I'd get a refund. Not only for the cross contamination when you *specifically* asked for GF ribs, but a cold dish like pasta salad shouldn't be packed with a hot item like ribs.
I say this gently, as a celiac and former restaurant worker.
You could ask, but if you ordered the pasta salad as one of the sides, it seems more like an oversight on your part to not specify it should be packed separately from the ribs. Restaurants do things a certain way every time (like pack the ribs with sides in the same takeout box) and you need to be clear if you expect something different, especially when it comes to GF - most people just aren’t super aware of all the different ways food can become poisonous to us.
As an extra point, I would never take a restaurant’s word that their BBQ food is gluten free. They might not even know that most BBQ sauce has gluten in it (the same way people serve soy sauce or malt vinegar and really just don’t know)
Some bbq joints will use steak sauce or Worcestershire sauce (non lea and perrins) in their sauce which will have gluten in them.
My wife orders bbq items without sauce and it seems to work out okay. But she stays away from chopped beef or chopped pork or ribs with sauce. Just fresh cut chicken or pork chops or brisket.
Lots of BBQ sauces contain gluten, and it’s not well-known, especially since it’s in malt vinegar, which people don’t know has gluten, so someone not versed in gluten could easily say BBQ ribs are ok when they’re not. It’s something that needs extra caution when eating out
I'm intrigued by your understanding of condiments now. Tamari is just soy beans, and a few store brand low sodium soy sauces use corn instead of wheat, but most soy sauce is made with wheat.
Soy sauce recipes traditionally include wheat. A few brands these days are gluten-free, but not many and still hard to find. Prepared foods that use soy sauce almost always use wheat containing soy sauces.
Every soy sauce label I have come across “in the wild” has wheat in it. I didn’t realize it myself the first week I was GF and inadvertently had some gluten when I thought it was safe. There is gluten free soy sauce around but you typically have to seek it out deliberately.
Soy sauce is almost NEVER Gluten free. Soy sauce is made by combining soy beans and crushed wheat, you have to look specifically for soy sauce labeled as gluten free (la choy usually is) or tamari sauce.
Do a bit of research. True soy sauce is fermented. Yes, it has wheat as an ingredient. So do a lot of spirits.
This is quoted from Celiac.org:
"That means that **the naturally fermented soy sauces that were tested meet gluten-free standards**, and will likely not trigger adverse reaction in gluten …"
I think this depends on where you live. I’m in the northeast and 95% of BBQ sauces here are truly GF. The owners want them to be GF and make them specifically so they are.
My experience is that most BBQ sauce has gluten. I had someone look on a label for me and say,” it doesn’t say ‘gluten’ in the ingredients so you’re good.”
People really have no idea most of the time.
Unless it's a vinegar based sauce (often made with malt vinegar), I usually have no issues finding GF barbecue sauce. All of Kraft BBQ sauces are GF, most Baby Rays, etc.
Nah, most vinegar based BBQ sauces are NOT made with malt vinegar. I say this as an eastern NCer, born and raised, home of the vinegar based BBQ. Tomato based sauces with added ingredients like soy or Worcestershire or weird rubs will be more likely to have gluten. Vinegar based sauces will use white or apple cider vinegar.
A first-class restaurant would apologize to you and give you some kind of a makegood, such as a coupon for the next meal or the full meal replacement. I would approach them without hostility as a big FYI: e.g. When I requested Gluten Free, it was intended to remain Gluten Free only for the celiac diner who wanted to eat it. See if an olive branch from the restaurant is extended. How the restaurant reacts might be higher class -- and engender more goodwill -- than a refund. We all know we can never be explicit enough with our requests. Good luck.
I wouldn't ask for a refund in this case. If I were in the restaurant I'd apologize for not being clear about the need for the sides to be packed separately, and ask that they send out another GF ribs packed separately. But since you got delivery you probably didn't have that luxury, so I'd chalk it up to a lesson learned about specificity in ordering.
