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FYI

Over several months I have been reading messages about various
experiences at restaurants like Outback Steakhouse and Applebees. I have
had  my own experience with a McDonald's.

The first apparent misunderstanding is that these national chains are
uniform.  They are uniform, sometimes in name and advertising only. Any
particular restaurant  may be run by the national directly, run by a a
group which holds the franchise for a group of 4 or 5 restaurants with
the same name or run by an individual franchisee.  Sources of food may
be national, local or some mix of the two.

McDonald's, for instance, has been given a monopoly by the states on the
Massachusetts Turnpike and the New York Thruway.


I stopped last fall at one and ordered the simplest thing possible, a
plain garden salad.  I had checked the posted ingredient list . There
was nothing in it but vegetables. To my surprise it came with cheese and
coldcut meat(whose ingredients were unknown). I rejected the salad and
pointed out that it did not agree with the posted ingredient list.  The
manager responded that the list was an old one  2 years old and no
longer was applicable.  He further stated that McDonalds only advised
them on some things but that their ultimate boss was the owner who held
the franchise for 4 or 5 of the outlets on the Turnpike. I also learned
that not all their food came from McDonalds.   The regional McDonalds
office told me that they had told all individual restaurants to remove
the 2 year old ingredient listings some time before my stop.  I ended up
with a cup of tea since even Pepsi and Coke will not guarantee their
products unless it is in one of their unopened containers.

Even when the national chain has tried to provide information about
gluten free products; in any individual restaurant's case there is no
guarantee that it will be true. Each restaurant may have been given
directives from national, but that doesn't mean that they are being
followed. Individual franchise owners or owners of groups of restaurants
can use their discretion in too many ways. They can add new dishes. They
can buy some ingredients locally ( which may be of a poorer quality.)
They may get some through these giant food services like Sysco, a
distributor who appears to be increasing their national spread and may
have been furnished with no ingredient listings. ( Sysco will not deal
with individual consumers-they say work through the restaurant.) Some
may buy some, or all their semiprepared foods  through the national and
have no idea what is in them. The national headquarters seldom  police
the performance of their directives adequately.  I used to even eat at a
2 location franchise until I found out that the employees took turns
being "cooks" in the kitchen.

In short, the only "safe harbor"  for celiacs appear to be one owner
chef restaurant who know everything that is in their foods.  The only
exception to that in greater Boston  is Legal Seafoods which has a list
of ingredients for every dish served in every location.       I cannot
understand how a celiac can trust his/her life to a franchise restaurant
even once.

Hal De Bruyn in Boston