restaurant kitchen horror stories don't be shy....share your with us! (1 Viewer)

[Chris Rosene]

Back in the mid-80's I was at an I-Hop, seated in the back by the restrooms. A rather obese gentlemen went into the bathroom, and re-appeared about 5 minutes later with his pants around his ankles screaming for some F'in toilet paper. Nothing on my food . . but appetite suppressing to say the least.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

All I can say is I must be lucky or something. In the restaurant I worked at, we believed in treating people the way we wanted to be treated. Kept things clean, no spitting in food, and we all ended up great.
Don't know how things are at other restaurants. In my advice, always go to a restaurant with an open kitchen or sushi bar. At least you can see them make the food.

 

[Scott Leopold]

My first "real" job was as the fry guy at Rally's. I didn't eat at Rally's for years after working there. Instead of the 5 second rule, the managers insisted we follow the "minute or so" rule. As long as you could still reach the burger in a reasonable amount of time after you had dropped it, you were expected to serve it. Anything that couldn't be served, or anything that was returned (even if it had been partially eaten), was chopped up and put in the Rally-Q (their version of a barbecue "beef" sandwich). The managers were all late 30's to early 50's, and all corporate trained. We put all sorts of stuff in the Rally-Q, from old burgers, to dropped burgers, to old fries, chicken and hot dogs. I didn't stay there long.

In college, I worked at a local, eastern European restaurant. Conditions there were actually pristine, and we generally never did anything unsavory to the customers' food. There are two exceptions worth mentioning, though. One of my customers one night was a particularly nasty old lady. When she ordered her soup, she insisted that it be hot. She said the last time she was in, it wasn't nearly hot enough, and she wanted me to microwave it before I brought it out. We had a brand new, industrial strength microwave, and when I dished up the soup it was steaming hot, so in spite of how nasty the lady had already been, I didn't want to make it dangerously hot by putting it in the microwave. I took it to her, and she wouldn't let me leave until she tried it. She insisted that it wasn't hot enough, so I went back and nuked it for 10 seconds. It was at a rolling boil when I took it out of the oven, and still steaming quite well when I set it down in front of her. She insisted that it still wasn't hot enough. I took it back, covered it, and gave it a minute in the microwave. I had to use the big hot gloves to get it out without burning myself. I left it covered as I took it out. It was still bubling slightly when I set it in front of her. She took a bite, and although she clearly burned her mouth on it, she wouldn't say anything and just waved me away. It may have been mean, but I was only doing as she asked.

Another time, I had a very loud, obnoxious man. I can't remember the particulars, but he was so bad that his family was apologizing while he spoke. By the time I served him his food, I remember that I was ready to kill the guy. As I was walking away, he yelled "hey, dumbass, I said extra cabbage on the cabbage rolls", then started laughing like he was the wittiest guy on the planet. Now, I'm not the sort who would purposefully taint someone else's food. Luckily, though, my buddies in the kitchen were. They took turns hocking stuff into his dinner, dropping the cabbage rolls on the floor, then mixing it and covering it with the extra toppings. To this day I have no regrets about serving that meal to that particular customer.

As I said before, the restaurant we worked at was pristine. It actually could have been cleaner, but the more I saw of other restaurants, the more I became convinced that it's one of the cleanest restaurants in town. In fact, everyone at the restaurant was of this opinion after we were hired to work the Christmas party of the premier seafood restaurant in town. They're still considered the best in the area, but to this day nobody who worked with me at the time is willing to eat there. Everyone who worked it came back disgusted. The stove had a large skillet/grill top covering half of it. It was covered with old, congealed grease which had dozens of mouseprints going through it. There was grease and grime on the floor, and mouse droppings just about everywhere you looked. The stove vents looked as though they had never been cleaned, and had grease running down from them. When my boss said something to the owner of the restaurant, he simply said they had never failed their health inspections, so we should quit complaining and not worry.

