Horrible Practices You've Witnessed Behind the Scenes in Restaurants

[drastic_quench]

I know a pizza place that runs their stinking, filthy mop heads through the dishwasher.

I also worked for a roadhouse that specialized in fried chicken. The chicken was kept in 55 gallon Rubbermaids in the walk-in -- which wouldn't be so bad, except it took a long time to work down to the chicken on the bottom, which would turn shades of green.

[muldoonthief]

On your first - I'm pretty certain the industrial dishwasher at the restaurant I worked in 25 years ago didn't recycle/reuse water, so there wouldn't be a hygiene issue running mop heads through it. Still probably a code violation though.

They did want us to save unused butter that came back from tables, so the kitchen could use it for frying.

I also one day witnessed the head cook/owner go to the basement to investigate a broken drain pipe, stick his fingers in the hole, then go right back to the kitchen to continue cooking.

And one of the teenage busboys (who happened to be the owner's son) would initiate far too much body contact when sliding past attractive waitresses, regardless of the amount of space he actually had. I'm pretty sure his dad would have beat him into oblivion if any of the waitresses had complained, but none of them ever did.

[Ian D. Bergkamp]

My wife ordered a glass of wine once that came with a small bug in it (very small, like a gnat). When she asked for a new glass, I watched the server take her glass to the bar, use a straw to get the bug out of the wine, then bring the same glass of wine back to our table. We ended up getting our meal comped.

[Mr. Accident]

I know of one KFC in Athens, Ga that has a habit of washing food off and serving it if it fell on the floor. Saw it happen on many occasions.

When I was working at McD's, we were only allowed to empty the grease traps when they were about to flow over. (Huge code violation at the time, not to mention dangerous.) At the same McD's, we never cleaned the filters above the grill. Huge fire hazard that was. If we had leftover patties, the manager would have us stick them in the freezer, then use them the next morning.

The KFC my mom worked at, the last manager there would make the cooks use chicken that was turning green, smelled funny, or was slimy. As the assistant manager, my mom refused to do this, and wouldn't allow the cooks to when she was there. (One of the unofficial reasons she was fired.)

There's a DQ in Commerce Ga that had dead, mummified rats falling out of the ceiling at one time. The owner would pick it up barehanded, toss it in the garbage, and go back to cooking.

A Mexican restaurant in the same town used to store its weed-eater in the kitchen, mere feet from the food prep area.

The same KFC my mom worked at was once shut down after an employee urinated and defecated in the fryer. The manager the next day served food that had been cooked in the same oil, even though the cooks and other employees were complaining about the smell coming from it.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Many years ago I worked at a hippie bakery's retail store.

My first day, I was given a tour, and I was told about all the delicious pastries on offer. At some point I said, "What's in the bear claw?"

The shift manager gave me a sickly smile and led me to the back. At the bottom of the cookie storage unit, there was a five gallon bucket filled with smashed up pastries. "If anything's delivered from the bakery and it's broken, or if things get too stale to sell, or if anything else bad happens," he explained, "throw it in the Bear Claw Bucket. When it's full, it goes back to the bakery and gets ground up with sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa, and becomes the filling for bear claws."

It gets worse. A co-worker went to work at the downtown bakery for a few days and came back because, she explained, she almost got fired. She went into the walk-in freezer there and found over a dozen full bear-claw buckets, all badly freezer-burned, some with mold on them (apparently they hadn't always been in the freezer), so she started throwing them out. The owner nearly fired her when he saw what she was doing with valuable inventory.

The best part was the comic some wag had posted on the front of our register. Little Jeffy was looking at his breakfast plate, making a face, and saying, "Bear claws? Ewwww!"

Right there with you, Jeffy.

[Larry Mudd]

Many years ago at a Bino's (sort of a low-rent Denny's,) I was appalled to observe a table full of filthy orphans (and their oblivious, classless parents.) The whole show was disgusting, but the center attraction was the bottle of ketchup that they gave to their youngest to keep him quiet in his high-chair.

The kid sucked on that open bottle for more than a half an hour, and the ketchup was fairly everywhere. This was observed without comment by the waitress, which I suppose is forgivable because it's not her job to parent the damned kids. What was less forgivable was that after the pig family cleared out, the bottle was given a wipe and set back on the table. You could see puddles and rivulets of of saliva and now-runny ketchup at the top of the bottle.

