Me and my family wanted a quick bite to eat while we were driving around and decided to stop by Panera Bread for some quick soups and salads. I have a 13 year old daughter who was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, which meant she couldn't...eat gluten/wheat (Google it for more info). So I talked to one of the workers there about getting her a gluten free salad (BBQ Chicken Salad). I told the woman that was taking our order to make my daughter's salad without any gluten. (She understood perfectly, as she gave an apple as the side instead of bread.)
When I got our order, my daughter took two bites of her salad before freezing and saying, "Dad, there's something crunchy in here." Then she looked down in her salad forked up something "And it looks like frizzled onions."
I looked through her salad to find more even frizzled onions, which were the onion equivalent of crotons. In other words, high in the very thing I asked for the salad to be free of. I went up to the desk and asked them how the frizzled onions ended up in my daughters salad when we specifically asked for a gluten free salad. The lady replied saying, "Hey, your daughter doesn't have any gluten problems." (So does that mean you have to straight out tell them that you have some kind of gluten problem? Then why didn't she ask us that in the first place?!)
Then I immediately told her about my daughter's Celiac Disease, which she suddenly said, "I'm sorry, I didn't know!" repeatedly.
You could say that I should have suspected that there would be some kind of problem going to a place where bread was literary in its name, but they assured me that the salad would contain no gluten. And since they have such a huge company, I foolishly believed in them.
(The food was okay, but was rather too salty, too creamy, or too many calories.)
You may assume that we are not going there ever again.More