Catering for Every Diet: The Shawarma House Dietary & Allergen Guide

If you’re ordering catering for an office, the odds are close to certain that your headcount includes at least one vegan, someone who keeps halal, a gluten-sensitive coworker, and at least one real allergy. That’s not a complication — it’s the normal case, and our spreads were built for it. Every Shawarma House spread already includes beef and chicken shawarma, saffron rice, salad, hummus, falafel, pita, and house sauces, so most mixed groups are covered before you change a single thing.

This guide walks through the order diet by diet: what’s vegan, what’s halal-sourced, how to build around gluten, where sesame hides, and — just as important — what we honestly can’t promise. When you’re ready, request a quote or call (619) 642-0298, Mon–Fri 7am–4pm.

Can one catering order cover vegan, halal, and gluten-sensitive guests?

Yes — one order, one delivery, no separate caterer required. This is the single question this whole guide answers, so here’s the short version up front: every standard spread already includes halal-sourced beef and chicken shawarma, falafel and hummus for vegan guests, and saffron rice that works without pita for gluten-sensitive guests. You don’t need three vendors for a fifteen-person meeting with three dietary profiles in the room — you need one notes field, filled out honestly, on one quote form.

That’s true whether you’re ten people in an Ocean Beach office or fifty people across town. The mechanics don’t change with headcount: tell us who needs what, and we build the spread around it. Our Mediterranean catering hub covers pricing and delivery zones countywide, and our office lunch catering page covers what a standing weekly order looks like once you’ve found the mix that works.

How to brief us on your group’s needs

The single most useful thing you can do is use the notes field on the quote form. Give us the headcount per need, in plain numbers: “25 people — 3 vegan, 2 gluten-sensitive, 1 sesame allergy, please label.” That one line tells us how to portion the order, what to keep separate, and what to write on the boxes.

Three things to include: the number of guests per restriction, whether each one is a preference or a medical allergy, and whether you need labeled individual boxes. For severe allergies, don’t rely on the form alone — call us at (619) 642-0298 (Mon–Fri 7am–4pm) before you order, and we’ll tell you honestly what we can and can’t do. The quote form also lives on our Mediterranean catering hub if you’re starting there. Most of this work happens on the phone or in that notes field, not on a menu page — a five-minute call before a fifty-person order saves everyone a headache on delivery day.

Vegan

The vegan lineup is real menu, not an afterthought: falafel, vegan shawarma, vegan cream chop, hummus, tabouli, and fattoush salad. Three of our house sauces are vegan too — toum (garlic), tahini, and hot sauce. Because falafel and hummus are already part of every standard spread, your vegan guests have something on the table by default; tell us how many they are and we’ll scale it up. One flag before you skip ahead: tahini is made from sesame, and hummus contains tahini — see the sesame section below. For the full plant-based pitch, see our vegan catering page and vegan Mediterranean food in San Diego.

Vegetarian

Vegetarians get everything on the vegan list plus the dairy items: tzatziki, feta, and Greek salad. Baklava covers dessert — note that it contains wheat (phyllo), milk (butter), and tree nuts (pistachio), so it is vegetarian but not dairy-free or vegan. Nothing extra to configure; just include the count in your notes.

Is Shawarma House halal?

Halal meat served — all of our beef and chicken has been halal-sourced since the day we opened, on the beef and chicken specifically, every time, not as a special request. That covers the beef shawarma, chicken shawarma, beef kebab, and shish tawook — and the first two are in every catering spread we build. We keep the claim exactly that size: halal-sourced beef and chicken. If you have a question about any other item on the menu, call and ask — we’d rather give you a straight answer than a loose one. Background reading if you’re vetting us: halal food in San Diego, is shawarma halal?, and what halal means.

Gluten-sensitive

The build that works: any plate over saffron rice without pita — beef or chicken shawarma, beef kebab, or shish tawook, made without gluten-containing ingredients. Salads can round it out; ask us to confirm the toppings on the trays you pick. Be clear-eyed about the context, though: wheat is present in our kitchen — in the pita, gyro bread, baklava, and egg rolls — so this is a gluten-free-friendly build from a shared kitchen, not a certified gluten-free product, and it is not appropriate for celiac disease. Tell us your gluten-sensitive headcount in the notes and we’ll keep pita off those plates.

