Is this grim or am I being pathetic?

[Idontwantbeans]

As the title says. Name changed as I really don’t know if it’s just me.

Went to a local garden centre for coffee with my mum today. While we were there we purchased two jacket potatoes.

I ordered bacon with cheese for my potato. I have a suspected allergy and am following a diet that removes foods. At this moment I cannot have legumes in any form among other things.

When my food came they brought beans and cheese. I cannot have this. The girl that came out asked to look at the receipt and I pointed out what I’d ordered. She seemed to have a huge issue with taking it away and giving me what I’d paid for.

5 minutes later my food returned. I could see straight away that she had scraped the beans off and replaced it with cheese and bacon.

It’s a Sunday and I wasn’t going to cause a fuss so just took it. The cafe was full by this point.

On eating the food was cold apart from the bacon that they’d just cooked. I also had to pick beans out that she’d missed.

Am I being precious or is this as disgusting as I think. If you work in food standards what would be your opinion. What if id been highly allergic to the beans or the sauce that was stuck all over the potato?

First world problem for me I know but could have been a serious issue for someone else.

It's bad customer service and 200% you should have complained and given it back when you saw that they'd scraped the topping off. They have to learn. What if it was a serious allergy.

Yeah it's not great.

I would have said "Excuse me, the whole dish needs to be cooked and prepared freshly again....you can't just scrape the beans off the potato and re-present it! Also the potato is now cold! Where is your food hygiene training?"

It really annoys me when this happens. I can’t have dairy products, which includes cheese. I do love the odd subway and the amount of times I’ve been asked if I want cheese after they’ve already picked it up and put it on. Or put it on anyway after I say no. Then the staff look at you like it’s you with the problem

I’m with you OP, it’s wrong!

That’s awful! Really the allergy isn’t the issue as what you ordered didn’t have any! Your food should immediately have been made fresh for you. Cold, fiddled-with food is grim, and definitely worth complaining about.

I once returned a sausage sandwich as the sausages were pink inside, and it was returned to me with the sausages cooked and on the same bread! I knew it was the same bread as I had cut it at a peculiar angle.

I HATE HATE HATE baked beans even just the sight of them. So I would have gone bloody mad, demanded a full refund and a huge slice of cake in its place. I would have also loudly said at the till how allergic I am and that I could have died if I'd eaten the beans that were in there. I am never 'that person' but In this case I would have been.

This is absolutely disgusting, and there’s no way I would have accepted it. Leave them a bad review; email the owner/head office/whoever is in charge.

I mean I don’t find it ‘disgusting’ not sure what is disgusting about scraping beans off… but I do find it unacceptable. I might of done it at home for one of my kids for example, but in a paying establishment it’s just not the done thing.

Peanuts?

I Think in future you should sat to staffs « I am allergic to legumes including beans. Doesn’t look like there are any in this dish, but letting you know just in case. »

Problem solved.

I have a nut allergy. Luckily for me it's not anaphylactic. Unlucky for a waitress like yours it causes me to projectile vomit within seconds. That takes some cleaning up.

So, no. You ANBU.

The OP clearly referred to a “suspected allergy”. Why would you question that? People can have allergies to all kinds of things.

In many cases it may be an intolerance rather than an actual allergy but that can still make someone very unwell. (Posting as someone without allergies but with certain intolerances. I won’t die from eating these items but it’ll be painful and unpleasant.)

That's unacceptable. But they get away with it because many people let it slide. You should have insisted on getting what you paid for.

Unacceptable.

We were out today, ordered food plus one latte and one lemon and ginger tea. They brought the food, no sign of the drinks, went and asked and the girl who had taken the order said "Drinks?!" like we were mad. Brought a normal tea with milk in it instead of lemon and ginger tea. At that point we were tempted to let it go like you, but honestly, DH wanted a lemon tea, doesn't drink milk, and also if you don't point it out how will they learn to pay attention? I speak as a former teenage waitress who was particularly rubbish, I used to give people tea pots with no tea in for example.

If causing a fuss stops this kind of behaviour and makes them take food safety seriously then that’s what I’ll do

But you didn't do this? You just ate the food with allergens? I'm not sure how you're helping the cause of the "poor girl who ate Pret" 😮

How do you not know how to spell 'allergy'?

Why do people persist in using the word 'grim' erroneously?! 😭😭😭

It’s definitely a thing. My brother has a very severe allergy to all pulses, so something like that would have made him seriously ill to the point he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

Allergies to anything are possible.

OP, I would have told her to make a fresh one or give me a refund there and then. If not, I’d have asked to speak to her manager.

With all of the awareness around allergies and dietary restrictions today, it’s not acceptable, and neither was her attitude towards you.

I’d have just sent it back repeatedly , I cannot abide baked beans .

Three times with two different spellings takes a lot of doing!

It is disgusting. I hate beans and wouldn't have attempted to eat that.

I asked for a dessert last night and said no nuts. Well it came covered in nuts. I sighed and started scraping them off the top then realised they were all the way down the inside of the glass, so sent it back - as I should have done in the first place!

I work in a garden centre cafe and that would never happen in ours, even in the middle of a Sunday lunch rush. If an order is wrong it’s remade, dry foods might be reused but if there was beans or other wet food it would all be done from scratch. Especially if allergies are involved. Complain by email, all our complaints are followed up by management.

Grim! Surely the potato would still be covered in bean juice!