Some restaurants do refuse to bring food out cut #DisabilityAwareness
My experience asking for my food to be brought out cut!
[Video Description: ST, a young white woman with long blonde hair, is speaking on screen. The comment she is replying to is on screen at the beginning of the video and reads “Do restaurants actually refuse to cut things up? If I were a server and got asked this, I would be very eager to help. I’d be asking how many pieces and what shapes you want for the sandwich 💕” Text on screen reads “Some restaurants do refuse to bring food out cut” and “NO ADVICE PLEASE”]
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39 Comments
See that's not fair. Of course you should disclose it's because of a disability. A grown adult should not expect food to come pre cut. It's just more work in an already busy and stressful environment, for nothing. If you have a disability or injury, 100% you should be accommodated and no one would have 1 single issue with it.
Thats the Thing. If they dont know that you cant do it, why should they do it?
Places have Busy Times and while its No issue to help those who need it, they cant coddle people who simply dont want to do it.
Never been a server but after working in customer service I feel like one of the most unprofessional things you can do is make a guest or customer feel like a burden for a request. Especially saying "the kitchen will give me a hard time about it" like okay?? If you dont want to do your job can I have a different server please and thank you 😂
My solution was just being married to a right person. LOL. My husband cuts everything for me with a smile. We make all my disability needs part of the relationship. And it works out. And I do ask for help from any stranger in any place. No hesitation at all. I know people are happy to help.
My partners been having to cut my food for me recently on bad days, I've broken down a few times over it, having help from someone who you love helps so much when you're losing parts of your independence. I've never considered the possibility of asking for help before from the kitchen. I also get the uncomfortableness that can come from needing help with that. I might see if that helps the next time Im with others and can't do it myself
I have never thought of requesting this! It probably wouldn’t help me now because even simple requests are often rejected in the country where I live now but back in the US, this could have saved me so much embarrassment. My motor skills are hit or miss (yay for spiky profiles iykyk) and one thing I absolutely suck at is cutting meat. It’s common for me to accidentally fling my food across the table while cutting, so my family would often cut it for me.
Maybe this is a me thing, but… if someone makes a request, even one that seems trivial, and it is within my capacity to easily meet that request, I’ll just do it. No questions asked.
I don’t need to know that you have a disability to cut your food up for you.
I don’t need to know your sex to use your preferred pronouns.
I don’t need to know that you have migraines to stop wearing perfume around you.
I don’t need to know your trauma to give you a trigger warning.
If accommodating someone is that easy, there’s no reason to say no. Regardless of why they need accommodations.
I was a server for a years and I had never gotten this request. If I had and the line cooks would have given me a hard time about it (and honestly based on some of the guys I’ve worked with in the past i could see them giving me a hard time) I would have given them a hard time right back.
Im a nurse so I’m basically a server (iykyk) & if some asked me to cut their food I’d do my best to make sure they’re accommodated bc most people wouldn’t ask that if they were able to do it themselves. It won’t take but a minute
I’ve found restaurants to still try to be accommodating, but doctors offices out of all places give me a lot of attitude. They often don’t accommodate unless I cite the ADA and say they will break the law otherwise.
To me, it seems obvious that if an adult (or really anyone over the age of, idk, five?) asks for their food to be cut into bite-sized pieces for them at a restaurant, it’s because of some kind of disability, because there’s no other reason why they’d make that request.
Our society is so fucking broken, people have such an issue with anyone needing anything from anyone else without wanting to prostrate themselves at their feet and grovel and beg and dehumanize themselves in order to get their needs met…
We’re supposed to be social creatures who live in communities that support each other, but instead we got this stupid toxic hyperindividualist mindset, where even daring to ask for any amount of consideration from others is viewed as entitlement or insulting…
Where everyone would sooner assume malice or that you’re lazy and entitled, than offer grace or hold space or consider the possibility of someone having struggles they can’t see…
We have strayed too far from god (in the metaphorical sense, god as in love and empathy and compassion)
Precutting the food .akes it slightly worse (the meat looses juice, everything cools down fast) and it looks less appetizing!
My guess is, some cooks worry about food getting sent back..plus, as others mention, they might be swamped!
“The kitchen would give me a hard time about that”
THATS NOT A NO. SO THAT MEANS ITS A YES.
That guilt tripping was uncalled for holy crap.
Oh girl, hugs 🫂
People definitely underestimate the weight behind being forced to disclose medical information for basic accomodations to be met.
It's hard to put into words, but disclosing my disability opens up the floor for people to call me a liar, lazy, not trying, spoiled, not like their neighbor's cousin's sister-in-law who totally has the /same thing/ and so a liar. Just because discrimination against disabled people is illegal doesn't mean people don't do it anyway, do it loud, do it sneaky, or do it to people who can't fight back. ☹️
The end of the comment this was in response to, was absolutely sweet as heck and pure gold.
How many pieces and what shapes ❤
I dont work in a restaurant but i do work retail that serves fast food and the amount of miscommunication between what is or isnt allowed as a special request (even outside of food altogether) has been kind of absurd. Different managers will say different things and one manager in particular made it to my personal shit list when he tried to tell me it was silly to take a customer’s peanut allergy concern so seriously (we have no peanut anything on the menu but i offered to change gloves and serving spoons for them for peace of mind, which they appreciated. Like it was <1 extra min to make the food bruh.)
