Woman lies about allergy at sister's 'backwards' rehearsal dinner. Parents say; 'You HUMILIATED us.' AITA?
When this woman is determined to have a good experience at her sister's "weird" rehearsal dinner, she asks the internet:
"AITA for lying at my sister's rehearsal dinner?"
I’m vegan, have been for over 5 years. I’m lucky to live in a major city with a plethora of entirely or partially vegan restaurants, but, when I visit my family in rural Pennsylvania, my options become nonexistent.
Attitudes toward veganism here range from ignorance to outright hostility. I try to avoid eating out with my family when I’m home, at ALL costs, but sometimes it simply isn’t avoidable—for example, my sister’s wedding rehearsal dinner.
My sister had her dinner at the foremost “fine dining” establishment in this town. It’s a big old tavern that bills itself as a “French-influenced steakhouse”.
Menu fare is every imaginable cut of steak drowned in butter, with some chicken and fish drowned in butter, plus sides of veggies and mashed potatoes that are—yes, smothered in butter.
The one or two vegetarian dishes are buttered and drowned in creamy sauce. Given that my little brother used to wait tables here, I know that they frown upon substitutions and don’t use much veggie oil for the sake of “quality”.
I’ve had two negative experiences here, too. I tried to explain my vegan diet my first time here, in depth, yet my sad little plate of steamed Broccoli was drizzled with butter and my iceberg lettuce salad came with ranch.
The second time, a chef came out personally and promised me that his tomato pasta dish was vegan—only for me to find that they’d swirled parmesan cheese into the red sauce to disguise that they’d accidentally sprinkled it on top. That incident broke my trust completely.
For my sister’s dinner, I called ahead and told the chef that I have life-threatening food allergies to meat proteins, dairy (including butter), and egg. Finally, they took me seriously. I was served a dish of plain pasta with salt and pepper with fruit, which sucked but I appreciated the consideration.
For those allergies, though, they had to scrub down the entire kitchen, clean the fryers, check the ingredient lists of their products, etc. That prep apparently cost them an extra 2 hours, and—I didn’t realize this—they charged my parents (who are paying for the rehearsal) an extra several hundred for their time.
My sister and parents are LIVID. I already sent my mom the several hundred needed to cover the extra cost, but they’re upset at me for lying and humiliating the chef and restaurant, whom they have close ties to.
My sister’s wedding is this weekend and something tells me that it’s gonna be tense. Personally, I think that if this restaurant is gonna continue with their ignorance and inconsideration, they got what they deserve. AITA for ensuring my needs are met?
Before we give you OP's update, let's take a look at some of the top responses:
Garee writes:
NTA!!! As a former server in both casual AND fine dining restaurants in a major US metropolis, that restaurant is ABSURD. They gave you pasta and fruit. Why in the F did they need to clean multiple fryers?
Why did they need to scrub an entire kitchen? It makes literally NO sense. They called in the kitchen crew early to deep clean but didn’t have the foresight to plan the SINGLE dish and know which extremely limited items they were planning to use to make it???
It’s literally a pot, a bowl, tongs, a boiler basket, a cutting board, and a knife that only needed a run through the sanitizer.
It appears to be an establishment run by fn idiots. I worked at a place where we once got a reservation for a family of Orthodox Jews. They brought in kosher pans and cutlery and kitchenware themselves, but we charged them nothing for the extra time and consideration that went into cooking their food.
We never shut down service and deep cleaned the kitchen if a guest had a life-threatening peanut or shellfish allergy. They just used clean items and didn’t cross-contaminate. If the chef is so dubious of his kitchen’s cleanliness, I don’t think I’d even recommend carnivores eat there.
Also maybe call in a tip to the local health department because it seems like not a single person in that building has taken a food-handler’s certification. Absolutely NTA.
garagaut7 writes:
LMAO NTA!!! they made pasta and fruit? Why did they charge extra for that? A FEW HUNDRED DOLLARS? In their minds they probably tried to trick the "rich city girl" and complain to your parents KNOWING they'd be angry and wouldn't understand how little effort it takes to make pasta.
They wanted to scam your parents IMO and use YOU as the scapegoat. What's taking two hours? Thats a TEN MINUTE MEAL.
afadghyt writes:
As a vegan, I understand the frustration of wanting people to listen properly and adhere to our diet. And it can be emotionally harder than people realise, when you're forced into a situation like this, because your ethics can make you feel very strongly about it all, it does me.
I understand desperately wanting them to listen properly, and I couldn't stand to eat something with animal products in at all.
I think ESH because they should be listening and respecting your diet, and it sounds like even when its explained to them they don't listen, which is really poor service. However I think saying you have life threatening allergies was a bit far.
It's funny how they can listen and make the right food when you say it's an allergy, but somehow struggle to feed you correctly when you describe what you don't eat as a vegan, though. That tells me they definitely can cater to a vegan diet, but just don't want to.
sloopyp writes:
ESH. Any decent restaurant making the food on the premises should be able to remove an ingredient at request, even if it’s just because someone doesn’t like it.
You’re paying them for the food, they should serve it how you asked for it (obviously it’s easy to make a mistake but just don’t get annoyed when someone sends it back because you added ingredients they didn’t want. And don’t be rude when sending food back.)
However, lying to the place and forcing them to scrub down the entire kitchen is an awful thing to do. And if you did have a life threatening allergy and they agreed to cook for you, this is the only way to ensure it was safe.
So not only have you needlessly caused the restaurant extra hours of work, and got your parents charged for that (even if you have paid them back), if someone who actually has an allergy goes then, yeah, they are going to have at least small doubts about the veracity of their claim.
TL/DR Please stop lying about allergies, it makes it harder for people who actually do.
felon6 writes:
YTA.You’re painting the restaurant to have been malicious in not preparing a proper vegan meal. Restaurants are notorious for being high paced and chaotic.
