food and illness
I was at the café today trying out an iced Americano for the first time ever (I’m not sure I will do that again, but I wanted to know how it tastes despite my better judgment about my body and coffee-caffeine) when the baristas were talking about a difficult customer. One of them said (roughly):
“I had an issue with one of the tables. The girl wanted an iced latte and I brought it and she asked if there was gluten in the straw, and I reassured her there wasn’t, but I didn’t think and included the piece of cake also. That obviously has gluten. So I apologized and asked if I should exchange the spoon, but she didn’t want the whole drink at all, saying she already touched the spoon. I didn’t know what to do, and the other person at the table even offered to take it, but she didn’t want that. She just completely refused. I don’t know, that just kind of annoyed me.”
For context, they use those pasta straws and for each cup, you get a little cake cube that leans on the spoon.
It reminds me of how difficult it can be as a customer with an illness or dietary preference. I understand both sides here, because it can be hectic fulfilling all the orders and you have to comply with rules from the boss about garnishing and all, but as a customer, it’s really difficult to trust people about cross-contamination and that trust can be broken instantly.
I know some people roll their eyes at people avoiding gluten, but Celiac disease is no joke, and when you have a customer like that, you know it’s not a lifestyle choice. I used to have a friend with severe Celiac disease who needed her own jam, butter, whatever in the fridge because using the same containers as everyone else in the household who touch bread between dunking the breadknife or spoon into the spread was getting enough particles in the spread to flare up her disease. She had flareups because she accidentally put her food on a surface where someone put their bread before. I am very sure that the customer in question has the same severity, otherwise she wouldn’t have needed to be scared about cake touching the spoon and her touching the spoon accidentally, therefore everything feeling contaminated, and feeling more safe to just send it all back than to switch out some of it.
I have no problem with gluten personally thankfully, but thanks to Crohn’s disease, I know what it’s like when your guts try to kill you and it’s no joke. I’m vegan, so I get having to ask for “optional” lifestyle stuff, but thanks to Crohn’s, while finding treatment that works, I had to ask about sugar and artificial sweeteners the most because that would set me off so bad that it even impacted my bladder, basically some secondary interstitial cystitis due to the Crohn’s somehow (which is now also treated because the Crohn’s is contained). So I know how it is to ask because of illness stuff and I understand at first it seems ridiculous to worry about particles, but to the other person, it can mean the difference between feeling normal and suffering in bed for days.
I wanna clarify that the barista wasn’t rude telling all this to the others - she even owned up to her mistake and she just wanted to vent to the others and get some reassurance. But obviously, most people never have to deal with these types of diseases and just don’t know. I get her too, that probably wasn’t the first or only difficult customer interaction that day and the shop was packed, things are stressful, and getting stuff wrong can feel embarrassing. I also know that they have this rule to garnish and as an employee you probably get so blind to this action that you don’t question it.
I’ve been at that shop before a lot of times, and I order vegan drinks and I once had a vegan cake, but because they’re so used to preparing everything the same way the owner wants, my vegan cake had honey drizzled around it and my vegan drink also had the non-vegan cake cube when I went there for the first time. As a customer you think you’re safe by ordering very deliberately, but you don’t know any other shop policy that maybe adds unsafe or unwanted stuff to your order, so unless you’ve been there before and ran into this problem, you can’t preempt it while ordering. It would be on the barista to recognize that a vegan or gluten-free order probably doesn’t want this or that added, but in the heat of the moment, they can forget. People make mistakes after all.
I know some people would probably say “Well you never know and you can’t force people to tiptoe around your issues, just stay home!” but I can only hope people rethink that position, because very seldomly is meeting up at a restaurant or café only about the consumption of food itself; it’s an excuse to go out, to meet people, to partake in something together, to enjoy things together and socialize. You can sit at a café or restaurant and order absolutely nothing, but they hate to see that, it feels awkward for both you and the friends who do eat or drink, and it makes you feel not normal and too sick to enjoy things. It just sucks. People don’t deserve to lock themselves in their homes and be prevented from common ways to socialize just because serving them could cause a fuss. Establishments don’t allow you to bring your own stuff either, unfortunately. Not even my local game store! That one pisses me off more than it should, because I understand if restaurants and cafés don’t want other food in there, but why can’t I eat my safe rice cakes while playing Magic the Gathering because they sell chips? Ugh.
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Published 07 Mar, 2025