Review of Joe's American Bar & Grill

This PAINS me to write a bad review- Joes has been my favorite restaurant for years. But as a recently diagnosed celiac, this was my first trip there eating GF.

Long post- but hopefully you read it and it will help prevent this happening to you.

I asked the hostess for a GF menu, she said they don't have a separate menu but they have GF pasta and bread so pretty much the whole menu can be made GF and that the server could help with more info. So I was pretty excited.

Asked the server when he came over and his response (in an annoyed tone) was for me to tell him what I wanted and he would tell me if it was GF. So I asked for the Honey Mustard Chicken Salad (my favorite dish there). He said yes, that can be made GF. Score.

I had heard from other reviews here that when you say you need GF, they usually bring out a GF roll with the bread- he did not offer. I chose to ignore it.

Food finally comes out-brought out by the chef no less so I felt comfortable that they took the time to take care of my food- but then I noticed he was carrying Everyone at our tables.

Then I quickly noticed that my salad which normally comes with pasta, was pasta free. Confused, since he said that salad specifically could be made GF, and the hostess said they had GF pasta. So I asked, and he said no, they only have GF penne, not angel hair.... So, essentially making this salad GF was removing all of the elements from the salad. And my $15 salad was nothing more than a garden salad with grilled chicken.

So, fine. Miscommunication. Wait staff should be more clear in my opinion...but wouldn't let that ruin my meal.

Continue to eat my salad, get half way thru, and I found a noodle in my salad. A noodle. In my GF salad. I called the manager over- she was very nice and apologetic, asked if I wanted anything else blah blah. Said they usually take allergies very seriously. Not mad at her, she did her job to clean up their mess. I wasn't rude but left very upset. The fact that the waiter then said "sorry things didn't go as planned" to me several times had me steaming.

Now looking back I have several issues: 1) how does 1 little noodle get mixed in the salad? Did they add the pasta, realized it shouldn't have it and then took it off, minus one noodle? So my salad was completely exposed? Did the noodle fall in? I don't understand.

2) also realized when taking my order, the waiter offered me grilled or crispy chicken... How were they planning on making crispy GF chicken?

3) because of this wondering if he even put my "allergy" on the ticket or if he just said "no noodles".

Clearly this waiter wasn't properly trained... And that's scary.

I think they try hard to be gluten and celiac friendly- and hopefully this was a one time instance... But I'm so sad this happened.

Celiac friendly?

No