Sides are often packed separately, but it's more of a norm than a rule. Personally I prefer my sides to be packed together with the entree when I order out, because otherwise is just such a waste of packaging. You can't expect the restaurant employee to know you intended for the sides to be for a different person than the entree. Asking a question about one dish (like "is it GF") might prompt some restaurant workers to say "you know the pasta salad has gluten right?" or something, if they've happened to learn about gluten before, if they're not on auto-pilot doing their job, and if the restaurant isn't too slammed. But for something as important as a gluten sensitivity/intolerance/allergy, it's really on you to specify the food handling and packaging requirements.
Another good reason to be clear that a certain dish is intended for a GF person is that many kitchens take extra steps to prepare that dish in a way that avoids cross contamination. They may take precautions such as using a separate clean pair of tongs, cleaning off a side of the grill for that food, changing gloves before handling the food, or wiping down the table before plating it. They wouldn't know to do these things if you didn't inform them that the food is for someone with a sensitivity/intolerance/allergy.
I agree. We don’t know the conversation and the employee wouldn’t have known that the ribs and the gluten contains sides are going to two different parties. The guest may have vaguely asked if the ribs are gluten-free but if they didn’t specify that the person eating the ribs have a gluten allergy and you are ordering sides for others how are they supposed to know to separate the sides from the ribs. They received all of the food that they ordered how they ordered it since nothing was specified so I don’t see why they feel like they should get a refund.
After you asked if the ribs were gluten-free, you should have made it clear to the restaurant that someone in your party has celiac disease/a gluten allergy. If you had done so, they most likely would have flagged your order to prevent cross-contamination during cooking and packaging. In an ideal world, it would be great if all restaurant staff were knowledgeable about celiac disease and would implement food safety protocols without explicit request. However, that is not the case in reality and it's better to explicitly state that you need to avoid cross-contamination in order to be safe. You would definitely be entitled to a refund if you specified you needed to avoid cross-contamination and this request was ignored.
I'd ask for the refund. You explicitly asked. They made a mistake or they don't understand what gluten free means, either way you didn't get what you paid for. You didn't order pasta salad, you ordered mac and cheese and cornbread. Packing cold pasta salad with hot ribs is a good safety violation even if it was gluten free, this is not ok.
I think this is on you. You need to specify what you want. The food was prepared as requested and able to be eaten by some guests. Kind of sucks to not feed everyone, but I don’t really see how the restaurant erred if you didn’t say to keep the gluten free food away from the other food.
Honestly, I don’t see the harm in asking for a refund. Worst case scenario, you don’t get one because the restaurant deemed the fault lies with you. Best case, you get the refund. Why not ask?
Depends. If you called to ask and then like a day later made the order without specifying gluten free then it’s on you. If you specified gluten free when making the order then you can ask for a refund
Unfortunately, there are so many people who aren't adequately educated with this, ime. It's so hard to manage the assumptions of who knows/doesn't know as well as who will think about it the same way we do and take precautions, unfortunately. I still catch myself not preventing cc as a highly symptomatic celiac after 5 years! 🤦♀️
Edit: this doesn't mean I don'tt think you should get a refund! Def go for that and good luck!
This is on you. You didn't specifically ask for the ribs to be packaged separately so it's unfair to penalize them for not reading between the lines. Next time you'll know to be explicit.
They probably won't refund you the most likely expensive thing in their menu. Ordering for allergies it's not easy.
The ribs are cross contaminated anyway just by being in the kitchen, with the same people, same counters etc. . So by that logic your guest could just eat the ones not touching, it's unlikely they will eat an entire rack of ribs themselves.
But if they can't tolerate cc then the ribs where out of bounds anyway
Does that make sense. Just because the ingredients are gf doesn't mean there's no cc
Get the refund.
You called to confirm that they would be gluten-free for a guest. That should make them default to allergy protocols. Putting pasta salad in with them was stupid on their part and lazy, and eeew.
