as far as recommendations, we make it a point to go to the old Spaghetti Factory (get the broccoli--seriously!),
When she asked, the server had no idea what dishes had cheese and/or dairy in them. Not a huge deal, not all servers do, so she went back and asked the cooks. *The cooks* did not know either. Meaning they aren't actually cooking it, they are re-heating/preparing it.
Whatever, standard chain restaurant operations right? So she just gets a salad, no cheese.
Shouldn't be hard, right? Put the salad ingredients on a plate, and just don't put the cheese on it. What did she get? A prepared salad that had literally had the top scraped off of it to remove the cheese. It was a plate of iceberg lettuce. To her credit, the waitress was very apologetic about it.
Needless to say... not going back there.