[Hal Briston]

In another lifetime, a friend and I were both dishwashers at a family restaurant. Next to the dishwashing area was the garage where we go out to smoke, and there were usually a bunch of roaches scurrying around in the depths of the room. There were a number of holes in the brick walls, and there were also cans of foaming roach spray around. Every now and then we'd entertain ourselves by shooting a little of the spray in a hole and watching as roaches would come scurrying out of other holes.

One day, we decided to really go to town on the little bastards. We each armed ourselves with two cans of spray and we unleashed hell into every hole we could find. After two minutes, the wall was dripping with foam and there were roaches clamoring through the muck, only to drop dead on the floor. Mission accomplished, we went back to work.

A minute later, there were screams and chaos from the dining room. It would seem that the other side of that wall we so gleefully filled with roach poison faced the dining room. It was covered with pictures which were nailed into the wall, and apparently those nail holes were now being used as an escape route for roughly 17 kajillion roaches.

Wha-oops.

[Ponch8]

Once when I was in the Taco Bell drive-thru, I saw the server remove excess foam from the cups of soda by sipping it off.

[Dung Beetle]

Larry, that ketchup story made my throat clench! If I’d seen it in person, I’m pretty sure I’d have just puked.

When working at McDonald’s, I saw a co-worker filling a twenty-piece McNugget box from the fryer basket…”fourteen, fifteen, sixteen”, and then, turning to the wastebasket…”Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty!”

[jasg]

I once watched the bartender fill a wine carafe with half of each of house red and house white.

When I inquired, he said something to the effect of an idiot customer, at the evening rush, absolutely insisted on a carafe of 'rosé'....

[voltaire]

I never witnessed this first-hand, but since I knew several people who worked there, I know it to be true.

This was at a Pizza Hut that just happened to be the closest restaurant to a police station. The staff there wasn't at all fond of the local constabulary, and this was aggravated by the fact that they would constantly come in, always expecting free food. Quite a few of the staff there would regularly *each* add their own very personal special ingredients. (spit) It got to be such a regular and known thing, that even the manager (who was also tired of the police expecting comp'ed meals) would occasionally direct the staff to make sure the gratis orders from police got the special ingredients.

[corkboard]

Originally Posted by jasg

I once watched the bartender fill a wine carafe with half of each of house red and house white.

When I inquired, he said something to the effect of an idiot customer, at the evening rush, absolutely insisted on a carafe of 'rosé'....

The owner of the bar/restaurant I tended used to do this all the time. He'd also fill the bottles of Absolute and Grey Goose on the shelf behind me with the cheapest, plastic-bottled crap vodka he could find.

[Laggard]

I've seen a container of taco meat dropped on the floor, the meat scraped off the ground and back into the container which then made its way dirrectly to the buffet.

[fiddlesticks]

Originally Posted by drastic_quench

I also worked for a roadhouse that specialized in fried chicken. The chicken was kept in 55 gallon Rubbermaids in the walk-in -- which wouldn't be so bad, except it took a long time to work down to the chicken on the bottom, which would turn shades of green.

My first job was at a Shakey's Pizza. They also had fried chicken on the buffet. The least appreciated job at the end of the night was disassembling whole chickens into plastic lined 55 gallon barrels, filling them with water/marinade mix, then rolling them into the walk-in for the next day. We had no trouble going through those barrels though.

[Lust4Life]

I used to live in an apartment in the back of a building that overlooked the rear of a row of shops and a curry house.

One hot ,sunny day as I was walking across the carpark I passed by the wide open Fire doors of the restaraunt and the chef was blowing his nose into the sink, first one nostril and then the other, and I can tell you that he had a totally streaming cold.

Even though I love curries, and this was the closest place to me I swore that I would never ever have food from there ever again even if I was starving to death.

[Snowboarder Bo]

Originally Posted by voltaire

I never witnessed this first-hand, but since I knew several people who worked there, I know it to be true.