The worst one I know of is one that most people attribute to urban legend, although having witnessed it kind of second-hand, I have a feeling it may happen more often than people really think. This involved a local Taco Bell, and one of the employees defecating in the beans. This occurred while I was at the European restaurant. A good number of our customers came from Wright Patterson Air Force Base. We received word one afternoon from the owner's brother (who did work at Wright Patt), that one of our regulars was in the hospital following a trip to Taco Bell. The Taco Bell had been immediately closed down, and the guilty kid arrested. Within a couple hours, Taco Bell had a team of lawyers in town working on it. They managed to keep it out of the local paper and off the nightly newscasts, although one of the stations ran a promo for the story earlier in the afternoon giving most of the particulars. The only place it was covered was in the Wright Patt paper. The guy who ate the burritos was in the hospital for a couple days, while the kid who ruined the beans, with the help of the TB lawyers, plea bargained ASAP and kept the case out of the courtroom. The guy who got sick came into the restaurant a few weeks later, at which point we found out that he had reached an agreement with the TB lawyers, and while he couldn't discuss the case, he was happy with the outcome.

 

[Eve T]

Careful Scott before the HTF angry mob comes after you for serving those cabbage rolls to that ass of a customer and having no problems with it. I admitted I felt bad for serving a baked potato (that the cook spit a hocker in) to a fat hog of a man who threw his previous one at me and almost got the chair in here lol!!!
You admitted that you still have no remorse over what you did and now will be sentenced to die by lethal injection.
Sounds like that guy was a real creep. I actually laughed out loud when you said, and I'll quote:

As I was walking away, he yelled "hey, dumbass, I said extra cabbage on the cabbage rolls", then started laughing like he was the wittiest guy on the planet.

I can picture it all and can't help but laugh. Some people are such jerks. They think because they go out to eat somewhere that they are automatically made King for the day and can treat their waiters/waitresses like lowly peasants and do whatever the hell they want since they are buying the 6.99 chopped steak with buffet! Weeeeeeee
I'm so glad I don't have to work in the food industry anymore.
Now....about Rally's. YIKES! I haven't eaten there in quite some time now but that minute rule, and especially the Rally Q scares the hell out me! Old fries, half eaten returned burgers? Anything you guys could find? Yikessssssss don't think I'll eat there ever again heehee.
Oh the humanity.........

 

[Leila Dougan]

Eve, that was actually Scott's "short" version! In case you missed his other "Rally Q" horror story, check it out here:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...885#post891885
Good thing we don't have Rally's around here so I've never eaten at one!

 

[Brett Hancock]

I personally had a penchant for the occasional breakfast cereals I couldn't afford on my meager funds

I hear that I used to work at a retirement home where we got a free meal a shift, free juice, and so on. Well I don't eat meat and my supervisor didn't seem to understand that having mashed potatoes everyday was not to enjoyable. We had the little boxes of breakfast cereal that nobody ever seemed to eat yet she would rather die then let me have one of them for dinner. Little did she know that in my 2 years that I took the following
At least 50 boxes of frosted flakes
Probably around 25 boxes of honey nut flakes
5 of those huge boxes of pepdrige farms goldfish
2 36 count boxes of Hot chocolate.
Of course this was after I worked a wopping 4 days in 2 months, for no reason. Needless to say I was not happy but I would say I was refunded. The place I work at now however rarely keeps there shelf stocked long enough for me to make food dissappear. However there has been times when apple crisp was "dropped" on the floor.

 

[Mark Fontana]

I worked at a single-screen movie theater in the early 1990s. After the last show of the evening started, we'd scoop the remaining popcorn into the trash. One night, I had just finished closing down the concession area when a guy comes out of the auditorium, glances at the empty, turned-off popcorn machine, and asks for a large popcorn. I tell him sorry, we're closed. The guy gestures towards the nearly-full 50-gallon trash can next to me, containing a mound of popcorn (some from the popcorn machine, some swept off the lobby and theater floors along with who knows what else, on top of other assorted garbage).

"What about that popcorn there?"
"Oh, that's actually the trash..."
"Can you just sell me some of that?"
"Huh?"
"She'll never know the difference..." :wink:

I sold him a bucketful of popcorn out of the trash, dustbunnies and all, as requested.

 

[Bill J]

Mark,
Did he actually pay full price?

