# When Food Goes Bad. Then a restaurant serves it. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 30, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-food-goes-bad-then-a-restaurant-serves-it/537904 "2010-04-30T21:39:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-food-goes-bad-then-a-restaurant-serves-it/537904/41 "2010-05-03T20:37:32Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > Maybe the customer is full of it, but isn’t it still better business to just comp their meal and let them go away reasonably happy? As someone up-thread suggested, most restaurants can afford to give away the occasional free meal. Some people make a hobby of complaining about things, just in order to get a discount or comped item. The store or restaurant wants to make a customer with a real complaint feel better about the store or restaurant, but on the other hand, the habitual complainer should not be rewarded, because s/he will be back next week, complaining about a hair in the meal (which looks suspiciously like the customer’s hair). There seem to be many more people who bitch about stuff just to get that discount than there seem to be people who have a genuine complaint. So the restaurant or store needs to take a good hard look at the complaint. If there really IS a hair in the meal, and it’s not from the customer, then the manager needs to see which server or cook is shedding hairs into the food. And if the meat is actually bad, then the manager needs to find out whether the cook just grabbed a steak that should have been thrown out two weeks ago, or whether the fridge is on the fritz. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-food-goes-bad-then-a-restaurant-serves-it/537904/42 "2010-05-03T20:51:08Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > 1. Show the whole thing on national TV! (Is the OP Gordon Ramsey by any chance?) Can’t be. He (or she) wrote that whole post with no swear words. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-food-goes-bad-then-a-restaurant-serves-it/537904/43 "2010-05-03T21:28:04Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > It doesn’t have to be food poisoning to make you throw up. My stomach once rejected some mac & cheese I ate in my high school’s cafeteria, about two hours after eating. No idea what was wrong with it other than being very thin–like soup. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-food-goes-bad-then-a-restaurant-serves-it/537904/44 "2010-05-03T21:29:37Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > It doesn’t have to be food poisoning to make you throw up. I once threw up at an airport because I saw a guy spit a loogie into a cup [of loogies]. Something can be _so gross_ that it makes you vomit. I came close just reading this. Ewww. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-food-goes-bad-then-a-restaurant-serves-it/537904.md?page=2)