I Ate Here: Unforked

{Updates are included in the bottom of this post.}

I need to tell you a little something before you read this post.  See, I ate at the restaurant I’ll write about down the page over a month ago.  I had decided not to write about my dinner at all, I’m not fond of writing about negative experiences.  I shared my story about how difficult I found eating vegetarian and gluten-free at Disney World and still get negative messages about it.  I thought that was the last time I would say anything negative about a dining experience. I like writing about the shiny, happy, positive experiences and I like it when y’all say nice things to me.  It’s part of my Pollyanna complex.

And then I found my backbone.  In the last couple of months, I’ve thought a lot about how challenging it can be to eat gluten-free.  I’ve struggled to stay healthy while traveling or eating out near home.  I’ve read an enlightening story of a friend’s struggle to keep her college-age children healthy.  I’ve heard horror stories about the resulting sickness from a well-planned special dinner out or the holiday meals where  folks go hungry or eat only the dish they brought from home.  

I try so hard to share how it can be done, how you can thrive gluten-free, instead of sharing the inevitable how-it-was-done-poorly experiences, but no more. While I do thrive and I LOVE eating and sharing my gluten-free good times, I’m done not sharing the rough times, too.  Here is why:  I want everyone, not just those of us eating gluten-free by necessity, but those who are eating gluten-free by choice and those who are serving food for us in commercial settings, to really get it, to understand what gluten-free means. It’s more than slapping a label on your product or menu. It’s more than empty promises, it’s about my health and the health of the 1 in 133 who have no choice but to eat gluten-free.  

So here I go, telling you what it occasionally looks like when I eat out…what it looks like when it isn’t done well.  

When Unforked opened, I was delighted to find their on-line menu contained notations for every single food item, denoting which items are gluten-free and vegetarian.  Terrific!

Their website also contains this information about Gluten-Free Dining:
“Unfortunately, there is still no governmental definition of gluten free; so we researched, became educated & absorbed information – and look at it this way for Unforked.
Unforked menu items listed with a gf, denote items which do not contain ingredients with gluten; such as the gluten free burger buns we purchase from Olivia’s Oven (one of our local partners).During normal kitchen operations involving shared cooking and preparation areas, where other wheat-based products are used throughout the day – please be aware that there may be the possibility of cross-contact in our restaurant.  We encourage you to consider your dining choices carefully.
Due to these circumstances, we are unable to guarantee that any menu offering can be completely free of allergens.
Unforked strives to consistently deliver the most flavorful, wholesome menu items and provide transparency so you can make informed food decisions.  If you are highly sensitive to gluten; please let us know, at your time of ordering, so we can discuss the best options.“

Which is it?  Are you aware of what gluten-free means?  Because your website says you became educated, you absorbed information, you are offering items that are, in fact, made in a dedicated gluten-free kitchen such as burger buns.  And then you say there is possibility of cross-contamination.  I get that, it is a risk I have to take if I ever want to eat out again in my own city.  So I followed the directive on the website; at the time of my order, I let the cashier know I am highly sensitive to gluten. I would need her assistance in ordering.  All seemed well, for a minute.

My husband and I decided to split the veggie burger and fries so we could also try the Taco-of-the-Day.  The Voodoo Veggie Taco included Anjou pear, roasted sweet potatoes, spice toasted pumpkin seeds and a cranberry hickory sauce drizzle with queso fresco. Doesn’t that sound delicious?

I verified after ordering that everything we had selected was gluten-free.  The cashier said the only thing that she was unsure of was the UNspread on the burger, but she said she would just have them put it on the side.  I asked that she actually check, because I didn’t want it anywhere near my food if it contains gluten.  We paid and the cashier walked into the open kitchen area.  She asked one person if the UNspread was gluten-free.  The response, “I am 99.9% sure it is.”  Yeah, that doesn’t cut it.  It either is or it isn’t.  Another person in the kitchen told her it was indeed gluten-free.

We claimed our food at the counter in just a few moments.  The veggie burger was fine, a portobello mushroom.  The downfall for us was the gluten-free bun.  When I first went gluten-free, this particular bun was a terrific option since there wasn’t much else available.  Now the world of gluten-free buns has changed and there are really terrific buns out there that are comparable to gluten buns.  My husband remarked, “This looks like a smashed English muffin.”  But all of that said, it would be a great option for gluten-free vegetarians, not a bad burger.

The tacos were incredible.  Soft, corn tortillas and the pear and sweet potato filling was one of the best taco fillings I have ever tried.  I was really looking forward to visiting Unforked again just to have tacos.

While I’m not a huge fan of fries, I was still a little hungry and joined my husband in eating the basket of fries.  You’ll notice on the menu they are marked as gluten-free.

Let me explain what the aforementioned “possibility of cross-contact” means to me:  maybe a restaurant staff member touches my fry basket with a gloved hand that has also handled a gluten-full bun.  Maybe there is flour in the air.  Maybe you are taking every precaution you can within reason but want me to be aware there is also gluten in your kitchen.  What is does not mean to me is that you fry everything in the same fryer and choose to label your fries gluten-free.

Here’s a picture of what was in our fry basket:

Those are crunchy bits of fried batter.

Panic.  Had I eaten any of that?  How long did I have before the icky symptoms of consuming gluten hit me? Would I be okay for the 30 minute drive home?

I called over the fella clearing tables and asked him if they have a dedicated fryer for their fries.  He told me they did not and asked if that was a problem.  I told him it was, especially considering the menu has the item marked “gluten-free” and I was served a basket of gluten nuggets.