 

[Dewitte]

During my burgeoning working years, I worked in either fast food or restaurants. My inaugural job was at the local Wendy's where I had applied before the ink on my work permit was dry. At 15, I wanted to earn enough money for a car, but in the process was witness to:

A fellow 15-year old co-worker who thought it was hilarious to hock into the fry grease and onto the grill

Seeing how Wendy's chili is made: old, dried-up hamburgers boiled and then added to a pot

Seeing how the barbecue, for the barbecue sandwiches, is made: old, dried up chicken filets boiled and then added to a pot

A female co-worker whose hair was constantly falling out and falling into sandwiches, fry grease, the grill, etc.

Lots of 5-second-to-1-minute rule applied to everything from burgers, chicken filets, french fries and baked potatoes.

Seeing one of our Hispanic workers fly out of the drive-through window after hearing a racial slur and proceed to beat the living crap out of the alleged offender.

Being pelted by a paper cup after telling a customer that refills were not included with the price of the beverage (this was around 13 years ago when refills were the exception and not the norm).

Being threatened with having my ass kicked by a surly mini-mob if their order wasn't correct.

Getting yelled at for taking the initiative and cleaning up a pool of vomit near the lavatories instead of taking food orders.

Generally being treated as if I were beneath the dirt that dog crap falls onto because I wore a blue polo shirt, a red apron and a plastic visor.

That all just happened at Wendy's. Ruby Tuesday was another can of worms altogether.

De

 

[Scott Leopold]

I meant to include them earlier, but here are some of my brother's horror stories. The only noteworthy ones that I can remember came from when he was working at McDonald's. These escapades would later lead to a big argument between myself and a coworker. She was a manager at McD's on her days off, and insisted that none of what happened could have actually happened. She insisted that it never happened at her store, but I just feel it just never happened when she was looking.

While bored, my brother and his coworkers were fond of games of chance. They'd make small wagers on the cockroach races. The races were always staged either in the shake machine (see which one made it to them middle first), or on the edge of the grill (see which one made it off first). They'd also grill up the roaches quite frequently, again just out of boredom.

When they had disagreeable customers, they did all the standards, such as spitting on the food, in the drinks, dropping the pickles on the floor then using them, etc. My brother's favorite story involved More Ketchup And Mustard Lady. She was an elderly lady, and no matter what amount of ketchup & mustard you put on her burger, she wasn't pleased. She generally complained that it wasn't enough three times, then that it was too much on the fourth time. Everyone pretty much despised her, and my brother just happened to be working grill one day when she came in. He went through the first two standard complaints, then on the third one just drowned her burger in ketchup & mustard. Of course, she said it was too much. When they sent it back to him, he pressed down on the top bun, then ran his tongue around the entire outside of the burger, licking off all the excess. When the cashier handed it back to her, she looked at it and said it was perfect! It was the only time he knew of that she was pleased with the amount.

The other McD's story, which isn't gross but which also got my coworker in an uproar, was my McD's black market in high school. At the end of each night, my brother's manager would let the employees take home all the leftovers. I'd sit up waiting for my brother because he'd come home with bags and bags of burgers, Big Macs, nuggets, etc. We'd have to eat the fries that night, but everything else was still good the next day. My brother didn't care what happened to the leftovers, so I'd take them all to school and sell them in the lunchroom. I'd get 50 cents for burgers, and $1 for Big Macs & Quarter Pounders. For a while I was making $50-100 per week, which was great for a jobless freshman. This went on for a couple months until my brother found out about it. He was upset that I was making money and he wasn't, but instead of just splitting the profits with me, he quit bringing home the leftovers. It was good while it lasted, though.

 

[Yee-Ming]

whoa, compared to you lot, I was quite restrained!
I used to work at Pizza Hut after I finished high school, before entering university. I never sabotaged the food in any deliberate way, but then again I never dealt with customers, and didn't get to hear any stories of nasty customers mistreating our waitresses either.
my only "sin" in that respect might simply be incompetence in preparing the food...
after each shift, we'd be entitled to a pizza as your meal. this was limited to a regular 10" with two toppings of your choice. naturally I made my own, filled to the brim with more than two toppings and with plenty of each to boot...
(I must say, after experimenting, I understood why genuine Italian pizzas are relatively scarce in terms of variety of toppings. too many is just "too busy". so after a while I settled on a basic 3-topping pizza of minced beef, onions and pepperoni only. I'd lay the pepperoni until it covered almost every square inch of the pie, and the minced beef would be a solid layer almost half an inch thick... )

 

[rodney wiley]

When My Daughter was still on powdered formula,My wife and I went to Cee's Cee's pizza. During our lunch Lauryn got a little hungry so My wife asked for a warm glass or water to mix her a bottle. My wife as she always does watches everything and saw the waitress draw a glass of water proceed to drink some and spit it back in the glass. Needless to say she freaked out. The health dept. was called the employee was fired and about half or the patrons that were dinning that day walked out.