This was at a Pizza Hut that just happened to be the closest restaurant to a police station. The staff there wasn't at all fond of the local constabulary, and this was aggravated by the fact that they would constantly come in, always expecting free food. Quite a few of the staff there would regularly *each* add their own very personal special ingredients. (spit) It got to be such a regular and known thing, that even the manager (who was also tired of the police expecting comp'ed meals) would occasionally direct the staff to make sure the gratis orders from police got the special ingredients.

"I was just tellin' him that so he makes it good!"

[Ferret Herder]

I never actually saw anything like this when I worked in a restaurant. I guess it's possible the line cooks were doing things I never saw since I wasn't up there as often.

I do remember seeing just a month or so ago a waitress complain to a bartender about overfilling the martini glasses, then stick a finger into the same drink to fish out an apparently-unwanted garnish.

[Ferret Herder]

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

I do remember seeing just a month or so ago a waitress complain to a bartender about overfilling the martini glasses, then stick a finger into the same drink to fish out an apparently-unwanted garnish.

Missed the edit window - this was at the bar, not behind the scenes.

[needscoffee]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Many years ago I worked at a hippie bakery's retail store.

My first day, I was given a tour, and I was told about all the delicious pastries on offer. At some point I said, "What's in the bear claw?"

The shift manager gave me a sickly smile and led me to the back. At the bottom of the cookie storage unit, there was a five gallon bucket filled with smashed up pastries. "If anything's delivered from the bakery and it's broken, or if things get too stale to sell, or if anything else bad happens," he explained, "throw it in the Bear Claw Bucket. When it's full, it goes back to the bakery and gets ground up with sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa, and becomes the filling for bear claws."

It gets worse. A co-worker went to work at the downtown bakery for a few days and came back because, she explained, she almost got fired. She went into the walk-in freezer there and found over a dozen full bear-claw buckets, all badly freezer-burned, some with mold on them (apparently they hadn't always been in the freezer), so she started throwing them out. The owner nearly fired her when he saw what she was doing with valuable inventory...

I hate to tell you this, but this is the standard recipe for bakery Bear Claws. It's always made this way, although the pastry scraps aren't supposed to be moldy or freezer-burnt. I once worked at a very prominent bakery where the open 55-gallon pastry scrap drums were located next to the loading dock, and birds would regularly fly in and help themselves to scraps out of the drums.

(Along the same line, rum ball filling is made of cake scraps (cake and frosting) all mashed up with chocolate and rum flavoring.)

I worked at a restaurant where the owner regularly changed her baby's diaper on the prep counter, and at one where the owner stored the table linens on open racks in the men's bathroom only a couple of feet from the open toilet (no stall). Both were reported to the health dept. The latter owner also found an old bottle of booze that was infested with about a hundred dead bugs, and tried to strain them out to reclaim the booze. I wouldn't let him.

[Gatopescado]

I guess I was pretty lucky and worked at pretty clean places. Never saw too much that would cause a stir..... except a couple....

The kitchen was a loooong way from the dining area (big hotel/casino). You had to walk a good 50-75 yards down a couple hallways before entering the dining area. One night, I was trotting out a plate of Nachos, and I looked down and saw one lonely little chip waaaay off to the side of the plate. It didn't look right, and hell, I was hungry, so I snagged it and chowed it down.

I keep walkin', and just before turning the corner to hit the swinging door into the seating area, I look down and see a string of cheese, from the plate of Nachos to the corner of my mouth!

The other one was butter-pats. The busboys used to throw them up to the ceiling of the ice machine room, a good 16 foot ceiling. Several were stuck there one summer. I came home from school the following summer and got my job back. The butter-pats remained!

[KneadToKnow]

My girlfriend and I were eating at a Golden Corral once when she happened to notice something over my shoulder and said "Just whatever you do, don't get anything from the grill, I'll explain later."

What she had seen was the grill cook take a push broom and use it to clean the grill, and then set the push broom aside where he'd taken it from to begin with: resting bristles down on the floor next to the grill.

Now, we both had no doubt that the heat from the grill would kill anything that might have gotten there from the floor, but it still merited mentioning to the manager as seeming completely improper. The manager agreed and did at least put on a good show of being appalled.

As it happens, my girlfriend was mystery shopping the place that night, so this event probably went to a pretty high management level at Golden Corral.

