Wetherspoons customers baffled after restaurant issues confusing warning to vegans

Vegans don't half have it hard - they're fighting the good fight for creatures across the world, have only a handful of menu items to choose from and have to deal with constant eye rolls from carnivores.

And now on top of all that, it seems they can't even relax while simply ordering a drink in their local Wetherspoons without worrying about whether it contains animal-based products.

Bonkers, I know.

Punters in one of the UK pub chain's Bristol branches were left baffled after spotting a bizarre sign on the bar which warned customers they 'cannot guarantee' their tipple would be 100 percent vegan.

The notice read: "While many of our drinks are listed as being vegan, we cannot guarantee, unfortunately, that the fruit garnishes are vegan.

"If you require a vegan option, please ask for your drink to be made without any fruit garnish."

I'm sure you have gathered that the problem here is the fruit garnish, rather than the alcohol or mixer someone might order - but that managed to confuse people in the budget boozer even further.

Wetherspoons warned customers it 'couldn't guarantee' their fruit was vegan. (Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

Brits were probably left questioning how many pints they'd had after reading the strange sign which seemed to suggest that fruit - which makes up a large chunk of a typical vegans diet - wasn't suitable for non-meat eaters.

But don't worry, because even a stone cold sober person would struggle to understand this weird riddle.

Even regulars and the bar staff on shift apparently couldn't make head nor tail of it, according to the bemused bloke who shared a snap of the confusing Wetherspoons warning to Reddit.

The lad wrote: "The bar man is as perplexed as me - saying it was sent out from head office with zero context."

The majority of social media users were also left stumped by the notice for vegans, although a few offered up some ideas of what the explanation behind it might be.

The sign that has everyone stumped (Reddit/bigdave_1)

One person who claimed to also work at Wetherspoons wrote: "We've just put these signs up in the Spoons I work in too. "Apparently it's because the wax on the fruit contains animal products."

Another user wrote: "Vegan here, although hopefully more helpful than annoying... I'm pretty certain this is in respect to shellac coating. Glacé cherries sometimes have a cochineal coating."

So, it turns out that beeswax and shellac - a resin secreted by the female lac bug - are often used to coat the skin of fruit to keep it fresher for longer.

But although this might seem harmless, they are technically byproducts from an animal/insect and are therefore a no-go for vegans - so you can get a gin and tonic, you just can't have all that fruit floating in there too.

Wetherspoons spokesman Eddie Gershon explained in a statement to LADbible that the pub chain normally sources its lemons and limes from a 'vegan friendly supplier'.

He continued: "However, for a limited period of time, we are using a different supplier for our limes across our pubs.

"We cannot, with the new supplier, guarantee that the limes are vegan friendly and as a result have put up the notice in our pubs."

Topics: Food And Drink, UK News, Vegan, Viral, Weird, Wetherspoons, Reddit

Olivia Burke

Olivia is a journalist at LADbible Group with more than five years of experience and has worked for a number of top publishers, including News UK. She also enjoys writing food reviews (as well as the eating part). She is a stereotypical reality TV addict, but still finds time for a serious documentary.

@livburke_