteer chefs into public school systems to work with special needs kids. Those programs give back way more than I give to them.

I am a chef and will always be a classically-trained French chef whether I run my catering business or not. I'm tired and after a very successful run, I'm going to try something different.
 
Threehearts said:
invariably their guests respond with a multitude of dietary requests
Click to expand...


1) Boy, do they !
. . . some say, "Give an inch and they take a mile."
. . . we say, "Give them and inch, and they take your lunch."
. . . regardless what Gordon Gekko says, when it come to guest food choices "Greed Is NOT Good".
2) That is why at our places we do a couple of (Pre-Set) dietary exceptions, but VERY FEW.
3) We let other places cater to the picky eaters.
4) We won't employ added staff and raise prices for such an accommodation.
5) I am sure there are other eateries that would put up with such nonsense, but we do not have to do so.
 
I don't have an allergy, but I do have a medical condition that is chronic and very food sensitive. There are foods that I can NOT have. They won't kill me, but they will put me in pain for multiple days (as in can't leave the bed pain, may have to go to the hospital pain) and can cause permanent damage. So sometimes I do have to ask about if something contains these problem ingredients, though normally I can just find something that will work or just needs something left off. Only once at Disney did I talk to a chef and that was at Jiko since I didn't know WHAT some things were and when I asked the server she wasn't sure about an ingredient so she got the chef for me.

But what I do at Disney is what I do at any restaurant. I look at the menus ahead of time and decide if there are enough options for me to even want to go. I don't go in a random location and expect to be catered to or have something special made for me.
 
All these allergies. Never an issue until the 90's. When we were going to school in the 70's and 80's allergies didn't exist.

I feel for you if you do have these issues. But 98% of the rest of the world does not have your problems.

Disney should designate 1 location at every park as "allergy free". People can go there if they need to.

But do not go to Ohana and complain that you can't be near peanuts, and ask my family to move or not eat the peanut dipping sauce next to you. (yaeh, this has happened so I am a but bitter).
 
DSLRuser said:
All these allergies. Never an issue until the 90's. When we were going to school in the 70's and 80's allergies didn't exist.

I feel for you if you do have these issues. But 98% of the rest of the world does not have your problems.

Disney should designate 1 location at every park as "allergy free". People can go there if they need to.

But do not go to Ohana and complain that you can't be near peanuts, and ask my family to move or not eat the peanut dipping sauce next to you. (yaeh, this has happened so I am a but bitter).
Click to expand...

Wow, that's ridiculous. I hope that you said no and stayed put.
 
DSLRuser said:
All these allergies. Never an issue until the 90's. When we were going to school in the 70's and 80's allergies didn't exist.

I feel for you if you do have these issues. But 98% of the rest of the world does not have your problems.

Disney should designate 1 location at every park as "allergy free". People can go there if they need to.

But do not go to Ohana and complain that you can't be near peanuts, and ask my family to move or not eat the peanut dipping sauce next to you. (yaeh, this has happened so I am a but bitter).
Click to expand...
We avoid Ohana for this very reason. I wouldn't feel comfortable having my daughter near that much peanut. It could be on tables, it's in the air, just having one table near you not eat it is ludicrous.

However having only one restaurant zoned allergy free is not a solution either. Disney World is the one place we can travel and eat out. Disney has historically catered to people with special needs--make a wish kids, it's basically barrier free for rides, hotel rooms, etc. I think many people with special needs travel to disney for this very reason. I know we may be a "pain" with our allergies, but Disney has historically welcomed us (and our money) and I hope they continue to do so. The allergy menus are very helpful for us and we actually don't need to see a chef all that often any more.

I suspect the individuals causing trouble are those that are not even allergic.
 
DSLRuser said:
All these allergies. Never an issue until the 90's. When we were going to school in the 70's and 80's allergies didn't exist.

I feel for you if you do have these issues. But 98% of the rest of the world does not have your problems.

Disney should designate 1 location at every park as "allergy free". People can go there if they need to.

But do not go to Ohana and complain that you can't be near peanuts, and ask my family to move or not eat the peanut dipping sauce next to you. (yaeh, this has happened so I am a but bitter).
Click to expand...
You should be bitter. My daughter has tree nut allergy. And a dear friend who has a peanut allergy. We would never do this! My question is do any of these people go to restaurants outside of Disney? Like the the one poster said. She's allergic to certain things and she knows how to modify her food selections.
 
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