We have not, as you might imagine, been back there.

[Kimstu]

I opened this thread and immediately with half-averted gaze clicked on the "Post Reply" button just to say that I AM SO NEVER READING THIS THREAD.

There are some things that I'm absolutely positive I'll just be happier all my life for not knowing, and the subject of this thread is one of them.

[Saintly Loser]

Originally Posted by corkboard

The owner of the bar/restaurant I tended used to do this all the time. He'd also fill the bottles of Absolute and Grey Goose on the shelf behind me with the cheapest, plastic-bottled crap vodka he could find.

Since most (although not all) of the high-end, boutique vodka producers buy their alcohol in bulk from Archer Daniels Midland and then maybe filter it and add some water and flavoring (for flavored vodkas), the customers probably weren't getting anything different from what they'd actually ordered. Still, it's a rip-off. If someone wants to waste his money on what is essentially diluted Everclear, they should be permitted to do so.

[living_in_hell]

Originally Posted by Larry Mudd

Many years ago at a Bino's (sort of a low-rent Denny's,) I was appalled to observe a table full of filthy orphans (and their oblivious, classless parents.)

How pretentious, judgemental and classist of you. This comment makes you sound like a snob. The server should have known better--why not address it with her manager.

[3:20:59 or bust]

Originally Posted by Ponch8

Once when I was in the Taco Bell drive-thru, I saw the server remove excess foam from the cups of soda by sipping it off.

We watched the bartender at the Maui Travaasa Hana remove the excess from drinks by drinking it with a straw...she'd use the same straw over and over, taking drinks from everyone's orders!

We also had the worst service of our lives in the restaurant there...weird, as its considered one of the finest resorts in Hawaii. Not when we were there.

[KneadToKnow]

Oh, I forgot to mention: I once saw a cook in a Taco Bell preparing Taco Bell food.

[Filbert]

Not a restaurant, but I had a holiday job driving an ice cream van once. I watched one of the mechanics at the depot finish doing something to the engine, then plunge his oily hand straight into the ice cream mix, to check the valve in the bottom of the freezer unit.

I also got yelled at once for pouring half a bucket of mix down a drain while I was out, because it'd gone sour, and two people had just complained. I was out alone in the van, but they worked out I was way short on the mix from the amount of money I'd brought back.

Mind you, that was by the utterly mental owner, who screamed random spittle-flying abuse at me on a daily basis, while everyone else happily had a normal conversation over the top. That place was feckin' weird.

[Baker]

I'm lucky that the places I've worked have been sanitary, with managers that want stuff kept clean and rotated. I've never personally witnessed food going out with "additives" or food cooked and served that is going bad. If we see a bug it's an event, not something normal or ordinary.

I did once turn down a job offer at a bakery. I asked, as part of the interview, to see the area I'd be working in. It was pretty gross. Later I got a call with the job offer but I lied and said another place had already called me. No place had, but I didn't want to work in that place.

[billfish678]

Originally Posted by needscoffee

I hate to tell you this, but this is the standard recipe for bakery Bear Claws. It's always made this way, although the pastry scraps aren't supposed to be moldy or freezer-burnt. .

I always thought Bear Claws had a texture different from other stuff. I guess that explains it.

[Miss Woodhouse]

I worked at a popular Italian chain restaurant one summer. They started me as the grill/fryer cook. This meant I cooked the steaks and chicken breasts that were ordered. I had a customer send a steak back twice. One of the line cooks was so offended he threatened to spit on the steak. I wouldn't let him do it. It made me wonder what kind of things went on when I wasn't there. Also, I have no clue why he was so bothered; he wasn't the one cooking the steak. The same guy also felt it was completely appropriate to test the doneness of the steaks by poking them. Without cleaning his hands before or after. He would handle food, then poke one of the steaks I was cooking, then go back to plating the food. This drove me nuts.

Also, he was sexist and a creep but that's another story.

[Larry Mudd]

Originally Posted by living_in_hell

How pretentious, judgemental and classist of you. This comment makes you sound like a snob.

It's possible that I am being wooshed, but I'm not sure that I understand what about my comment you are objecting to, specifically.

