If you’re a vegetarian and you’d rather have eggs instead of sausage — do not attempt this at IHOP. You will have to debate the manager.

Reader B. sent this letter to IHOP:

“Let’s please note that the following happened after we waited 20 minutes to even be asked for our drink order.

I ordered the Viva La French Toast and requested another egg instead of the pork sausage. (I’m Jewish so no pork, and a vegetarian. Getting protein is difficult.)

Our waitress apologized and said that official IHOP policy would not let her sub an egg for sausage, but that we could have any other side or she could charge us for it. When I pointed out that it would be cheaper for IHOP to give us one more egg rather than two pieces of sausage, and that we’d had it done at other IHOPs (though with the same reluctance) she again apologized and said no. So we asked for a manager.

When the manager arrived, we explained the situation, our reason for wanting what we did and again pointed out that it would be cheaper and that we’d had it done before. She refused again, stating it was policy, tried to get us to tell her who had bent the rules for us so she could put a stop to it and then tried to tell us that by eating eggs, we were going against our beliefs. The conversation went like this:

Manager: “Chickens are eggs.”
Friend and I: “What?”
Manager: “If you eat eggs, you’re eating chicken.”
Me: “Um. No.”
Friend: “Do you know how eggs are made?”
Manager: “Well, they come from chickens.”
Friend: “Yes, but they’re not actually chicken.”
Manager: “But they come from chickens, so you’re still using an animal.”
Me: “We know. We said we’re vegetarians, not vegans. We eat eggs and dairy.”
Manager: “You’re still using an animal though.”

We got her off the eggs-are-animals tangent and then said we’d contact corporate, which is what I’m doing. Please change this ridiculous policy. If I want to swap out protein, I should be able to swap it out with other protein. Especially if doing so is actually going to save IHOP money. Plus, all of your meat sides you offer are pork. That does the kosher population zero good. Please institute more options.

Is one egg actually cheaper than two sausage links? I never really thought about it. Anyhow, it is clearly time to post this video. Enjoy.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.