Restaurant Succeeds in Handling Food Allergies

An excerpt from a recent story at AllergyEats.com
http://www.allergyeats.com/blog/index.php/a-great-example-of-how-the-best-restaurants-can-handle-even-the-toughest-allergy-challenges/?goback=%2Egde_1947951_member_186080094

“I wanted to take this opportunity to share a story with you all that occurred on Sunday November 4th between myself [sous chef Paul] and Guy [restaurant manager].  Around 8:15 a young lady came to our restaurant to dine with us.  Upon noticing her we realized that she was wearing a custom surgical mask and what appeared to be mittens.  After the party sat and was greeted by Christina [server], we were alerted to [the] fact that one of the members of the group had multiple allergies (in fact wearing an allergy bracelet).  Guy quickly greeted the table.  After about 10 min of speaking with the guest, Guy returned to the kitchen with a list of allergies that neither one of [us] had ever been presented with before.  She was highly allergic to all forms of nuts, gluten, garlic, soy, parsley, cilantro, shellfish, potato, onion, berries, vinegar, wine, [maple] syrup, legumes, tomato, peppers, pineapple, ginger and a lactose intolerance.  After hearing that list I wanted to speak with her as I was nervous about any product that she could have, being near or around all of the items she was allergic to.  Anything that she could eat safely could not be in close proximity to any of the items.  After a lengthy conversation we came up with a menu of salmon atop a salad of mixed greens with goat cheese, seasoned and flavored with salt, pepper and lemon.  As you can imagine the steps we had to take to safely prepare this meal were many.  First we ran a clean saute pan through dish[washer], opened up a fresh box of foil and carefully wrapped the salmon in the foil while in the walkin [freezer].  The next step was place the wrapped salmon into the pan and into the oven.  We then had to get a fresh tube of goat cheese, new box of greens, and two lemons (which we wrapped in foil as well, during plating process).  Next we ran a clean large pasta bowl through dish[washer].  At this point Guy and I plated this dish together.  Guy held the plate while I carefully built the item in the dish, changing my gloves between touching each item including opening the bag of mix and changing gloves to grab the mix.  At this point, the production was so large that the service staff was now in the prep kitchen just to watch this dish being built.  We finally were finished and we presented the young lady with a great plate of food and she could not have been more grateful for what our restaurant had done for her as she could not remember the last time she had even gone out ot eat.  I checked back on her after a few bites.  She was safe and she thought her food was excellent.  I wanted to share this story because it says a lot about what our company does in regards to allergy awareness, training and operational procedures.  All of this being greatly heightened by our participation in the AllergyEats Conference.  This is just another small example of what we do for our guests at Not Your Average Joe’s.”