Review of MOD Pizza

Kudos for having a gluten-free crust option, but other than that it was definitely not a good experience. The staff member assisting us was visibly irked at having to make any changes. He wasn’t going to change his gloves, and when I asked him if he could, he told me that since they were not a dedicated gluten-free facility, I ran the risk of running into cross contamination. He just didn’t understand that even non-gluten-free restaurants change their gloves and clean off services when dealing with an allergy. Another (very kind) staff member volunteered to take over my order, and he was very nice. What happened next was not his fault. He was very accommodating, but completely uneducated when it came to handling the order. He changed his gloves at my request, but the ladle used for dipping sauceIs dragged across the surface of the pizza for every order, thus cross contaminating the entire batch of sauce. There were obviously flour and crumbs everywhere, and the pizza is fired and rolled on the same surface as regular crusts. Lastly, the pizza is cut with the same pizza cutter. I jumped in just in time to tell them not to cut the pizza.

I still ordered, knowing that my non celiac family would eat the pizza if I was uncomfortable eating it. I tried one slice, and immediately knew that if I finished anymore, then I would regret it.

If this restaurant is going to offer gluten-free crust, they absolutely need to do more in educating their staff. I’m not sure what steps they would need to take to minimize cross contamination in other ways, but as far as being a safe place to eat, this definitely was one of the least successful places I’ve ever been to.

Update!

I did speak with a manager about the cross contamination situation. I hate complaining and I’m not one who usually goes to management about a negative experience, but I thought they should know since they offer the gluten-free crust option.

She insisted that they always use separate cutters and separate crusts, but they use the same oven, same paddle, and other utensils are shared as well. Very slight changes could be made here, such as only firing gluten-free crust on a certain side of the oven or even just flipping the paddle over. None of this seems to be considered by staff or management there; it seems like gluten-free crusts are only offered because of corporate requirement. But beyond that, there is definitely no real desire to accommodate anything other than your average pizza.

Celiac friendly?

No