Special requests and dietary needs without slowing the line

This is part 5 of our 7-part series Guest experience at a café or restaurant. Earlier: steps of service, the first 30 seconds, large parties and serving guests with disabilities.

"Can I get that without onions?" "Is this vegan?" "Could you do half oat, half whole?" Every request is reasonable on its own. Twenty of them in the middle of a rush, each answered differently by whoever is at the register, slow the line and make the kitchen guess.

The fix isn't saying no more often. It's deciding most of the answers before the guest asks, so the register can say yes quickly, ring it in clearly, and save the real conversations for the requests that need one.

Three kinds of requests, three ways to handle them

Not every request carries the same risk. Train the team to tell them apart in the first sentence.

The allergy row has its own procedure, and it should never be rushed to keep the line moving. Our allergen matrix template gives the counter one place to look, and our allergy order procedure takes an allergy order from the guest to the plate. The rest of this post is about the first two rows, and about making sure a diet question that's really an allergy gets moved to the third.

The question that sorts it: when a guest asks for something to be left out, ask "Is that an allergy?" It's a normal question, it takes two seconds, and it decides which path the order takes.

Decide the yes list in advance

Most special requests are the same twenty. Write them down with the answer, so nobody has to ask the kitchen during service.

1. Collect a week of requests. Ask the register and the servers to jot down every request they get. A tally sheet by the POS is enough.
2. Sort them with the kitchen and the bar. For each one: yes, yes with a charge, or no.
3. Write a reason for each no. "The sauce is made in a batch with garlic in it" is something staff can say. "The kitchen says no" isn't.
4. Put the list where the register can see it, and in your training.

A sample:

The "why" matters. A guest who hears a real reason usually accepts it; a guest who hears "we can't" often asks to speak to someone.

Put the common swaps on the POS

A swap that's typed into a free-text note gets read differently by every cook. A swap that's a button prints the same way every time.

• Make every item on the yes list a modifier with a clear name: "NO ONION", "SUB OAT", "DRESSING SIDE".
• Use free text only for what isn't on the list, and have the cashier read it back.
• Keep the modifier names short and in capitals if your tickets are hard to read at a glance.
• Remove modifiers you've said no to, so nobody can ring them by accident.

When the menu changes, the yes list and the POS buttons change with it. Our menu change rollout checklist has a line for both.

No surprises on the price

Some swaps cost you more, and charging for them is normal. What slows the line is a guest discovering the charge at the card reader. Post every swap charge next to the item, and say it once at the register: "Oat milk is an extra charge, is that okay?"

Words that carry a promise: "gluten-free", "vegan", "dairy-free"

Some words on a menu are promises. A guest who reads "gluten-free" may be someone who can't eat gluten at all.

The FDA's gluten-free rule is written for packaged foods, but the agency addresses restaurants in its questions and answers on the gluten-free labeling rule: "The regulation applies to packaged foods, which may be sold in some retail and food-service establishments such as some carry-out restaurants. However, given the public health significance of “gluten-free” labeling, we recommend restaurants making a “gluten-free” claim on their menus to be consistent with our “gluten-free” definition."

That definition, in 21 CFR 101.91, requires among other things that "Any unavoidable presence of gluten in the food bearing the claim in its labeling is below 20 ppm gluten". In a small kitchen with one toaster and flour in the air, that's hard to promise.

• If you can't keep gluten out of the whole process, say so: "made without gluten-containing ingredients, prepared in a kitchen that uses wheat." Let the guest decide.
• Treat "vegan" and "dairy-free" the same way: check the ingredients of every component, including the bread, the sauce and the oil the fries are cooked in, before the word goes on the menu.
• Don't let staff add claims. "It's probably fine" is the one answer nobody is allowed to give.

One script for the register

Train one answer, and the line keeps moving.

Preference on the list: "Sure, no onion." (Ring the modifier.) Something left out, unclear why: "Is that an allergy?" (Yes: allergy procedure. No: check the yes list.) Diet question: "Let me check the ingredients for you." (Look it up; don't guess.) Not on the list: "We can't do that one, because [reason]. We can do [nearest yes]." Not sure: "Let me ask the kitchen." (Then actually ask.)

The last line is important. "Let me ask" is always allowed, even in a rush. A wrong answer about ingredients is worse than a short wait.

When the request is complicated

Some requests need more than a button: a guest with several allergies, a child's birthday cake with a list of exclusions, a group with five different diets. Move these out of the line.

• Take the order to the side of the counter, or have a lead come over.
• For groups and catering, collect dietary needs in writing ahead of time. Our catering order form has the fields.
• Tell the guest how long it will take, and keep the promise. Our post on the first 30 seconds covers quoting times.

Where Mays fits

• The yes list and the script, on every phone: write them as a Knowledge Base article so the register can look up an answer. See Knowledge base basics.
• A quiz on the three kinds: in Learning, add questions like "A guest asks for no butter. What do you ask next?" and assign the module to every cashier and server. See Creating learning modules.
• What a swap costs you: in Inventory, build a recipe from your vendor prices to see its Cost and Margin, and use Modifiers to cost add-ons such as oat milk or an extra shot. See Recipes and plate costing and Menu lists and modifiers.

Mays doesn't take orders or print tickets: the modifiers on the ticket live in your POS. Recipes in Mays don't show allergens, so your allergen matrix stays a separate document.

Your special-requests checklist

• Every request sorted: preference, diet or allergy
• "Is that an allergy?" asked whenever something is left out
• A yes list, with a charge or a reason for each answer
• Common swaps as POS modifiers, not free text
• Swap charges posted and said once
• "Gluten-free", "vegan" and "dairy-free" used only when every component is checked
• One script, and "let me ask" always allowed

Make "yes" the fast answer

Write the yes list once, put it on every phone and train every hire on the same script.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Next in this series: measuring guest experience without surveys nobody answers.