Surf Woburn

Excellent service. Gluten free options were delicious! I have to go back for the Portuguese fish stew.

I sat down to eat with my wife and 2 kids at 4:30pm on Wednesday night we were one of maybe 4 tables in the restaurant. I am allergic to gluten and my kids are allergic to nuts. We notified our waitress of the tables allergies and proceeded to order. Our waitress brought regular soy sauce to our table, my wife had to remind her I was gluten free to which she replies “right, should have put that together” I wish this was the end of my ordeal. Next the gluten free sushi we ordered came out, it was put in front of me by a food runner who said “gluten free sushi”. I ate a piece and immediately realized it was not the gluten free version I had prior. I tried to flag down a waiter who wasn’t ours to get a hold of the manager immediately to ask for clarification, this server responded with “don’t yell at me, I didn’t take your order”. The manager Cheryl, came over and had to bring the sushi back to the kitchen to see if it was gluten free or not, it wasn’t. She came back and apologized and reiterated how they had allergen training and took food allergies seriously. She offered to pay for the 2 drinks and 2 cups of milk we had ordered, thanks it really makes up for the weeks of illness I will now endure. They made not one, but 2 major mistakes and still served me food containing an allergen. Nobody bothered to check the allergies, the manager didn’t know if it was gluten free or not without bringing it back to the kitchen to verify, clearly the kitchen didn’t check the food going out either. More parts of the allergen training course which weren’t in place. They blew through all of the Massachusetts mandates around serving allergens and all they had to say was “sorry we take allergens seriously”. Clearly you don’t, it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t cross contamination it was pure negligence to knowingly serve me food harmful to my health. I have since lost 2 days of work, and will be in discomfort for 2 weeks due to the staff being poorly trained, not caring or just oblivious. If you have allergies please stay away from here and choose a restaurant who actually commits to serving allergen friendly food in practice, not just in theory. I was directly served 2 things containing the allergen I specified I was allergic to, imagine what goes on with cross contamination in their kitchen. They house and use eggs, seafood, cheese, meat, nuts and gluten, it’s not a far stretch to imagine these ingredients ending up in other dishes unexpectedly, especially considering they’ll willingly serve them to you after letting them know of your allergies. I’ve spoken to the GM and the Vice president of the restaurant group, neither can give me a reason for what happened, nobody has taken responsibility, they just keep telling me disingenuously how seriously they take allergies.