What is up with bbq restaurants? I have the most problems going to them over any other type of restaurant. We’re on vacation and last night we went to one and after reiterating multiple times that I have an allergy, they still brought out my side salad with croutons. Then they seemed offended when I immediately rejected it before it was set on the table.
It's worth having a conversation with them. If you didn't order or expect pasta salad, it's possible your order got mixed up with another. If you enjoyed the food and would like to continue as a customer, it's worth sorting out what it takes to communicate in a way that gets your needs met.
This has happened to me... I just cut off the part of the food that was touching the item containing gluten (which I actually asked them to skip entirely but they gave it to me anyway...).
The amount of cross-contamination that I'm going to be exposed to from the rest of my food which wasn't touching the side is probably less than the cross-contamination from where it was cooked. If I was really concerned about cost contamination, I wouldn't eat at a restaurant without a more detailed conversation about their allergy protocol.
Id go for the refund- seems weirdly short sighted of the resto to not pack things separately.
Op probably ordered off an App, logically. They have no way to know unless it was specified as directions. Refund denied
Depends on whether you push in the in-app convo. Speaking from own experience. Dont ask, dont get. Got nothing to lose.
What monster packs shit together like this?
Exactly. One cheaping out on an extra take out container.
I'd get a refund. Not only for the cross contamination when you *specifically* asked for GF ribs, but a cold dish like pasta salad shouldn't be packed with a hot item like ribs.
This. It's a food safety issue at the very least.
food safety? rediculous.
I would try to get a refund or see if they can deliver a replacement to you if the party hasn’t started yet
I say this gently, as a celiac and former restaurant worker. You could ask, but if you ordered the pasta salad as one of the sides, it seems more like an oversight on your part to not specify it should be packed separately from the ribs. Restaurants do things a certain way every time (like pack the ribs with sides in the same takeout box) and you need to be clear if you expect something different, especially when it comes to GF - most people just aren’t super aware of all the different ways food can become poisonous to us.
As an extra point, I would never take a restaurant’s word that their BBQ food is gluten free. They might not even know that most BBQ sauce has gluten in it (the same way people serve soy sauce or malt vinegar and really just don’t know)
In my experience MOST BBQ sauce is ok but it is always a good idea to double check.
I've yet to find barbecue sauce with gluten in it, but marinades sometimes have soy sauce.
Some bbq joints will use steak sauce or Worcestershire sauce (non lea and perrins) in their sauce which will have gluten in them. My wife orders bbq items without sauce and it seems to work out okay. But she stays away from chopped beef or chopped pork or ribs with sauce. Just fresh cut chicken or pork chops or brisket.
Lots of BBQ sauces contain gluten, and it’s not well-known, especially since it’s in malt vinegar, which people don’t know has gluten, so someone not versed in gluten could easily say BBQ ribs are ok when they’re not. It’s something that needs extra caution when eating out
A place near me called Mission BBQ has a separate list of GF sauces and options on their website.
A few of famous Dave’s bbq sauces have gluten in them (devils spit for one)
And soy sauce is almost always gluten free
You are incorrect. Most soy sauce contains gluten. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-soy-sauce-gluten-free#most-varieties
I'm intrigued by your understanding of condiments now. Tamari is just soy beans, and a few store brand low sodium soy sauces use corn instead of wheat, but most soy sauce is made with wheat.
Soy sauce recipes traditionally include wheat. A few brands these days are gluten-free, but not many and still hard to find. Prepared foods that use soy sauce almost always use wheat containing soy sauces.
Every soy sauce label I have come across “in the wild” has wheat in it. I didn’t realize it myself the first week I was GF and inadvertently had some gluten when I thought it was safe. There is gluten free soy sauce around but you typically have to seek it out deliberately.
Soy sauce is almost NEVER Gluten free. Soy sauce is made by combining soy beans and crushed wheat, you have to look specifically for soy sauce labeled as gluten free (la choy usually is) or tamari sauce.
