Vegetarian Diner Disgusted By Offensive Receipt, But Is She Overreacting?

A diner was left disgusted by an offensive message that was left on her receipt at a restaurant that allegedly apologised for her being a vegetarian.

Laura Broad, 22, was dining at The Forbury Hotel in Reading, England, when the incident occurred on Sunday, June 28. She had visited there with seven friends to celebrate her sister’s birthday, and the group were enjoying Afternoon Tea.

But when the bill arrived at the end of the meal, the group were shocked and disgusted to find the words, “1 x vegetarian sorry,” written underneath the full price for eight Full Afternoon Teas. You can check out the guilty receipt, courtesy of Get Reading, here.

Rather than complaining about this transgression at the time, Laura Broad decided to keep quiet because she didn’t want to ruin the afternoon for the party.

However, while speaking to the aforementioned publication, Broad admitted that she now regrets her discretion. She explained:

“It just says ‘sorry,’ it’s offensive and makes you feel like they are saying sorry for me being vegetarian. It’s shocking I can’t quite get my head around it. I looked at it again and spoke to a friend and she agreed it was shocking.”

Broad has sought to publicise the abuse because all she wants to know is why the waiter in question felt the need to add the abuse.

“I would just like to know why they feel they needed to put it there. It wasn’t like they had to make a completely different meal or it was anything difficult, I mean it was just a few more cheese sandwiches.”

When they were contacted for a response to this receipt, The Forbury Hotel’s manager Duarte De Arez Cintra simply put it down to a miscommunication between the staff in the kitchen and restaurant, because they were apologising for letting them know so late that the customer was a vegetarian.

“It was a miscommunication between the restaurant and the kitchen apologising for letting them know so late about the vegetarian. No one informed the kitchen staff beforehand. Rather than saying sorry because the guest was vegetarian it was an apology for the late notice to the kitchen.”

Broad has been a vegetarian now for 10 years. And she admitted that she has never been met with such hostility while in the UK. However she did reveal that she was previously laughed at for her dietary decision by waiters.

“I went to America and a couple of people laughed in my face but not in the UK – normally restaurants are very good.”

[Image via Zurijeta/Shutterstock]