 

[Leila Dougan]

Something Rodney's post reminded me of. . .
One time when I was a baby and still in diapers my parents went out to eat at a fast food place (wish I knew the name). As my parents were eating, I messed my diaper so my mom took me to the bathroom to change me. When she was done, she realized there was no soap. So, she went to the front counter and asked someone if they could refill the soap dispenser. The girl at the counter just looked at my mom all puzzled and said she didn't know where the soap would be. She started looking in all the cabinets and even called a few coworkers over to help her, but they were all unsuccessful. After one guy commented "I've worked here for 6 months and never saw soap, I don't think we have any", my mom talked called the manager over. The manager kept saying over and over that they did indeed have soap, he just didn't know where it was and as soon as they found it, he'd put some in the bathroom. He also suggested my mom return to her meal and not worry about not washing her hands. And anybody who's ever changed a very messy diaper will know that this is not an option.
Needless to say, this "soap hunt" turned into a big affair, which all the patrons witnessed. My parents, along with most of everyone else, proceeded to walk out, leaving their food half-eaten.

 

[Tim Hoover]

I don't have any of the wonderfully gross horror stories that you people have, but I did find a lovely little octopus in the salad bar at my college dorm cafeteria...

 

[Max Leung]

These stories remind me of the shenanigans that chimpanzees do when they are bored or pissed off. Ever see a chimp wash hands in the wild? Didn't think so.
And people say we're better than the apes.
An anthropologist posing as a fooder worker with a hidden cam would have no shortage of thesis material, I tell ya!

 

[Jeff Braddock]

Well, I only have a couple.

The worst one that I witnessed was at Mazzio's Pizza. I was a driver there my freshman year of college. A fellow student and friend also worked there. Anyway, he gets this big block of cheddar cheese out of the walk in so we can grate it up for the pizzas. When he looks at it, he realizes that there is mold growing on it. A manager walks by and sees it and tells him it's no good so he throws it away. The trashcan that he throws it in is the one in the back that all of the bussed tables are emptied into. Needless to say there was partially eaten pizza, pudding, etc in there. When the owners wife (who is working as a manager) hears about it being thrown away, she wigs out and orders my friend to dig it out of the trash and grate it up and use it on the pizzas.

Later, after I quit the health inspector came by and checked everything out. There were pages after pages of things that had to be done. I'm amazed that they weren't shut down because I heard many stories of people eating there and getting the backdoor trots and stuff.

A short while after that, a softball team stopped by. One girl went to get a soda and when she depressed the little lever with her glass, ants came pouring out of the nozzle.


Chris Rosene told a story about an appetite suppressing incident. Well, one time I went with a group of friends to a restaurant for one of the friend's birthday. So were sitting there trying to figure out what to order and I look up and this kid (like 6 or 7 yrs old), stops and spews. I will say that he had impressive distance. Oh, and he had the roast beef.

On the night of my hs graduation, my mom gave me a few bucks to take my gf out to celebrate. So we decide to go to a local Lonestar that had opened up recently. The service was horrible, the prices were high, and the worst part, they didn't cook my steak the way I ordered it so I asked (nicely) that it be cooked well done. Ends up we're about the only ones in the whole place and we're sitting by this big window that is right above the grill. I see them put my steak on and while it's cooking begin to spray said window with some kind of cleaner. There's all this brown grease running down the window onto the grill and if that isn't bad enough, the cook takes out a water hose and begins to spray out the exhaust hood directly over my steak. Even at our table we could see/hear this happening. It ruined the whole night.

 

[Jereme D]

I've been working at the same restuarant (Chick-fil-A) for over 5 years and I've never seen anyone purposely contaminate food and use it. The store owner is there all the time and he's very anal about cleaning. We even have to take down all of the ceiling tiles in the kitchen at least once a week and clean them. The whole store gets cleaned thoroughly every night - The walls, floors, walk-in, freezer, behind the equipment... everything.

