AITA for saying that someone else’s kid’s allergy isn’t my problem and leaving a restaurant?

You won’t believe what happened at this family dinner! A simple graduation celebration turned into a shocking conflict over a simple request. One family’s needs threatened to ruin everyone else’s meal, and the situation escalated quickly.

So, to celebrate my son’s graduation and with most people around here being vaccinated I took the family to the local hibachi for some dinner. My family of four sits down and soon we are joined by another family of four. They are nice enough and when the time comes to order, the father says that one of his daughters has a dairy allergy and asks that her food be made without butter.

The waitress says “No problem, we will make everyone’s without butter”. The father says, her allergy isn’t that serious and as long as her serving has no dairy, it should be fine. The waitress repeats “We will make all the food at the table without butter”.

I say that we would like butter with ours. She replies “Sorry, at hibachi we make all of the food together and we cannot risk her getting sick so all of the food needs to be made without butter”. I reply that we are not even together. Plus, I say you can make her food in the back.

There is no rule that the food needs to be made together. The father agrees with me and says they do it all the time. At this point, the waitress says they are very busy and they can’t do that. So I got up and said we are leaving because someone else’s allergy should not affect my dining experience.

Then we went to a different hibachi restaurant 10 minutes away. My wife says that I was an a-hole because I ruined my son’s graduation dinner and I should have been more thoughtful to the girl’s needs. Plus, now the other restaurant has lost a reservation.

My point is that the girl’s needs could have been met in other ways by the restaurant. Plus, my son likes his butter.

Here’s how people reacted:

HelloAll-GoodbyeAll

NTA. Even the father agreed with you. The staff were just avoiding having to do two lots of cooking.

v2den

NTA. The only AH here is the waitress. The father of the other family was fine with all the suggestions you gave.

I say you should also follow up with the restaurants through social media or phone or email.

4thxtofollowtherules

NTA, it’s standard to cook only the person w the allergies food separately, why sound everyone be punished and pay for something they don’t want.

sickofdriving007

NTA. Even the father agreed with you. Sounds like the waitress didn’t want to be bothered.

EvocativeEnigma

NTA – The cook there handled that very poorly if they think EVERYONE should have to be made to cater to the one person with allergies and she just didn’t want to deal with it by making a separate trip. You had a right to ask for your food to be made correctly just as much as they had a right to ask for their kids to be made separately.

brewerybitch

INFO: Did you ask your son if he wanted to leave?

ultimate_hamburglar

YTA. it was not nearly serious enough for you to leave the restaurant, one meal without butter wouldnt have killed you. was it important to your kid that his meal have butter, or to you? it was his graduation celebration and you threw a fit and made it all about you.

BowzersMom

YTA. This is what we call making a mountain out of a molehill.

cmm2007

NTA – but the waitress was

the sauce made with the soy and butter is delicious, I wouldn’t want hibachi without it either

DwightMcRamathorn

NTA. You wanted certain things that they didn’t want to do so you went to another place. That’s totally not an asshole thing

melancholy_pancake

YTA

Leaving a restaurant and party because lack of butter is an overreaction.

It seems a bit overly carefull to do an entitre table diary free. But they are just trying to be extra careful. They dont want the food to be mixed up and get a bad review

mattinva

Given OP’s reply pretty clear NTA imo.

INFO You say your wife says “I ruined my son’s graduation dinner” but in your story you all proceed to another nearby equivalent restaurant and had dinner. Is there something beyond what you described that would “ruin” the dinner? Were your actions beyond what is in the story in a way that made your son embarrassed or something? Because I’m not really seeing how you could be the asshole honestly or how anything was ruined. If your wife is just one of those people that hates raising a stink and it was “ruined” for her because you said something then definitely not NTA.

Pandaploots

Yta. It’s butter, guys. You can survive without it for a meal and it honestly wont even taste that diffrent.

Those rules are pretty standard in restaurants because they don’t want to get sued.

Urtimeiscoming

YTA As you acted unilaterally instead of making it your son’s decision. It was supposedly his meal, but the way you talk I bet it was just you using his graduation as an excuse to go to hibachi

roses6484

Yta, you seem to have made a massive fuss over nothing. Food still tastes fine without butter and the little girl probably feels terrible that her dietary needs couldn’t be met easily and ruined other people’s nights

TheMostBrokenBoy

I have only been to hibachi once or twice but Ive only seen them use oil. What items is butter included in?

Background_Alps6164

NTA. Another person’s allergy shouldnt affect your dining experience at a restaurant especially a strangers.

Mecmecmecmecmec

NTA, and that dad sounds like a reasonable guy who hopefully complained on your behalf some more

Edit: it’s like in tombstone: “that’s not what I want!”

Otherwise-Table1935

NTA as father of other child had given appropriate compromises

jorjoncor123

NTA, you were asking something that normally IS like that on the menu. They take that off because of people you don’t know, so indeed not your problem.

Conclusion

Did this dad stand up for his family’s rights, or did he ruin a special night? The family left, but the debate rages on: when is it okay to prioritize your needs over another’s, even at a special occasion? You decide how this story truly ends.