Founders

Sarah and I have been best friends since I was in 4th and she was in 5th grade. Sarah has allergies to various foods in all categories, some are mild and some are extremely severe. As kids we would always hang out typically at each other's houses and not really have the need to go out to eat anywhere. If we had food, it was typically home cooked or bought by her mother who had made sure it was safe for Sarah to eat. As we got older moving into middle school and high school, we were more independent and started going to more restaurants to hang out. I would always notice Sarah’s diligence in making sure the food she ate was allergy friendly and safe for her. She always makes it a point to mention her allergies to the wait staff. Typically, we would eat at places we knew were tried and true for Sarah in regards to an allergy friendly kitchen.  

In November 2021, Sarah and I went out to eat at the clubhouse in my neighborhood. To us, it was simply just another hang out and we were going to grab food and head back to my house. We got to the restaurant and placed our orders, and as always Sarah mentioned her main allergies to the wait staff placing emphasis on her severe allergy to wheat. The wait staff claimed she had confirmed that Sarah’s order did not contain any of the allergens she had mentioned, so we finalized the order and waited for the food to come out. The waitress brought our order to us and we finished up lunch and started walking back to my house, which was around 25 minutes away from the clubhouse. We begin our walk back and about 5 minutes in, Sarah tells me she is experiencing the classic symptoms of an anaphylactic attack. We decide to stop and sit on the curb and her symptoms are worsening. We call our parents and they tell us we need to administer her an epi pen. Her mother asked me if I knew how to, but since this was the first time I had ever seen something like this I had no knowledge of how to deliver the shot. Thankfully, Sarah did know how and she bravely was able to self-administer her epi pen. By then, my parents reached us, but Sarah’s condition was still extremely bad, so we rushed her to the emergency room. There they were able to carry out the necessary procedures to get her body stable again, and thankfully she was ok and healthy. It was one of the scariest moments of my life to just witness it, and it was unimaginably terrifying for Sarah who went through it first hand. 

A few weeks later, our mothers went back to the clubhouse where we had eaten to try and discover what had caused the anaphylaxis. They were able to get hold of the wait staff and asked for a specific ingredients list of the items that Sarah had consumed. They assumed  it had been an allergy that Sarah possibly did not mention or an entirely new food that they had to worry about. To their great shock, the french fries Sarah had ordered were coated with wheat, her primary and most deadly allergen, which she had explicitly detailed was an allergen to the waitress. Upon hearing this, we ourselves were shocked by the lack of diligence of the wait staff and kitchen staff. This was an extremely significant event in both our lives, and we cherish how blessed we are that Sarah was able to recover. We decided together that we wanted to use this as a teachable moment to prevent this dire situation from happening to any other children or adults that struggle with allergies. A few months after that day, we decided we wanted to start Teal Tables as an effort to spread awareness to wait staff in our state on the importance of being vigilant with allergies and other health restraints that people have with food when they come to dine at these facilities. Our goal is to make eating outside easy for everyone and safe where they do not have to worry as much about these risky situations occurring in their lives