According to Reuters, the company that owns the Applebee’s restaurant chain said it will be retraining its workers nationwide after a server at a suburban Detroit location accidentally served alcohol to a toddler. The company, California-based DineEquity Inc, said it will also change the way it serves juice to young children to eliminate the chance of something like this happening again.
Taylor Dill-Reese went to an Applebee’s in Madison Heights, Michigan, where she ordered her 15-month-old son an apple juice. Instead, the boy was served a margarita. The mother told WDIV-TV that she realized something was wrong when Dominick “kind of laid his head on the table and dozed off a little bit and woke up and got real happy.” The little boy was also hailing strangers.
Applebee’s released a statement saying it was relieved that the child was “not seriously injured as a result of accidentally receiving the wrong beverage” and apologized to the family “for the stress and worry this caused them.”
Applebee’s has said that it will begin to serve apple juice to children only from single-serve containers at the table and would “retrain all servers on our beverage pouring policy, emphasizing that non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages must be stored in completely separate and identified containers.”
