Welsh local paper The Daily Post reported that when diner Cheryl Davies explained to staff at the Ffrith, Prestatyn, that her four-year-old autistic nephew only felt comfortable eating certain foods prepared at home such as plain cheese pasta or spaghetti hoops, she was told the family would have to eat outside despite having already ordered food and drink.
She told the newspaper: “[An employee] refused point blank to let us give my nephew a few pasta shells out of a plastic tub because of ‘contamination’, and said we would have to eat outside."
Danger
“My nephew has no danger awareness and there was no way we were going to eat in what is practically a car park on busy roads.”
After complaining to the pub, its general manager responded with a lengthy apology, the Daily Post reported.
Explaining that the motivation for asking the family to eat outside was that the pub could not risk food contamination, the GM said: “As your nephew has a disability, I tried to accommodate your needs and I am sorry that this was not accepted in the spirit in which it was intended.”
'Let down'
“Having read your comments, I can see that we’ve let you down and appreciate your disappointment. Our aim is to treat each customer as a guest in our own home. Clearly this time we’ve failed and I am truly sorry.”
A spokesperson for Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), which owns Sizzling Pubs, told The Morning Advertiser (MA): "We apologise to the Davies family and reassure them it was never our intention to cause them any upset.
"We will be investigating the complaint fully so we can learn from it and stop this from happening again."