Now you’re throwing in these restrictions they’re not used to, it could be a very honest mistake. Some people confuse vegan and vegetarian. You went to a steakhouse, what did you expect? The world doesn’t revolve around you.
An old acquaintance of mine was actually allergic to a ton of stuff. Allergic to dairy, soy, nuts, citrus, shellfish, and more. It was near impossible for a restaurant to prepare something for her, so she brought her own food. So I’m reading this like… well duh. You should have brought your own food.
The people working at these types of restaurants… are still people. Don’t needlessly make their lives more difficult. You messed up. You were a jerk. Just take responsibility for it and try not to be this entitled again.
flatinn writes:
NTA- the restaurant didn't take you seriously when you told them you were vegan and how did they know you weren't vegan because of allergies? They didn't care so this is what they get. And everyone saying "this makes it harder for ppl with allergies to be taken seriously blah blah blah" op isn't responsible for the owners/staffs future responses.
THEY are accountable for that and should stop being jerks when somone comes in and asks for something vegan or put a sign up that says they won't accommodate vegans, simple.
swampman writes:
There’s several other things you could’ve done rather than lying about having life threatening allergies:
1•Explained to your family that this particular restaurant has refused/intentionally ignored your dietary requests in the past and you won’t be going. 2•Go anyways, but eat beforehand.
3•Go and be insistent about your dietary restrictions and every time they do it wrong send it back. Every. Single. Time. Until they finally do it right.
I’m sure there are plenty of other things you could’ve done, but the right option is never going to be “lie about life threatening food allergies”.
My friend actually is deathly allergic to dairy, she’ll die even if her food is prepared on a station that had dairy on it previously and hasn’t been cleaned, and it’s people like you that make it so no one takes her seriously. It’s the same as people who put a vest on their dog and say it’s a service dog when it clearly isn’t. Y T A for that.
However I’m gonna say ESH cause restaurant should’ve been able to accommodate you in the first place, it’s not that hard and they’re jerks for messing it up several times before, which caused you to lose trust and choose to lie about allergies.
aziels writes:
YTA. You're the reason that restaurants don't take my niece's life-threatening food allergies seriously. Because every moron who doesn't like onions or eggs or pepper is claiming to be "allergic". Stop using food allergies as an excuse to get served foods you prefer. It's really dangerous to real allergy sufferers.
I've been vegetarian for a long time. I realize that diet isn't as restrictive as yours, but I've gotten used to making do during certain social situations. That rehearsal dinner where the choices are steak or chicken?
I just make do. I eat a few things I can eat and I remind myself that family gatherings aren't about stuffing your face with a huge, luxurious meal.
They're about family. I enjoy the company, and grab something to eat when I get home. Is it ideal? Nope. Should places be more accommodating? Yep. Is it better than making a false claim that inconveniences dozens of people and possibly puts others' lives at risk? Yep.
flaila0 writes:
NTA. They seem GROSSLY unprepared to handle allergies, which is a basic part of any food handler's training. Within reason, they should be deep cleaning their kitchen, cleaning their fryers, and knowing what ingredients are in their products ANYWAY.
Like... why did they clean their fryers if they weren't going to use them to prepare your meal? It does certainly require prep, but not the type of "prep" this restaurant chose to undertake.
Given the meal they ultimately prepared for you, they could have bought fresh ingredients from a local grocery (not unheard of for a restaurant to do in a pinch), sanitized an appropriate/dedicated set of cookware (even if it means buying new in this instance) and cooked on a dedicated, sanitized space.
Hell, even buying a countertop single burner would have been easier.
When you called ahead, what they should have done is told you that they will try their best, share their safe prep methods with you, and if you agree to the potential risk associated with that (because there is *always* some risk when preparing allergen-free foods in an area where allergens are prepared, no matter how prepared or careful), move forward.
If you could not agree, they should have offered you to bring your own meal to eat in their restaurant. Charging your family was SO wrong and I have no idea what this restaurant was thinking and IMO they need to get their s together.
entraaa writes:
I have a dairy allergy and I live in a rural area. Yeah, YTA. First, because you’re claiming an allergy that you don’t have and you already know the area doesn’t take either vegetarianism of veganism seriously.
You just made sure they have an even poorer idea of vegetarians/vegans (yes, I know they are completely separate but many in rural areas don’t get the significance), but is also why many restaurants continue not to take allergies seriously.
There is almost nowhere I can eat in my area. I don’t know one single place that doesn’t fry or sauté in butter. The use of lard is pretty high here, too. It’s unreasonable for those reasons alone, but also because it’s a steakhouse.
I wouldn’t go into a vegan or vegetarian restaurant and expect a steak, you shouldn’t expect non animal meals at a steakhouse.
And there are restaurants that literally can’t do what you want; I’ve been to restaurants that only serve meat.
I know people bring up humans being omnivores and restaurants being accommodating, but that only works for certain types of restaurants. Not every restaurant is capable of serving every type of diet, and frankly, that’s okay.
Most restaurants I know of in rural areas will make exceptions at catered meals to bring in a specialty meal, and I think an ask should have been made here. Or your family should have been more accommodating and figured out something else that would have worked.
Eta: I want to be clear that you aren’t an ah for wanting to eat a vegan meal; clearly it’s possible a non-vegan meal could make you sick and it would go against your ethics, etc. You’re an ah for being self-centered.
Also, most restaurants in my area aren’t even willing to go to the lengths this one did. They clearly state on placards that they can’t guarantee that things won’t be cross-contaminated or that allergens won’t sneak in, or that they don’t provide any vegan/vegetarian options. Individual restaurants are allowed to cater to a certain subset of people.