Name a food place (I. E. place that served food) that you've worked at before AND liked the food.

I’ve worked at four fast food places in my life: McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Wendy’s, and KFC. Of those four, I only ate, enjoyed and still love (to this day) the food of one: Namely KFC. It was the only foodie place that I worked at where I actually took advantage of the employee discounts and free food (we actually got a free lunch consisting of anything we wanted, a seven dollar credit every day). I also got a free lunch at McDonalds when I worked there (five dollar credit), although I never took advantage of it and would bring my own lunch or go and eat out on my lunch break.
Most employees, I’ve heard, aren’t really a fan of the food at the restaurants and places they work at, but were there any exceptions for you?

I worked at Burger King for a year and half during high school. A fresh made Whopper you personally delicately put together is something I still miss 20 years later. If they’d let me go back there today and make one I would.

The only food service I’ve ever worked was at the non-branded student union in college. It wasn’t great or anything, but it was decent, respectable short-order food. The places just off campus were better, but they didn’t take the meal plan.

I worked at an upscale restaurant & catering place and never, ever went hungry. It taught me what meat was supposed to taste like (which was nothing like how my dad liked my mom to prepare it) and opened my world to a whole bunch of new foods.

Worked at a hippie bakery in Durham, NC for a year after high school. Loved the food, although remind me to tell you the bear claw bucket story.

After that, I worked for about a year at a mall bakery. We served a lot of Sara Lee shit, but after I thawed that out and baked it and served it, I was given a pretty free reign to make what I thought would sell, so I had a lot of fun making spinach feta turnovers and exciting scone variants and berry cobblers and whatnot.

I worked at two restaurants (a Greek 10-page menu joint and a greasy spoon coffee shop) and McDonald’s in my youth. I enjoyed eating at the first one–it wasn’t fine dining by any stretch, but I could get a decent version of just about anything I really liked at the time. Gyros, Monte Cristo sandwiches, fried perch, meatloaf, spanikopita…you know the drill. The second place…not really. They must’ve paid off the health inspectors, because things weren’t rotated properly. If I ate there, I had an omelet or something like chicken salad–if I had prepped it that morning. As for McDonald’s, it was when they carried the Arch Deluxe sandwich, which wasn’t half bad. Also, it was before the McNuggets were all white meat, so they were pretty good when fresh. :slight_smile:

When I glanced at the thread title – a capital “E.” and the phrase “food server” and word “food” – I thought for sure it would be about E. coli.

Sorry for the, um, threadsh#*. :wink:

Bek’s a breakfast and lunch restaurant in an office building. We served breakfast until 10:30, lunch until 4:00.

I loved to eat a breakfast that I had just made: two eggs, over very easy, placed on top of hash browns, topped with pepper and Tabasco sauce, served with three strips of well-done bacon, and two slices of rye toast.

I worked at both McDonald’s and Burger King when I was in college. I used to love Burger King–we’d get free food, so I’d have a Whopper for dinner and they were quite tasty. Not so much anymore. I’m not sure what’s changed, but they’re not as good.

I still like McDonald’s too (actually better than BK) but for some reason, the BK food was better when I worked there. Maybe it was the flame broiling.

Yeah. Taco Bell.

Hostess/Server at a local small-town diner sort of deal. Fake flowers on the plastic tablecloths sort of level. We didn’t get anything for free, and the food was more than I could afford to buy at the time, but it seemed nice enough. Once when one of the cooks saw the writing on the wall about him being on his way out, he “burned” or “dropped” or “messed-up orders” for a few days so we all could have dinners on the house. He was a nice guy. The place is closed now, and I never did have enough money while I lived there to actually go.

General Manager at a pair of chain ice-cream places. You know, the kind where they schlorp your icecream around on a rock with random things? That was quite fun. I ran them clean and we got a decent allowance for food that the crew used regularly for about 6 months to a year, then we all got burned out on sweets. The ice cream was extremely good quality, the “condiments” and fruits were all name-brand and rotated, and oh man the waffle cones. There is nothing in this world like a waffle cone that you just burned your fingers on less than ten seconds ago. Soooo damn good.

The only thing that wasn’t so great was the cakes; frozen ice-cream cakes from a chain place can only be so quality when they have to be frozen and stay frozen. All I can say is that I had lots of fun with the decorating (learned how to professionally decorate, which is a very useful skill), and our cakes never got freezer-burned because unlike a lot of my peers, I actually threw them out when corporate said to, instead of thawing & re-icing them. :eek: Don’t buy ice-cream cakes, people - make your own instead.

I worked 3 summers at the White Gull Inn (dishwasher two years and prep cook one).
This won the Good Morning America best breakfast contest.

Still not sure I’m interested in a fish boil, but I’d certainly eat breakfast and probably lunch (or the non fish boil dinner)

Brian

I worked here about 25 years ago, and they had a peppercorn ranch salad dressing to die for. Fresh made each day. I used to dip the bread rolls in it.

They also had a crab dip which we served for free with crackers when we greeted the table. That was pretty good too.

Does contract work count? I have serviced McDonald’s, Cracker Barrel, Dunkin Donuts, and Starbucks as a POS/Server/Printer tech. I like the shakes at Mcdonald’s. Cracker Barrel has really good breakfast. Everything at Dunkin Donuts is decent, but nothing there strikes me as being great. Starbucks has good sandwiches.

Why do people continue to say this… it is still flame broiled today.

Do they still use American flames or are the flames imported from China?
:smiley:

I worked at Olive Garden back when the bread sticks were still good. (They changed the recipe about 20 years ago. They just aren’t the same anymore.) The rest of the food was just ok, but I lived on those bread sticks dipped in Alfredo sauce for an entire summer.

In college, I worked at the Waffle House for a while - we were allowed a meal both before and after our shifts. I was a poor journalism major, so I took advantage of the free calories, but my order depended on who was cooking, and how busy we’d been. (And sometimes which waitress was relieving me. Susie was an unpleasant woman - I usually had a salad for breakfast if I knew she’d have to restock.) Roger the AM cook was perfectly adequate at making some bacon and eggs and hash browns. If Clifford was cooking, I’d make myself a waffle. If I’d worked overnight with Steve, and we hadn’t killed ourselves all night, he would make whatever I wanted, exactly the way I wanted it. He was a rock star among short order cooks! And I still like WH, even though I probably eat there twice a year now instead of twice a day.

Later, I worked for an artsy little cafe downtown, and we usually had a family meal before opening so that we could tell customers about the evening specials. Chris made the best ratatouille I’ve ever had, and Jim was extremely creative with everything. It was a nice change from the usual Ramen and Del Taco! If they were still in business, I’d be happy to order the special. (But I did eat at Chris’ restaurant the last time I was in New Orleans, and at Jim’s the last time I was in Atlanta.)

Also worked for a Cajun-themed bar and restaurant a few years ago. The cook thought I was too skinny, so he would send me a shrimp po’ boy every time I worked the top floor bar. That cook is long gone, and I just don’t go to that bar any more. But if Rick were still in the kitchen, I’d go buy him a sandwich and show him how not-skinny I am now!

I worked at Hardees. I still love the burgers there, unfortunately there aren’t any near me.
I worked at McDonalds and still eat there occasionally.
I loved Friendly’s but I haven’t seen one in years.

I worked at Perkins for about 8 years, and I never got tired of their food. When on vacation, if I see a Perkins I still try to eat there. My favorites were the Granny Country Omelette and the barbecue bacon chicken sandwich