[Sampiro]

I saw a short order cook at the restaurant of a hotel I worked at wipe his runny nose with the back of his hand and then continue shredding lettuce and doing other prep. Even though I ate for $1.60 any dish (which even in the '90s was next to nothing) I could never eat there again, even when it was a different cook.

There was briefly a place in town that had waitresses in G-strings, and said place served food. I once saw one pull her string out of her ass and then pick up a plate (thumb on plate) without washing her hand- grossed me out. Said place was closed down a week or so later.

A friend and my cousin both worked at the same branch of a major theme restaurant whose name is not Jumpin' Jack Flash but is from a song by the same group. When placing the order servers would sometimes add in a code (I honestly don't remember the code) that would print out after the order, and it meant "Do something bad to the food". It was held in reserve for the most obnoxious/drunk/sexually harassing guests, and "something bad" usually meant drop the food on the floor or something otherwise "relatively mild that's probably not going to hurt them but would get you in major trouble with a health inspector stuff".

[DummyGladHands]

I used to open the hot dog shop I worked at, and one day walked in the place stank, just STANK. Opened the cooler and it had quit at some point in the night. Slimy hot dogs. Called the boss, he said send the runner for a couple of bottles of lemon juice and they washed them and served every one of them.

OT, but the deli I worked at made the "ham salad" from all the ends of all the lunch meats, mixed with relish. It was a big hit!

Old beef stew, watered down and sold as veggie soup.

Reusing the "untouched" rolls from the bread basket was really common. As was refolding the napkins used to line/cover the bread baskets into the new baskets, which I don't think were ever cleaned.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

Oh, I forgot to mention: I once saw a cook in a Taco Bell preparing Taco Bell food.

Urrrgh - we used to have a Taco Bell in town that was old-school in arrangement so the staff wasn't hidden behind the shiny aluminum stuff. So you could see them making your taco with the caulk guns.

This is a much funnier word if you know my accent and know how I have no choice but to say "caulk guns".

Oddly, it's now an Adult Superstore which has caused much consternation with the city government because of a tiny loophole in the zoning rules - very ugly, the business was legit, got its permits, all that, and then they made a rule outlawing it and VERY magnanimously allowed it to run for two years before it has to close up shop. Dirty pool, says me.

ETA - if you remember, it's the one near what used to be the Kroger's on Jackson Boulevard. Quite close, ironically, to what used to be Big E's XXX Emporium when I was in high school.

[Scarlett67]

Dollar margarita night at one of the college bars, with a cheap "taco bar" to go with it. Very popular with us college kids on Wednesday nights.

One time my friend and I found that our raspberry margaritas were nearly flavorless. Not just no booze, but no fruity goodness. So we took them up to the bar to politely complain. Bartender takes a sip out of my friend's drink. (Iffy, but hey, if he wants her backwash, OK.) Says, "I dunno, tastes like it's got plenty of booze in it to me." We say, it's not the booze, there's no FLAVOR. It's like water. Bartender shrugs, dumps BOTH drinks into the blender along with more tequila and raspberry whatever, whizzes them up, and pours them back out into our glasses.

After a few seconds, we picked our jaws up off the floor and took our glasses of three-person backwash to the OTHER (head) bartender, who remade our drinks from scratch.

[AClockworkMelon]

Two stories that aren't my own, but from a friend who worked for a major theater chain. Stories have been confirmed:

1.) The candy used in the display boxes/counters is real, as in they put actual unopened boxes of candy there. After months under the lamps just a few inches above they become kinda gross. They would eventually be sold to customers.
2.) Cockroaches in the ice machine above soda fountains. This happened more than once. One person who worked there has basically had ice ruined for him and never, ever gets ice from soda fountains anywhere, anymore.
3.) This one happened only once, unlike the semi-regular roaches-in-the-ice. A foul smell from the popcorn machine led to an investigation by some of the employees. They discovered a dead rat in the popper. They changed it out and cleaned it but a few customers had already been served popcorn from that round.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

My girlfriend and I were eating at a Golden Corral once when she happened to notice something over my shoulder and said "Just whatever you do, don't get anything from the grill, I'll explain later."

What she had seen was the grill cook take a push broom and use it to clean the grill, and then set the push broom aside where he'd taken it from to begin with: resting bristles down on the floor next to the grill.