The only thing I've done to anyone's food was serve something that was somewhat burned up. I would not have done it, but I had to cook 4,000,000,000 other things and could not take the time go over it again.

The only store practice that I disagree with is how the chicken salad is made. It's made from leftover chicken. When a piece of chicken breaks in half or is too small for a sandwich, that goes in the chicken salad. We do have a rotation system, and anything over 3 days old is thrown away, though.

 

[Ryan Wright]

My inaugural job was at the local Wendy's

That's it. I'm never eating at Wendy's again.

As a matter of fact, I now have a whole list of restaurants I don't want to eat at anymore... I can still handle:

McDonalds. Say what you will, but McDonalds restaurants are some of the cleanest you'll find. The employees are friendly and there are always hoards of them working, not to mention plenty of hovering managers, so I'm not too worried about things there.

Arbys. Most Arbys are just as nasty as the next restaurant, but one of the four or five Arbys in my town is the cleanest place I've ever seen. Fries & other deep fry items are made FRESH, when you order them. I've seen them throw away "old" fries after several minutes under the heat lamp numerous times. No problem eating there.

Sub shop down the street: It's actually in a Sun-Mart convenience store/gas station. Very clean, and you get to watch them make your food ala Subway.

Other than that, I'm sticking with real restaurants from now on, and only those with a good reputation.

This is a very disturbing thread... I'm glad I read it.

 

[Max Leung]

Some of you who think that the stories told in this thread are no big deal, should think again! There is a serious risk of catching parasites because of the practices and habits of our (fast) food preparation workers.

How would you feel if someone who was infected with Cryptosporidium pissed and spat in your drink? Or if a disgruntled worker with Toxoplasma Gondii defecated in your pregnant wife's hamburger? Some of the larger parasites are extremely hardy, and have adapted ways of hiding from your immune system. Their cell coatings mimic the proteins found in your own cells, leaving you completely defenseless as they slip under your T-cells' radar. Many also stay dormant for years, not breaking through their shell until conditions are "just right" for them to steal your nutrients and deposit their eggs (and possibly manipulate your nervous system or immune system to get what they want...yes they can do that).

There is one parasite known to literally eat away the gonads of a host, and deposit their own eggs in the remains of the sack, which bursts after they hatch... Fortunately for us, it only affects certain species of crabs, and has not been known to cross-over into the human population...yet.

Scared now? You're not scared enough...

[This has been a happy joy joy public service announcement by Max. Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!]

 

[Brian Kissinger]

This in response to guests at restaurants. I, and my wife, are both managers at a family restaurant. And I have never witnessed or did anything to anyone's food. However, you wouldn't believe how nasty and rude people can be.
At a different store in our chain, some guests had flipped a highchair upside down, and placed their baby-carrier on top of it. Our highchairs are uneven when flipped upside down, and the carrier fell out of it. So it became mandate that this was never to be allowed.
One night my wife was managing, and couple came in and began to flip the highchair upside down to place the carrier on it (this happens ALL THE TIME). My wife goes over, and as instructed, politely asks the guest not to do that and informs them it's for their child's safety. She offered to get them a chair with arms (that will hold the carrier secure), but the father refused, and said he uses the highchair method all the time and it works fine. My wife then informs them that a child had fallen out of this type of highchair, and that we can't allow them to do this. Again, for their child's safety. The father then began to, rather loudly, cuss my wife out. He actually yelled at her, and used every extreme word you can think of. She took it, and politely told him he still couldn't use the highchair. And it is our policy that if a guest refuses any other solution, that we are to ask them to leave. She got him the chair with arms, and he relented and used it, but not before verbally assaulting her again.
Now, she let it roll off her back. And when other guests paid their bills, they told her she didn't deserve that, which made her feel better. And all this because we didn't want a child to get hurt.
We have incidents of this nature quite often. It never ceases to amaze and baffle me. I've had guests become rude to me over the same thing, but not to that extreme. And I can't for the life of me figure out why. We have a solution. It takes up no more room, and causes no inconvenience.
And don't get me started on how rude people become over temperature and music.