Dining out with allergies is all about the planning.  Choosing the right restaurant, asking the right questions up front and bringing back up food will help you deal with the anxieties you face each time you take your allergic child out for dinner.  What’s in your control is much easier to deal with.  What’s not in your control is where our fear lives and grows.

As parents, we are always worrying about our children and their safety, as most parents do.  For the allergic family though, words like anaphylaxis, cross-contamination, epinephrine were a completely new language that only came into existence at some point in their child’s young life.  So when you enter a restaurant with your children and not realize that Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year, all your baggage and anxieties from over the past 5 years have just come pressing down on your shoulders. 

Do I stay?  Do I go?  “I’ve done my research, relied on my calling ahead, checked with AllerDine.com, read the menu online and spoke to the manager just days before”.  It is at this point that we try to move forward for our children’s sake. If it were up to me, I’d be in my car on the way home…but it’s not up to me.  It’s up to my children.  They are so excited to be dining out.  They love to dine out and want to do it more often.  So do it…believe me, those 4 hours a day in the kitchen preparing 3 meals a day for 5 people is exhausting.

I passed through this point of no return, brought my full family with me and 18 of us had a great mother’s day dinner.  What made it possible was the excellent staff.  The kitchen manager and waiter validated my research.  The kitchen manager, Kate, came out during the peak of dinner, sat with us and discussed safe meal options.  We did not feel rushed or that we were inconvieniencing her.  It seemed as if we were the only ones in the restaurant, when in fact there was not one available table.  The waiter made good suggestions as well and my family was safe, thrilled to be out and I was overjoyed with the fact I did not have to clean dishes, wipe floors or clear a table. 

The Keg Sheppard Centre in Toronto made all this possible on the busiest day of the year not just for my two kids with allergies, but for my sister’s son as well.  We can now confidently trust the Keg to meet our dining needs.    Please share similar experiences with us on AllerDine.com.  If you don’t see your favorite restaurant, please add it so that other families in your community can benefit from your successes.