He asked if I wanted to speak to a manager, but I just wanted to go home.  While I don’t expect you to understand this if you are not someone who reacts quickly to consuming gluten, I just wanted to go home.  If I was going to vomit, I’d rather be at home.  And when the lethargy hits and I can’t piece together a coherent sentence, I’d rather be at home.

I told the young man I would e-mail my concern and he told me he would pass my concern along to the manager. My hubby snapped a few pics of the ick with his phone, while I collected myself.  By this time, I was fighting back tears, hoping I wasn’t going to be sick, counting through in my head all of the things I needed to do in the next few days.  I never have time to be sick, who does?

I did e-mail my concern.  In fact, I did it that very evening, December 1st of 2011.  As I sat on my sofa, skin crawling, stomach burning and a red rash developing on my hand, I couldn’t sleep and decided I’d send an e-mail.  Here’s what I said:

“We had dinner at Unforked tonight.  I was excited to dine with you because of the ease in ordering gluten-free.  Having your menu clearly marked made it easy and I was able to verify with the cashier that the daily special tacos were gluten-free.

The Voodoo Tacos were great, the veggie burger was also good. The fries are why I am writing to you.  In my basket of fries there were several chunks of fried batter, definitely not gluten-free.  I understand the possibility of cross-contamination in a restaurant,  I eat out frequently. When a menu item is labeled gluten-free, I expect that a restaurant has done so with the understanding they are doing everything they can to keep the food safe for those of us who cannot ingest gluten.  Using a non-dedicated fryer for French fries and serving them with pieces of gluten-full batter is a risk for me.  It would be best for me and others who are eating gluten-free for medically necessitated reason that your fries and anything else cooked in a shared fryer not be labeled as gluten-free.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.  We enjoyed dinner this evening until discovering the gluten in the fries and hope to be able to dine with you again.”

And here’s the response I received:

Hear the crickets?

That’s right…I got no response.  Not at all.  I had hoped to share with you a happy story, a story of a restaurant saying, “We had no idea, thanks for bringing that to our attention. We’ll take the gluten-free denotation off of that menu item and any others prepared in the same fryer.”  I hoped to share with you another great dining establishment in the KC area where you can safely dine gluten-free.

Instead, I have nothing to share with you other than my dining experience.  Will I eat there again? Probably not.  I’m not willing to risk it.  While my reaction this time was mild, no way am I going to risk having a major gluten reaction.  The tacos were really good, just not that good.

While I am not sure what the answer is to this, I am making a promise to you, my readers, that I will share my dining experiences honestly.  I’m not going to share only the good stuff anymore, in hopes that it will help me figure out a way to be part of the necessary change.  There has got to be a way to educate folks and sweeping these experiences under the rug isn’t part of it.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we can better educate restaurateurs on safely preparing gluten-free food.

UPDATE:  On January 17th, 2012, I received an e-mail from Kandy Fletcher of Unforked asking me to call her regarding my experience.  I responded to her e-mail with my phone number so she could call me at her convenience.  I did not receive a returned call or e-mail.

On February 15th, 2012, my phone rang bright and early in the morning.  It was Jim Sheridan, one of the founders of Unforked.  He apologized for the delay in responding to the e-mail I sent on December 1st of 2011.  He said they found it interesting they had not been receiving e-mails from their website and they have fixed the problem.  So two and a half months later, he was following up.

Mr. Sheridan told me they have fixed the shared fryer concern with their French fries.  They are now using one side of their fryer specifically for fries only.  He also told me that other than me, they have never received a customer concern about gluten cross-contamination in their restaurant.  He said that he knows it is impossible for any business to do everything well, but they do take very seriously safely preparing food for those with food sensitivities and allergies.  I did take a moment to share with him the importance of not just offering food free of ingredients that contain gluten, but also the importance of preparing them in a manner that reduces the chance of cross-contamination.  I don’t want to bore you with details, but explained that not everyone has an immediate reaction to gluten like I do, so just because I’m the only one that has voiced a concern does not mean that best practices were being followed, especially for a restaurant that has gluten-free designations on their menu.

I offered Mr. Sheridan a space here in this blog post to share his thoughts on eating out gluten-free and to share with my readers what Unforked is doing to provide a great dining experience for those who must eat gluten-free.  I haven’t received that e-mail yet, but will be sure to include it here when I do. I appreciate them following up and, as with any restaurant I write about, am happy to allow space for their input.

On May 4th, 2013, a year and three months since Mr. Sheridan’s phone call, I received this email:

“Johnna,

I just ran across your blog. I am the founder of Unforked and would like to hear of your experience to address the issues that you experienced. I commit war on this business everyday.

We spend about 30 man hours a day making items from scratch every day. We have also tried to support local products and company’s. Our love for all natural meats from never ever programs are also very important to us as our bacon to tri tip steak are 100% natural from birth.

Best Regards,
Jim Sheridan

Sent from my iPhone”

I responded:

Thank you again for contacting me.”

If you are reading through the updates, you may also find the reader comments below of interest.  Of the many restaurant visits I’ve written about, this stands as the second of only two where I had a bad experience.  I hope this post will not dissuade you from eating out and will perhaps give you some thoughts on how to best eat out safely when avoiding gluten is not a choice, but a necessity.

Unforked is located at 7337 W. 119th street in Overland Park, Kansas.