If you’re comparing caterers on this point alone, ask each one the same question we’d want you to ask us: is this a dedicated gluten-free kitchen, or a shared kitchen doing its best to keep gluten-containing items separate? For us it’s the second one, said plainly, every time someone asks.

Sesame

Sesame gets its own section because it’s the allergen that catches people off guard — and it has been one of the nine FDA major allergens since 2023. On a Mediterranean menu, assume tahini is nearby until proven otherwise, because it usually is. Here’s the plain version: tahini is made from sesame. Our hummus contains tahini. Tahini is also one of our house sauces. And hummus is part of every standard spread — so a guest with a sesame allergy needs their items kept separate and labeled, every time. Flag a sesame allergy in the quote-form notes and by phone. Both, not one or the other.

Dairy

Dairy lives in three places: tzatziki, feta, and the creamy sauce on the regular cream chop. Toum, our garlic sauce, is dairy-free. The core of every spread — shawarma, saffron rice, hummus, falafel, pita — can be served without any dairy items, so a dairy-free order is mostly a matter of telling us which sauces to set aside.

Soy, wheat, and tree nuts

Wheat: pita, gyro bread, baklava, and egg rolls. Tree nuts: baklava (pistachio). Soy: ask us — we’ll check ingredient labels with you when you call. The same goes for the remaining FDA major allergens (milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanuts): rather than publish a list we haven’t verified item by item, we’ll look at the actual labels with you on the phone.

What if someone has a severe allergy?

Call us before you order — that’s the honest answer, and it’s the only one we’re comfortable giving in writing. A severe allergy isn’t something we can manage through a web page or a notes-field checkbox alone; it needs a real conversation with someone in our kitchen who can walk through the specific dish, the specific ingredient, and the specific equipment it touches. Call (619) 642-0298, Mon–Fri 7am–4pm, and ask us directly. We will tell you plainly what we can do — keep an item separate, label a box, skip a sauce — and just as plainly where our ability to promise something stops, because we operate out of one shared kitchen and cannot guarantee that any item is completely free of any allergen. For a severe allergy, the final decision belongs to the guest and whoever is managing their care, not to a menu description, and we’d rather lose an order than have someone rely on a promise we can’t actually back up.

The honest part: one shared kitchen

Everything we make comes out of a single shared kitchen — shared prep surfaces, utensils, grill, and fryer. Cross-contact between ingredients is possible despite our precautions, and we cannot guarantee that any item is completely free of any allergen. No caterer working out of one kitchen honestly can. If someone in your group has a severe allergy, talk to us before you order — call (619) 642-0298 and we’ll tell you straight what we can and can’t promise. For severe allergies, the final call always belongs to the guest.

Tell us what your group needs — we’ll build the order

Two ways in: the quote form below (put the diet-by-diet headcount in the notes field), or the catering line at (619) 642-0298, staffed Mon–Fri 7am–4pm. Standard lead time for a drop-off is about 24 hours for orders under $500 and about 48 hours for orders over $500; for last-minute needs, call to check availability — we don’t promise same-day. Delivery is free within 5 miles, $30 for 5–15 miles, $50 for 16–40 miles, and $60 beyond that, with free pickup at 4884 Newport Ave in Ocean Beach. Request your catering quote and we’ll come back with a build that covers everyone at the table.

Everything we make comes out of a single shared kitchen — shared prep surfaces, utensils, grill, and fryer. Cross-contact between ingredients is possible despite our precautions, and we cannot guarantee that any item is completely free of any allergen.

For a severe allergy, call us before you order so we can walk through the specific dish, ingredient, and equipment with you.

Frequently asked questions

Related: start with our Mediterranean catering hub for spreads and pricing, see boxed lunch catering for lidded, labeled individual meals, vegan catering for plant-based menus, office lunch catering for team lunches, and drop-off catering for how delivery day works.