So all this to say im sure at least some cases it could definitely be a training problem on the part of restaurants, and maybe also not helped by some possibly-manager jerk making a big stink about having to accommodate the request
There's a fancy french cooking term for it, "trancher". Not every server will know it, but most are happy to learn and accomodate in my experience. It sucks that some will even just refuse to tell the kitchen about it
As someone who works in food service, training is WILDLY inconsistent and unfortunately I see people say different things in response to requests CONSTANTLY. It’s one of the many frustrations I have with working in food service lol
This brings up an interesting topic, it’s a similar situation I’ve found myself in. People will take accommodations more seriously if you disclose your disability, but should we have to? Should people just try to help when asked anyway? I can kinda see both sides, sometimes a request seems difficult/entitled until you realise why; but I also wish we could all be more empathetic, and that people didn’t have to disclose medical information in order to be accommodated.
i do hate we have to point out we have issues doing certain things they take for granted.
I do the same but I also always sit right beside my mom or whoever I’m with so that if it doesn’t come out already cut they can help me easily
In my youth I waitressed in multiple lower end/ family restaurants, we were never given a policy about this. I had a couple tables (over 10 years) as for their food to be cut when it came out, it was never an issue.
As someone who works in kitchens, I've had this happen before. The way I personally see it is that it's not really my place to be asking why the food needs to be cut before it's sent out. It's easier to accommodate when the kitchen isn't busy, but it should still be done, whether or not an explanation is given.
I'm about to have shoulder surgery and honestly didn't even think about how I'd cut food 😅 good to know I can at least try to ask!
I have trouble sometimes cutting food it utensils so I'll tear the food when I'm at home or just pick up a whole porkchops and just bite into it 😂. I don't go out to eat often. My partner helped me with my pancakes once and the server rushed over to ask if everything was ok 🙃
This reminds me of how some people with allergies don't wanna say its an allergy if its not super serious. Even though any allergic reaction can lead to a worse one next time. Still many people eat things that cause swelling many times. My point is saying "I am not capable can you cut my food for me" is kind of like saying "I'm allergic". And asking for food to be cut is like saying make sure there is none of that on my food. Like its keeping personal info to a minimum and still not requiring you give them more work to do. I may be wrong with this comparison. I am willing to be corrected or have it elaborated on.
The crab cracking thing sort of depends on how much you expect done? If its just cracking the shell 100% they should do it, but if you asked for the meat to be removed its something that takes a lot of time to do and generally at red lobster they make the server do it instead of the kitchen staff so if its a low volume day thats easy enough but if its a high volume day it becomes a problem as it usually results in tables getting neglected while the server frantically tries to open all the legs as fast as possible without squashing most of the meat in the process as legs are very finicky to open even without a disability.
do you ask beforehand now ? before making the reservation?
I don't think I would mind cutting your food when I'm a person who goes to the restaurant with you
I’m not even physically disabled and I prefer my burger cut in half because that’s my preference. They should automatically do it regardless because it’s your food. So simple
Thinking about Asian restaurants who ALWAYS have their meat cut. So it's easy to eat with chopsticks.
What the heck. They could just cut it before throwing it on the plate. Any chef can do that in seconds, cos guess what? Big sharp knife!!!😅
I think this is one of those times where being pretty is actually making it harder for her. I think people are more likely to assume you are bullying them or being a princess than if a less attractive person asked.
You say people shouldn't have to disclose that they have a disability, but look at it from the server's perspective. If you don't disclose that, to them it just looks like you are asking them to do extra work for no reason at all… To be honest I don't really understand the reasoning behind not encouraging people to disclose it. Wouldn't that help normalize it?
I would think of you asking for your good cut up, you need it done for some reason. I highly doubt there are just ppl that just want it like that for no reason? And like even if they did, it really doesn’t take that much extra time. So I don’t feel like disclosing your disability needs to be a thing, I think people should just have more empathy for people that we are all trying our best.
I’m vegan and, at Subway, I sometimes get attitude if I ask for gloves to be changed or a clean knife to be used to cut my sandwich. I just try to ignore the attitude but if they refuse to do it I’ll let them go ahead and make my sandwich before telling them to F off and walking out. If I were at a sit down restaurant I’d probably just walk out and I would make sure the manager knew why. If I decided to stay at the sit down restaurant out of respect for the other person with me there would be no tip given by me b/c I’ve been a server before and if someone requested their food to be cut I’d do it myself if the kitchen refused I don’t have a disability like ST’s so I can cut my own food but I do have some limitations due to having a stroke and those affect me in different ways and I have experienced lack of accommodation in the workplace so I can identify in other ways with struggles from a disability. I get not wanting to mention that you have a disability or not feeling that you should have to and in my Subway scenario I’ve had people tell me that I should probably tell the worker that I have allergies so they would be more willing to change gloves or use a different knife but I don’t think I should have to.
Places are really weird about requesting things sometimes. It's also terrible when they do the thing but do it poorly on purpose or act flippantly about it. Like bestie I wouldn't be asking for this if I didn't need it
as someone whos worked in a lot of kitchens, i have a feeling the variability is based on how busy the kitchen/restaurant is, and i do emphasize that even if the restaurant does not look busy, does not necessarily mean the kitchen isn't, i am Incredibly busy at 4am and every little order annoys me and slows me down 😂
which isnt like, an excuse, that is a completely reasonable request that should absolutely be honoured! but the way food service employees are treated and the turnarounds expected will definitely lead to situations like this. it always comes back to capitalism 😅