Review of Duffy's Garage & Grille

Staff was very knowledgeable and knew all the proper procedures. We came to the location specifically because of all the rave reviews. We ordered a burger, pizza, a grinder and salads and spent $50. When we got back to our hotel we tested everything with the Nima sensor and every product came back with gluten found. Called the restaurant and they advised that someone would call us the next day and we would get a refund. Never received a call so we went to the restaurant on our way home (3 1/2 hours away) with the uneaten food and the manager informed us he could not do a refund because the owner was out of town. We were repeatedly told how that’s never happened before and made to feel like we were lying about the issue. So we spent $50 on food we couldn’t eat and $30 for the 4 capsules to test the food and then we were treated like we were lying to add additional insult. We are people that never complain and seek to only educate staff ordinarily and didn’t ask for the refund, the girl on the phone offered and we brought the uneaten food back so it’s sad that the staff was more concerned about being right than trying to figure out where the process went wrong and making it right for us.

Celiac friendly?

No

I spoke with Dana once I returned back to work. I felt very bad about the gluten free food they ordered had actually tested positive for gluten. I apologized for the incident and talked with her about this Nima sensor, as I had never heard of it. I also refunded her money for the uneaten food. I said clearly it was our fault and I was going to look into what could of went wrong.

I decided to order the Nima sensor so I could test our items and make sure we were not taking a misstep in our cooking process. We have numerous customers that come in just for our gluten free items and all rave about the product, and none of them have ever had an issue, so we owed it to our customers to figure this out. Once we received the Nima sensor and capsules I immediately made a gluten free pizza. We then put this pizza through the tester and it came up positive for gluten! So for the next test I used just a piece of the gluten free pizza crust directly from the cryovaced packaging. Once again the test came up positive. So then I tested our burger buns and grinder buns the same way. Both came up positive for gluten. All these items come vacuum packed from FDA inspected/tested facility’s and are guaranteed gluten free. One of the company’s I get product from is Local Oven. They are a highly successful gluten free bakery and their products are all over the country. I asked my food vendor about this also and was told the Nima sensor was not FDA approved. So I then started to do research on this Nima sensor myself. The opinions on the product are all over the place. The main opinion I was concerned with was the FDA and weather they approve of this product. The answer is no as the results can be very inaccurate. Here is an article. https://www.glutenfreewatchdog.org/news/gluten-free-watchdogs-updated-position-statement-on-the-nima-sensor-for-gluten/

I’m sure these sensors are useful to many people and serve a purpose for them. I just do not want my customers who read this review to believe this sensor over the highly regulated testing procedures that these gluten free facilities have to go through.

Thank you

Duffy