Now, we both had no doubt that the heat from the grill would kill anything that might have gotten there from the floor, but it still merited mentioning to the manager as seeming completely improper. The manager agreed and did at least put on a good show of being appalled.

As it happens, my girlfriend was mystery shopping the place that night, so this event probably went to a pretty high management level at Golden Corral.

We have not, as you might imagine, been back there.

I used to eat at Tia's on a regular basis (the particular restaurant has closed down, I think that the chain is kaput too)...until I saw one of the waitresses bus a table, and then take a broom and sweep the table. And put the broom back on the floor. The table was NOT wiped down afterwards. So I quit going to that Tia's. Yes, I let the manager know, but given that the ladies' room was always filthy, I really doubted that she cared. This was just the last straw for me.

[blindboyard]

"I should add, by the way, that the Auberge was not the ordinary cheap eating-house frequented by students and workmen. We did not provide an adequate meal at less than twenty-five francs, and we were picturesque and artistic, which sent up our social standing. There were the indecent pictures in the bar, and the Norman decorations—sham beams on the walls, electric lights done up as candlesticks, ‘peasant’ pottery, even a mounting-block at the door—and the patron and the head waiter were Russian officers, and many of the customers titled Russian refugees. In short, we were decidedly chic.

"Nevertheless, the conditions behind the kitchen door were suitable for a pigsty. For this is what our service arrangements were like.

"The kitchen measured fifteen feet long by eight broad, and half this space was taken up by the stoves and tables. All the pots had to be kept on shelves out of reach, and there was only room for one dustbin. This dustbin used to be crammed full by midday, and the floor was normally an inch deep in a compost of trampled food.

"There was no larder. Our substitute for one was a half-roofed shed in the yard, with a tree growing in the middle of it. The meat, vegetables and so forth lay there on the bare earth, raided by rats and cats.

"There was no hot water laid on. Water for washing up had to be heated in pans, and, as there was no room for these on the stoves when meals were cooking, most of the plates had to be washed in cold water. This, with soft soap and the hard Paris water, meant scraping the grease off with bits of newspaper.

"By seven I was in the desolation of the cold, filthy kitchen, with the potato skins and bones and fishtails littered on the floor, and a pile of plates, stuck together in their grease, waiting from overnight."

-- George Orwell

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by I'm Not Dennis Bergkamp

My wife ordered a glass of wine once that came with a small bug in it (very small, like a gnat). When she asked for a new glass, I watched the server take her glass to the bar, use a straw to get the bug out of the wine, then bring the same glass of wine back to our table. We ended up getting our meal comped.

I've been served wine with a floating gnat or two, especially when patio dining. I've always just used a fingertip to scoop the fellow out.

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by kayaker

I've been served wine with a floating gnat or two, especially when patio dining. I've always just used a fingertip to scoop the fellow out.

right, but it's your finger in your glass of wine.

[Ian D. Bergkamp]

Originally Posted by kayaker

I've been served wine with a floating gnat or two, especially when patio dining. I've always just used a fingertip to scoop the fellow out.

Yeah, I would have done the same. It was my wife's glass of wine, though, and she's not as easygoing as I am about stuff like that. And to be honest, I was less surprised that the server just picked it out than I was that she picked it out in plain sight of our table. I mean, at least make an effort to hide it. Sheesh.

To further answer the OP, my very first job was at McDonald's and I saw stuff there that put me off fast food for years, and not just the general level of filth and disregard for food quality--there was some intentionally disgusting stiff going on. People spit tobacco into the fry vats and licked chicken nuggets and put them back in the drawer to be served. One guy liked to ride the frozen quarter pounder patties across the floor like a little round skateboard, then plop them on the grill and serve them up. I didn't stay at that job very long.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by kayaker

I've been served wine with a floating gnat or two, especially when patio dining. I've always just used a fingertip to scoop the fellow out.

"Spit it out, ye wee bastard!"

[BwanaBob]

Worked in a McDonalds from 76-77. Only nastiness that I witnessed was when the management decided to have this big guy trained on grill. He was 6' 6" and quite menacing. He sweated quite easily and I watched in horror as he was cooking quarter-pounders and saw a constant flow of sweat dripping from his brow onto said burgers and on the grill surface. Little salt scuffs were left on the grill when the sweat boiled away.

