Allergies at restaurants can sometimes be a little suspicious.

There are definitely those with serious aversions to certain foods, but after being a server for a few years, you start to get the sense for when people are faking it.

Just look at the current trend of health nuts telling restaurants they’re allergic to all seed oils!

This was obviously the case in this story, when a customer at this user’s restaurant professed an allergy to anchovies after eating a Caesar salad the day before!

Check out how OP embarrassed them for yourself!

You can eat anchovies

OK working with the public is always a fun time. I truly believe everyone should have to deal with a Karen with a force smile. It’s a great lesson in tolerance.

Now I at the time have been a chef for about 8 years. I have built up a good thick skin at this point.

So I can deal with the different breeds of Karen you’d see in my work environment: A tourist hot spot near the ocean.

One perk of this job is learning to deal with the unicorn of Karen’s… The entitled Vacationing Mega Karen. VMK for short.

Some of my coworkers, namely the younger summer waitstaff haven’t developed the same methods of tolerance yet.

The fabled VMK that OP spoke of is exactly where this story starts!

I was the sous chef of an outdoor terrace-style seafood restaurant by the sea that was also a Sea Side Inn.

On this day a party of 5 came in. VMK with 4 others I want to say friends.

The entire time I could hear her complain.

That the waitress was too slow. Everything was taking too long. We had a full house at the time.

Anyway after chowder, bread, and a shared appetizer, (all of which according to VMK took forever to get to the table) it was time to order salads.

But little did VMK know that these salads would be her undoing!

It’s at this point I can tell she has been here before. Because she ordered the Caesar salad, but made a point to say hold the anchovies because she was allergic.

Now at this point I should mention that we serve our Caesar salad with 2 anchovies in an X on top of our dish.

She had said this in such a harsh way that my little waitress was about in tears. And VMK Seemed to be enjoying it. Her friends seemed to be used to he type of behavior.

So it was here I decided to step in.

OP decided she would handle this order personally, surely out of the kindness of her heart.

I walked over in my bright white chef coat with my tall paper chefs hat.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help but overhear. Please let me personally handle your order. We take allergies very seriously. I will be out with your order in a few minutes.”

So I stepped inside and asked our salad chef to make a Cesar salad without dressing or garnish (the anchovies).

While he handled that, I went into the storage room and took the label off the box our dressing came in.

Now the moment of truth had arrived, it was time to face the VMK!

I came back out and placed before her a plate of romaine lettuce, parmesan cheese, and croutons.

At first VMK had that smug victorious look on her face. That lasted about 30 seconds till she realized (loudly),

“Where the frig is my dressing? I asked for a Cesar salad!”

I responded an in an equally loud but calm voice, “But ma’am you’re allergic! I can’t feed you something you’re allergic to.”

She pointed her finger at me and yelled,

“I said I’m allergic to anchovies. I had your salad yesterday and you put anchovies on it. I just want my salad without anchovies. Now go make me one without it!”

But VMK had picked the wrong person to mouth off to.

“I said but ma’am it’s right there in front of you. I have made you an anchovy free salad.”

“But from what you have just told me I have good news for you. First let me confirm that you had my salad yesterday.”

“YES! I just removed the portion that had the anchovies on it.”

It’s at this point I realized I had the attention of the restaurant’s whole front end.

And this is where OP knew she had VMK in the palm of her hand!

“AH, well I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that you are not allergic to anchovies.”

“And the bad news is that I know this because you ate some yesterday and are still fine.”

Putting my hand up to stop her protests. I said firmly but not quite as loudly. “Anchovies are one of the main ingredients to Cesar salad dressing”

Reaching inside my pocket and pulling out the label. I pointed to the second ingredient “anchovy paste.”

To this day I can close my eyes and see her Go from red to white and back again. Her friends about fell outa their chairs laughing.

Got a chuckle from a few other tables too. My little waitress got one hell of a tip from that table. Likely not from Karen, but from her friends!

Seems like her friends must have been even sicker of her attitude than OP was!

Good for them for still tipping the waitress handsomely, normally food service workers have to stick up for themselves at the expense of their tip!

Reddit loved seeing the Karen get what was coming to her, with many people being reminded of their own custom order experiences.

This person said while VMK’s allergy was obviously fake, people can have unusual allergies to food.

This user was one of those strange allergies, saying they were in for some serious gut trouble if they consumed a certain vegetable.

And finally, this former pizza delivery man was reminded of his own funny story surrounding anchovies!

People like this are just the worst.

Just be nice!

If you liked that story, check out this one about a couple who forgot to turn off their ice machine and returned home after 4 months to find their freezer had turn into a frozen cavern.