HOUSTON — A Houston man is suing Whataburger for nearly $1 million after he says his burger had onions on it.
Turns out he had asked for a no-onions order.
On July 24, 2024, Demery Ardell Wilson had an allergic reaction after eating a burger that had onions on it at Whataburger, court documents say. He alleges that he requested the fast-food chain to take them off before serving him the burger.
People who specifically requested their food be made without the thing they are allergic to?
Food allergies are something supposed to be taken extremely seriously in public food service. Second to general sanitation, its the whole point of why we have strict regulations about making and serving food.
From the minute the guy ordered w no onions and told them it was an allergy, his entire order should have been made and handled with fresh equipment that had been nowhere near any onions. Its not something that is ever supposed to be easily missable. Otherwise someone could end up in the hospital, like this dude
In order to actually do this, most places I’ve worked would have to hire an extra person. Spoiler : they definitely won’t do that.
Everywhere Ive worked allergy related requests are not that common. Either way though, its literally the letter of the law that every food service place do it. Cross contamination prevention, especially for an allergy, is just basic food service 101. Its a bit frightening that you say youve never seen it anywhere
Oh if it was a nut allergy, that was taken very seriously. But about 5% of our customers claimed to be allergic to onions. It just wasn’t possible to do a special prep for all of them. Of course we would keep onions off it and change gloves, but it’s not like we would prepare it in a separate place or go to the same extremes that we would for a nut or egg allergy.