Quit making shit up. ;p
“snart coughing” made me snart laughing.
“snart coughing” made me snart laughing.
snot + smart
Well…
It getz teh mice, it can haz Doner Kebabz
my first ever lolcat effort; i need to go shower now…
dammit
If it wasn’t, then no problem. But restaurants do usually have fairly free access between different areas of the premises (swing doors, etc.) because people carrying trays and so forth need to get quickly from one area to another. If a cat habitually resides in “the back” of a restaurant, and if it can manage to get into the dining room undetected, it seems fairly likely that it can also get into the kitchen.
In the US, pets (except service animals) are generally barred from indoor seating areas of restaurants, as well as food preparation areas. So according to what the OP reported, the cat was indeed observed where the law says it shouldn’t have been allowed to go.
Now, it’s certainly possible that this was a fluke incident and that the restaurant owners are usually very careful about code compliance. But I’d have been a bit taken aback by finding a cat in a restaurant too.
Sure, it’s charming to see the down-home atmosphere of, say, pub culture in a different country, with pet ferrets sitting on restaurant tables licking beer bottle caps, but that sort of thing in the US would generally suggest a rather cavalier attitude toward health code regulations. I’m not saying that our system is necessarily better, but them’s the rules at present.
Meh, there is grosser stuff than cats in any commercial kitchen.
Anyway, all that food you are eating is either dead animals or plants that have been sitting outside for months with the birds shitting on them and god knows what else. Life is dirty.
When did our culture become some uptight?
The 50s and 60s.
Lame attempt at threadshitting. There’s worse stuff going on in the world than pretty much any topic that turns up in a Pit thread, after all.
Yes, which is why we tend not to eat dead animals straight out of the slaughterhouse or dirt-covered plants with the birdshit still on them. We have health code regulations in commercial food preparation establishments precisely in order to provide some reliable defenses against the natural dirtiness of the food chain.
Responsible food sanitation is not “uptight”. Cats carry food-borne pathogens such as Campylobacter, and cats are not capable of learning responsible food sanitation procedures. Therefore, health code regulations banning cats from areas where food is commercially prepared or served are quite reasonable.
Its not exactly like they had a sign outside advertising felines wandering around their establishment. Had we seen the cat before I sat down and ordered, then yeah, we would have left and gone to one of the many other restaurants in NYC which I assume don’t have cats.
I was never worried about the cat shitting directly in my food (OMG!), but its possible he was having a field day licking his asshole and then went on to lick something that ended up on someone else’s table. Like I said, I don’t know if the cat was in the kitchen, but if it was just roaming around, I wouldn’t be surprised if its been in there.
I didn’t ask where “the back” was because I had finished my meal and there wasn’t much point. I’m not an asshole so I didn’t say anything to the server and I have no intentions of calling whoever would be interested in fining a restaurant for keeping animals. I just won’t be going back because I don’t like eating in restaurants with cats.
Well can you at least tell us the name of the restaurant so we don’t go there either?
When you joined the Peace Corps, coincidentally enough.
Or possibly predated by Anthony Bourdain parlaying his restaurant insider-snarker persona into a television gig. He bravely discovered wondrous foods in the seldom-traveled parts of the globe, comparing them very favorably in terms of authenticity and worthiness to the food prepared by his own stateside restaurants, shut down for multiple health code violations.
Somewhat back on topic…I like cats, a lot, but the shit thing? Unfortunately, yeah, it’s a factor though of course they don’t shit on food. That’s silly. Paws, litter box…it’s there. (I don’t worry about it because often I drop a kiss on top of my dog’s nose and she sneaks a quick lick-kiss right back.) But there’s also the feline tendency, to quote the ineffable Eve, to “play the viola”, i.e. hoist a hind leg skyward at an impossible, boneless angle–and usually at the moment of maximum public exposure–then thoroughly and loudly tongue-wash the ruthlessly exposed bunghole. Which may be followed by a yawn, an aloof stare or, worst of all, a discreet burp, then a thorough, fastidious licking-down of all fur within easier reach.
Which is all said and intended to be taken with humor, btw. But gotta reluctantly admit, as someone who’s allergic, being around where cats are will block up my nose, my eyes sting and water and my throat tighten up. The physical symptoms actually get better after prolonged exposure–and that process sure ain’t fun–but casual contact in a restaurant could make me pretty miserable if a cat had just been a cat around furniture, plates, food, etc.
The presence of critters is usually a sure attraction for me though. It’s just my bod’s unfortunate reaction to cat spit.
Sure. It was Turkish Cuisine at 631 Ninth Avenue between 44th and 45th streets.
It seems that cat’s wandering wasn’t an isolated incident.
BTW, psychonaut, that is so cool. That’s a really cute picture, too!
I searched for “cats in Turkey” on Wikipedia with no real luck, then Googled it and ended up on webshots looking at pictures of cats in Turkey, and then I realized that all I was really looking for was cute pictures of kitties. So here are some gratuitous pictures of Turkish cats:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25297331@N07/3048176149/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chearn73/3047907809/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emrahcelal/3042661709/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glynnis/3022497759/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/missedspring/3009856681/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/missedspring/3009852347/
I am in love with Turkey.
Seconded! 
Obligatory link for San Diegans and people who will be in San Diego in the near future: http://www.rebeccascoffeehouse.com
Can you PM me the answer?
Yeah, actually I’m pretty sure thats it. At the restaurant I went to last night I saw the owner skinning a rabbit on the sidewalk, the blood flowing down the side of the (outdoor) restaurant and into the street. My standards are beyond out of wack at this point.
…Have you ever been in a Turkish Pound?
I’ve never been to Turkey, so no.
It was an obscure joke. Sorry 'bout that.
Amazing. Nothing like having the people from Zagat show up at your restaurant and see a cat roaming around!