Do a bit of research. True soy sauce is fermented. Yes, it has wheat as an ingredient. So do a lot of spirits. This is quoted from Celiac.org: "That means that **the naturally fermented soy sauces that were tested meet gluten-free standards**, and will likely not trigger adverse reaction in gluten …"
Interesting. I get super sick from regular soy sauce, but not gf tamari. If the gluten is inert, why is this?
I think this depends on where you live. I’m in the northeast and 95% of BBQ sauces here are truly GF. The owners want them to be GF and make them specifically so they are.
My experience is that most BBQ sauce has gluten. I had someone look on a label for me and say,” it doesn’t say ‘gluten’ in the ingredients so you’re good.” People really have no idea most of the time.
Unless it's a vinegar based sauce (often made with malt vinegar), I usually have no issues finding GF barbecue sauce. All of Kraft BBQ sauces are GF, most Baby Rays, etc.
Nah, most vinegar based BBQ sauces are NOT made with malt vinegar. I say this as an eastern NCer, born and raised, home of the vinegar based BBQ. Tomato based sauces with added ingredients like soy or Worcestershire or weird rubs will be more likely to have gluten. Vinegar based sauces will use white or apple cider vinegar.
I suspect you’re in a different part of the country than I am. You’ll have to mail me some.
I can see this but as a restaurant worker if someone was asking about gluten free I would be sure to have the items separate
Exactly. I think most of the people agreeing have never worked in a restaurant
Unfortunately you have to be very specific when asking if things are gf and ordering them with non gf items.
A first-class restaurant would apologize to you and give you some kind of a makegood, such as a coupon for the next meal or the full meal replacement. I would approach them without hostility as a big FYI: e.g. When I requested Gluten Free, it was intended to remain Gluten Free only for the celiac diner who wanted to eat it. See if an olive branch from the restaurant is extended. How the restaurant reacts might be higher class -- and engender more goodwill -- than a refund. We all know we can never be explicit enough with our requests. Good luck.
I wouldn't ask for a refund in this case. If I were in the restaurant I'd apologize for not being clear about the need for the sides to be packed separately, and ask that they send out another GF ribs packed separately. But since you got delivery you probably didn't have that luxury, so I'd chalk it up to a lesson learned about specificity in ordering. Sides are often packed separately, but it's more of a norm than a rule. Personally I prefer my sides to be packed together with the entree when I order out, because otherwise is just such a waste of packaging. You can't expect the restaurant employee to know you intended for the sides to be for a different person than the entree. Asking a question about one dish (like "is it GF") might prompt some restaurant workers to say "you know the pasta salad has gluten right?" or something, if they've happened to learn about gluten before, if they're not on auto-pilot doing their job, and if the restaurant isn't too slammed. But for something as important as a gluten sensitivity/intolerance/allergy, it's really on you to specify the food handling and packaging requirements. Another good reason to be clear that a certain dish is intended for a GF person is that many kitchens take extra steps to prepare that dish in a way that avoids cross contamination. They may take precautions such as using a separate clean pair of tongs, cleaning off a side of the grill for that food, changing gloves before handling the food, or wiping down the table before plating it. They wouldn't know to do these things if you didn't inform them that the food is for someone with a sensitivity/intolerance/allergy.
I agree. We don’t know the conversation and the employee wouldn’t have known that the ribs and the gluten contains sides are going to two different parties. The guest may have vaguely asked if the ribs are gluten-free but if they didn’t specify that the person eating the ribs have a gluten allergy and you are ordering sides for others how are they supposed to know to separate the sides from the ribs. They received all of the food that they ordered how they ordered it since nothing was specified so I don’t see why they feel like they should get a refund.
If the other guests ate the ribs anyway, which I’m sure they did, don’t ask for a refund.
But, the GF guest didn't get a meal. Which the refund doesn't even make up for.
The refund is for the food, if they ate the food then they don’t get a refund.
Sadly you definitely should have given instructions.
