Gluten Free at Applebee's

I've had a love hate relationship with Applebee's for quite some time now. I actually haven't been to an Applebee's in years, because I've had so many crazy experiences of bad service or poor food that I just stopped going. We were back in Joliet for the NASCAR race, and after our horrible experience at Aurelio's, we had to find a new place to go for dinner. There is an Applebee's near the mall, so we decided to give it a try.

They don't have gluten free menu per-say but they do have a book listing out the allergens so you can pick what items from the menu can be made gluten free. They have the same allergen listing for several other allergies including, shellfish, peanuts, soy, egg and dairy.

I found the item listing a bit confusing because it could have been a lot clearer. But I talked to the waitress, and since she was semi confused we error-ed on the safe side of what the allergen listing was trying to say.

I thought the Margarita Queso Chicken & Shrimp sounded different and interesting. What got me was that it said the dishes were gluten free, when not served with the sides... Now Both the black bean corn salsa and mexi rice are listed as safe.... Our sever was just as confused, and decided to change the dish up to make sure it was safe. She was really nice and trying to make sure everything went well. We went with plain rice, and opted to skip both sides. their chips are fried on site so if you have your own chips you can get salsa or queso to go with the chips as a side dish.

I can only give them 3 dragonflies because they don't actually have a safe menu listing. plus the allergen listing is rather confusing.