Max pulled his notepad and pen from his apron pocket and approached the woman sitting alone at a table in the restaurant. The lamp over the table cast a halo over her arms and the laminated menu in her hands. He had seen her here before, but Max was a new enough employee that he hadn’t learned her name. “Hi, I’m Max,” he told her when he reached her. “Do you want to start with a drink? Or are you ready to order?”
The woman set down her menu, the yellow light from the lamp flashing across it. Her face was solemn. “I’m not sure what I can eat here anymore. I was just diagnosed with a food allergy. Some of these things I clearly can’t have, but some of them I’m not sure about. Can you help me decide on something?”
She pointed out some items and expressed her concerns, but Max’s mind went blank. “I … I don’t know for sure,” he stammered. “Hold on—I’ll be right back.”
He hurried to the office, where the owner and manager, Douglas, was working. Max knocked at the door. Douglas looked up. “Max, hello! What can I help you with?”
“There’s this customer at one of my tables. She’s been here before, but … she says she has some kind of food allergy, and I’m not sure what’s safe for her to eat.”
Douglas’s brow furrowed, and he got up. He gestured to Max to lead him to this customer. When they arrived at the table, Douglas said, “Ah, Amelia! It’s great to see you, as always. What can we do for you?”
Amelia explained the situation, and Douglas took the menu and looked it over. Amelia said, “The problem is that I can’t tell from this menu what all of the ingredients are, especially in the sauces and dressings. And of course I have no idea what meals are prepared using the same surfaces.”
Douglas frowned and nodded. He flipped the menu over a couple times. “I wish I had an answer for you,” he finally said, his tone soft and quiet.
With a sigh, Amelia let her shoulders slump. Then she sidled out of the bench seat. “This has been one of my favorite restaurants,” she told them, “but I’ll have to find other places to eat out.”
“I’m sorry I can’t help you right now,” Douglas said. “If you give us some time and then come back, I’ll have a better idea.”
Amelia smiled slightly, and they said goodbye.
“What … what are you going to do?” Max asked.
“Some research.”
Douglas spent hours over the next week making phone calls, browsing the Internet, and taking notes. A few days later, the menus they’d been using had been replaced. Each item had a set of numbers, and the back of the menu sported a legend indicating the allergen that each number represented.
Amelia appeared at the restaurant’s entrance a couple weeks later, looking hesitant. Douglas happened to be walking past and invited her in. He showed her one of the menus. “Oh! This is awfully nice,” replied Amelia. “It looks like there’s one or two things I can eat.”
Douglas showed her to a table, and Max took her order. Amelia was nice and polite, but she didn’t take her time and she was soon gone.
Douglas watched out of a window as she went to her car. Max said, “I don’t think she enjoyed it.”
Nodding, Douglas muttered, “It isn’t enough. There must be more we can do.”
Following more research, Douglas changed some rules in the kitchen. Gloves must be changed before handling any food that a customer could be allergic to. Anything that didn’t contain an allergen had to be prepared in a specific part of the kitchen. And meals must be assembled at the end if they did contain one or more allergens so as not to cross-contaminate the food.
Douglas told the food preparers that he had changed which suppliers they received some of their ingredients from in order to reduce the number of allergens. The different stations in the kitchen had a sheet of paper on the wall listing which foods could be prepared there.
Afterward, new menus appeared again with the numbering updated, along with a prominent box saying customers should tell their servers if they had food allergies so extra care could be taken. Douglas even put up some simple signs around the restaurant with the same message.
Amelia didn’t return for maybe another month. When she did, Douglas showed her the menu. Her face brightened. “Did you add some new dishes? But no, these look like the same ones.”
Douglas kept smiling. “Same dishes, but different suppliers for some of the ingredients, and some changes to how the food is prepared to keep allergens separate.”
“That is so wonderful! Thank you!” She looked up at him. “That’s probably the best I can ask for—other than expanding the kitchen to make sure things aren’t cross contaminated.” She ordered something and seemed to have a better time, judging by the more frequent smiles and her more upright posture.
But what she had said got Douglas thinking. Max could tell.
A couple months later, the restaurant closed down for a several weeks. That meant no work, but unexpectedly, Douglas told all the employees that he would keep paying them in the meantime if they would be coming back at the end of the closure. Max agreed to that.
He was riding his bike past the restaurant one day and saw something going on behind the kitchen. Some kind of construction with sheets of plastic hanging over what looked like a big hole in the back. What was Douglas doing?
When the restaurant opened again, Douglas showed everyone the newly remodeled kitchen. It had been extended in the back so as to have completely separate counters, ranges, fryers, and sinks for the food that contained allergens.
Max took Douglas aside at one point. “I don’t know if it’s my place to ask, but … didn’t that cost a lot of money? Plus continuing to pay all of us while we weren’t working?”
“Yes,” Douglas admitted.
“We’ll never make that money back, will we? Not in a million years.”
Douglas gave him a level look. “It’s not about money. It never was.”
Amelia came the next day. “I’m glad you’re open again,” she told Max. “I’m so happy to be able to keep coming here.”
Douglas had asked everyone to let him know when Amelia came. Max went to the office and let him know. Douglas came out and told Amelia he had a surprise to show her. He led her to the kitchen and showed her the new section. He explained how food was being handled now. “If you take a close look at your menu,” he finished, “we should have a lot more options for you now.”
Amelia’s mouth hung open, and then she beamed. “Tell me you didn’t do this all for me!”
“Well, no one else was coming in here telling us they have food allergies, so … yes, kind of.” Douglas managed to look somewhat sheepish as he shrugged.
“But why? You certainly didn’t have to.”
Douglas turned to her. “I couldn’t stand that someone who enjoyed coming so much wouldn’t have a place to go and couldn’t keep coming. And that maybe you didn’t really have anywhere else to go. So it was worth it to go to these lengths for you, Amelia. It would have broken my heart for you to never come through our door again.”
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The Weekly Parable 