I went to Bass Lake Draft House yesterday based on a recommendation from a GF group. I had my sister with me who is also celiac and there were 8 of us total. We got there, a little before 1pm on a Saturday. There were a handful of people on the "bar side", maybe 2-3 other tables sitting on the "restaurant side, and no one on the patio, so they weren't busy at all.
I asked the hostess as we were being seated if there was a separate GF menu or if it was just on the main menu (just trying to save them time of I needed a separate menu)
She said there wasn't a separate GF menu and she thought there might be a few things marked on the main menu, but that she didn't think there was much that was GF. Not a great start, but, I told my sister she was just the hostess and might not know so we should wait to judge until we talk to the waitress.
When our waitress came over, I asked her about GF options and she immediately told me about the dedicated GF fryer, how all of their wings and wing sauces are GF and they could cook the wings and basically any of their sides GF, that they have GF buns, and that basically if there was something else I wanted, just to ask, and they could probably make that GF/she would ask for me. This all sounded great, and like she/the restaurant were pretty knowledgeable.
My sister and I both ended up ordering wings and fries, and I got a side salad.
When the wings came out, I confirmed if they were from the gluten free fryer, she said yes, and I noticed they were on black, triangle-shaped plates and the other wings at our table came out on white, round plates, so it seems like maybe they use separate plates for GF?
Then my waitress brought my salad, with croutons on it. I specified GF with my salad (as with the rest of my order), but, mistakes happen, so I pointed out, hey, I need GF and this has croutons. She didn't really apologize but did take it back to correct it. This should have been my sign that I maybe shouldn't eat anything there, but, mistakes happen, she brought me a salad, I looked at it pretty closely and it didn't appear that there were crouton crumbs like they had just picked the croutons off, so we forged on.
Our fries came out at the same time as everything else that had fries, and they were on a white, round plate as were all the sandwiches, etc with sides of fries that the rest of the table ordered. Like I always do, I asked our server to confirm if our fries were from the GF fryer, and she said yes.
Now, for the rest of the meal, we never saw a server again. All of our waters/teas were empty. We never got asked if we needed anything or if everything came out okay. So, service in general wasn't great. We got there before 1pm, and left slightly after 2pm, and once our food came out, we were ignored until she came to get our checks, etc. We were talking, so we were mostly fine, but I say all this to say that maybe, for whatever reason, it was an off day there. They weren't busy at all, but, maybe because of that they had cut a lot of staff already and were struggling?
All I know is, I got glutened, and badly. I haven't been this sick from gluten in a long time, and it's the only place it could have happened.
It might have been an off day there. Like I said, croutons on my salad and the waitress not seeming bothered by it should have been a warning. So, since they allegedly do have a GF fryer and seemed to be knowledgeable about GF, and others have eaten there before and been fine, I'm sure it's possible to eat there safely, and based on the overall service there yesterday, it's very possible I got glutened more because of the current staff/situation there than because they don't have protocols in place? I'll never know for sure.
ANYtime I eat somewhere that's not 100% GF, I know there is a risk. However, I got very sick, and based on the overall experience, I don't see myself going back there to try again.
It's not like there's a 1-to-1 ratio of amount of gluten to amount of pain, but, given how much pain I was in last night, and how I still feel, I would hazard a guess that something I was served was NOT gluten-free, vs maybe getting a very small amount of gluten from someone not doing a glove change or something.
Anyways, I hope this detailed review helps someone.