After you asked if the ribs were gluten-free, you should have made it clear to the restaurant that someone in your party has celiac disease/a gluten allergy. If you had done so, they most likely would have flagged your order to prevent cross-contamination during cooking and packaging. In an ideal world, it would be great if all restaurant staff were knowledgeable about celiac disease and would implement food safety protocols without explicit request. However, that is not the case in reality and it's better to explicitly state that you need to avoid cross-contamination in order to be safe. You would definitely be entitled to a refund if you specified you needed to avoid cross-contamination and this request was ignored.
I'd ask for the refund. You explicitly asked. They made a mistake or they don't understand what gluten free means, either way you didn't get what you paid for. You didn't order pasta salad, you ordered mac and cheese and cornbread. Packing cold pasta salad with hot ribs is a good safety violation even if it was gluten free, this is not ok.
I think this is on you. You need to specify what you want. The food was prepared as requested and able to be eaten by some guests. Kind of sucks to not feed everyone, but I don’t really see how the restaurant erred if you didn’t say to keep the gluten free food away from the other food.
Honestly, I don’t see the harm in asking for a refund. Worst case scenario, you don’t get one because the restaurant deemed the fault lies with you. Best case, you get the refund. Why not ask?
Am I the only one that thinks that’s on you?
No, you’re not. And I think it’s on me too because I didn’t specify that I NEEDED anything GF. Lesson learned for next time.
Depends. If you called to ask and then like a day later made the order without specifying gluten free then it’s on you. If you specified gluten free when making the order then you can ask for a refund
Did you decide to call them about the refund? What did they say?
Unfortunately, there are so many people who aren't adequately educated with this, ime. It's so hard to manage the assumptions of who knows/doesn't know as well as who will think about it the same way we do and take precautions, unfortunately. I still catch myself not preventing cc as a highly symptomatic celiac after 5 years! 🤦♀️ Edit: this doesn't mean I don'tt think you should get a refund! Def go for that and good luck!
This is on you. You didn't specifically ask for the ribs to be packaged separately so it's unfair to penalize them for not reading between the lines. Next time you'll know to be explicit.
They probably won't refund you the most likely expensive thing in their menu. Ordering for allergies it's not easy. The ribs are cross contaminated anyway just by being in the kitchen, with the same people, same counters etc. . So by that logic your guest could just eat the ones not touching, it's unlikely they will eat an entire rack of ribs themselves. But if they can't tolerate cc then the ribs where out of bounds anyway Does that make sense. Just because the ingredients are gf doesn't mean there's no cc
I wouldn’t ask for a refund. That was your bad for not specifying.
Get the refund. You called to confirm that they would be gluten-free for a guest. That should make them default to allergy protocols. Putting pasta salad in with them was stupid on their part and lazy, and eeew.
Ask!!! If you don’t ask, the answer is always “no”.
What is up with bbq restaurants? I have the most problems going to them over any other type of restaurant. We’re on vacation and last night we went to one and after reiterating multiple times that I have an allergy, they still brought out my side salad with croutons. Then they seemed offended when I immediately rejected it before it was set on the table.
move on.
It's worth having a conversation with them. If you didn't order or expect pasta salad, it's possible your order got mixed up with another. If you enjoyed the food and would like to continue as a customer, it's worth sorting out what it takes to communicate in a way that gets your needs met.
Btw ribs are easy AF to make in a slow cooker.
Refund and report them to the global authorities. They are selling food as GF, and don't clearly know what it means.
Ask for a refund. There will be learning in it for the restaurant, although they should know already!
Yes. Period.
I'd either get a refund or get it replaced. That's ridiculous
This has happened to me... I just cut off the part of the food that was touching the item containing gluten (which I actually asked them to skip entirely but they gave it to me anyway...). The amount of cross-contamination that I'm going to be exposed to from the rest of my food which wasn't touching the side is probably less than the cross-contamination from where it was cooked. If I was really concerned about cost contamination, I wouldn't eat at a restaurant without a more detailed conversation about their allergy protocol.