After that I would never eat the quarter pounders from there. (The grill for quarter-pounders was separate in our restaurant, so I felt standard burgers/Big Macs were safe).

[C3]

I worked at a little fish/crab market when I was in high school. On New Years Eve, we had a special clam bake thing we sold - a bunch of shrimp, clams, mussels, a couple lobster tails, corn, and potatoes in this big tin. You could add water to it and put it right on your stove top to cook. After we put everything in the tins, we'd use an oyster knife to poke holes in the top so the steam could be released while cooking. It was a hugely popular item and we had an assembly line set up to make dozens of them. I was poking the holes in the top and my hand slipped. I sliced open a huge gash in my hand and there was a ton of blood on everything in that tin. The owner, not wanting to sacrifice all that nice seafood, had me rinse everything off and put it back in its container, to be sold.

I had a friend in college who worked in a donut shop. They kept big vats of glaze on the stove overnight uncovered. She'd get there in the morning and have to scoop a layer of tiny green flies off the glaze so that she could dip the donuts.

I've also had the drink-tasting thing happen. A friend complained about his margarita tasting weak and the waitress took a sip and handed it back to him, saying she thought it was okay. This was a pretty nice restaurant, too, not a total dive.

[TruCelt]

McDonald's, in the late '80's, watching cockroaches dive into the fry oil and disintegrate. Blech! Yes, the oil was super-hot and no, no germs would survive. But, yech!

Just yesterday at a drive-thru, the cashier took my card, purposefully wiped it across the crack of his behind, and then swiped it in the machine. I mean, he was wearing pants and all, but what the $&*!@) was the point of that? Is it making him feel better about having to stand on his feet all day? Sick, sick sick!!!

Thank goodness I always have a good supply of baby wipes in the car. When he held my receipt out to me, I ignored him, and made him stand there with his hand out while I wiped the card before returning it to my wallet. I know I should have told the manager, but I just didn't even want to discuss it.

[Moonlitherial]

Originally Posted by TruCelt

Just yesterday at a drive-thru, the cashier took my card, purposefully wiped it across the crack of his behind, and then swiped it in the machine. I mean, he was wearing pants and all, but what the $&*!@) was the point of that? Is it making him feel better about having to stand on his feet all day? Sick, sick sick!!!

Poor judgement maybe but it's probably a more prosaic reason. Some machines are more sensitive than others. At one lane in my grocery store the only way my card will work is if I wipe off the magnetic strip. Now I use my sleeve or pant leg rather than my ass but the effect is the same.

Thank god for chip cards

[Taomist]

I've worked at a lot of restaurants but really never saw anything like that.

However, I am certainly never eating a bear claw or rum ball again.

And another vote for the cashier wiping the card to make it work better, though he needs to think about WHERE he's wiping it.


OOH!! Thought of one.

I've worked in a LOT of restaurants, of all types, but only a few fast-food, back when I was young and desperate.

Long John Silvers has good fish and batter, granted. BUT...

One of the jobs at the end of the night was to wash the unused, uncooked battered fish fillets under water to take the batter off, saving the fish for the next day.
Not the WORST thing in the world, but still kinda oooghy.

Also, don't wash fresh fish under warm water, no matter how cold your hands are.

[Fear Itself]

I once watched a busboy at a Chinese buffet scrape uneaten shrimp off of used plates back into the steam tray.

[TruCelt]

Originally Posted by Moonlitherial

Poor judgement maybe but it's probably a more prosaic reason. Some machines are more sensitive than others. At one lane in my grocery store the only way my card will work is if I wipe off the magnetic strip. Now I use my sleeve or pant leg rather than my ass but the effect is the same.

Thank god for chip cards

No, he was a big guy, he had to reach around a bit, it was definitely purposeful and creepy. And "across" ws a bad word to use, it wasn't horizontal, it was vertical. He saw me catch him and the insolent look he gave me was horrifying.

I guess you had to be there. . .

[Vinyl Turnip]

Worked at a few pizza places. The "five-second rule" is not a myth.

ETA: to clarify, the rule itself is a myth, but I've seen it put into practice several times.