Anne Munoz-Furlong, who founded the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network in 1991 to find resources to deal with her own child’s allergies, says these people don’t necessarily go out to restaurants looking for variety or even taste. “They go back to same restaurants,” she says. “They’re looking for trust.”

Red Robin attracts customers with food allergies because the consumers share good experiences on forums and blogs.

While she has been happy to talk with the consumer sites, she hasn’t reached out to them to get included, noting that the consumer effort is more grass roots.

Peter Schonman at Biaggi’s has reached out to the sites. The executive chef of the 21-unit, Bloomington, Ill.-based Italian concept wasn’t looking to get listed as much as looking for information.

Munoz-Furlong cautions against using the consumer sites as a primary source of information because they rely on experience and opinions rather than science. What advice would she give a chain that wanted to provide allergen-free menu items? Talk to other chains; like food safety, dealing with food allergies is not a competitive point of difference. Operators can also download Welcoming Guests with Food Allergies, a booklet FAAN created with the help of a restaurant task force.

Maggiano’s chefs will talk to customers with allergies, both to make sure they have the information they need and that the guest feels comfortable.

Red Robin rolled out the allergen-free menus to corporate stores, which account for almost three-quarters of the chain’s 420 restaurants, in October 2007. Franchised stores have had the menus since June 2008.

Brinker International is also among a growing list of restaurant companies that provide allergen information online. According to Stephen Posey, director of quality assurance and food safety, the Dallas-based parent of Chili’s, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Maggiano’s and On the Border provides menu options free of the common allergens, allowing guests the opportunity to review the information prior to their restaurant visit and print the suggested menu options to bring with them to the restaurant.

Once at the restaurant, Andrews says, it’s important that managers speak to customers about their allegies, make them feel welcome and show them that they understand the information. At Red Robin, a manager immediately takes charge of the order. He or she can print the current menu for that guest’s allergy and discuss it with them. The order ticket shows a red allergy alert. The manager follows the dish through preparation, then delivers it to the customer.

In the kitchen, training staff on preparing allergen-free dishes is a natural extension of Red Robin’s thorough food-safety training. “The allergen program fits nicely within our food-safety program,” Andrews says. “None of this is possible if you don’t have training in the store.”

A survey reported in the April 2007 issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, showed food-allergy training was only conducted in 42 percent of restaurants and food establishments. The article noted that while about 90 percent of managers, servers and chefs reported varying degrees of comfort with providing a safe meal, they had some misconceptions like consuming a small amount of allergen is safe (24 percent); fryer heat destroys allergens (35 percent); and removal of an allergen from a finished meal was safe (25 percent).

Schonman echoes the importance of food-safety training. “Take cross-contamination. If you’re cognizant of the rules about poultry and seafood, you understand why you can’t cook gluten-free pasta in the pasta cookers,” he says.

Biaggi's says customers with allergies to shellfish and other foods often teach servers how to help them select a dish.

He’s looking for more ways to serve guests with food allergies, including trying to source gluten-free pizza dough from a manufacturer large enough to supply all the units.

Getting accurate information and orders through the supply chain is crucial. Munoz-Furlong tells the story of a girl who chose her meal from a restaurant’s egg-free menu. The server suggested vanilla ice cream for dessert. The child suffered a reaction because the ice cream was French vanilla, which has eggs in it, rather than the usual vanilla, which would have been safe to eat.

She understands that sometimes a kitchen has to make substitutions, but stresses that those substitutions need to be communicated to the staff, or the food-allergen program needs to be developed to account for those situations.

Munoz-Furlong believes the restaurant industry has vastly improved over the last four or five years thanks to customers asking about ingredients and operators’ awareness of allergy issues. She says nobody expects a restaurant chain to change its whole menu, but that provid-ing information can prevent mistakes. “People know what they can eat. Just let the guests know what’s in it,” Munoz-Furlong says. It’s OK to say I don’t know. “The customer would rather choose something else,” she says.