Chances are you’ve eaten out, ordered takeout, or had a meal at a fast food drive-thru. But have you ever wondered what is going on in the restaurant and service industry that you don’t see as a customer? I’ve put together a bunch of responses from restaurant and grocery store workers, chefs, servers, hostesses, and more. on the r/askreddit subreddit and from the BuzzFeed community. Here are the industry secrets they leaked.
1.
“I work as a host in a restaurant. If you are a jerk to me, whether on the phone or in person, the waiter will be notified of you. We also have a warning label if a reservation has been made with a request slightly alarming (e.g. a guy who insisted on a waiter being a woman because he “pays more attention to himself”. Managers are also made aware of major issues. In a nutshell: be nice to the hosts We’re the ones who can get you that nice table by a window or can squeeze you in when things are full.We go above and beyond if you’re nice to us.
2.
“I’m an employee of Olive Garden. Anything labeled as ‘endless’ is truly endless, so some people binge until they’re literally sick. All the employees hated the endless promotion of bowls of pasta because people were literally throwing up at the table and continuing to eat.”
3.
“The one thing that’s fresh and ‘healthy’ – that is, not pre-made, bagged, and/or frozen – at virtually every fast-food joint is tomatoes.”
4.
“Former fast food employee here. Don’t trust the ice machines. In my experience, they are rarely (read: almost never) cleaned. They probably contain bugs, dirt, food particles, etc. .. an ice machine, and I felt bad that customers had coarse ice. I told the managers about it, but they just brushed it away like they didn’t have time to deal with it .
5.
“In the supermarket chain I work for, I constantly catch customers choosing food from the hot and cold buffets with their bare fingers.”
6.
“I work at a Five Guys, and our burgers cost what they do (cost expensive) so we can provide customers with unlimited toppings made from fresh ingredients. Plus, we open every store at 7 a.m. to hand press every patty, cut every tomato, prep every piece of lettuce, cut every frie. It’s a lot of work and it’s exhausting – so please be kind to the team members and managers of local Five Guys We do a lot more than other fast food chains.
seven.
“Back when I was a French fries cook, some customers thought they were clever and ordered unsalted fries to make sure they got fresh ones. We cooks just put the already salted fries back in. the fryer to remove the salt.”
8.
“Candy store employee here. We left chocolate in display cases for months. When my friends came to the store, I told them to avoid it at all costs.”
9.
“I worked in a restaurant. A smoker outside the restaurant doesn’t mean your barbecue is fresh. Most of it is actually frozen. Sometimes we just throw logs on it to make it look and smell like if we were barbecuing. But we did this shit two days ago, and it’s just wood you smell.”
ten.
“As a former pizza place cashier, starting with an existing item and making lots of substitutions is the easiest way to piss off every employee. This type of order just wastes our inventory because it goes in the “instructions specials” rather than on the main ticket, which includes the weight of the trimmings.”
11.
“I worked at Subway and the ‘baked fresh every day’ promise is a pun. The bread comes in the form of frozen dough sticks that we thaw.”
12.
“If you’re someone who buys bulk nuts, grains, etc. – just be aware that these bins are probably rarely cleaned, and even when ‘cleaned’, there’s a good chance they have were simply rinsed/wiped down to look clean.When I took over, our bulk department had no cleaning records or sanitizing procedure.The bins had colonies of moths/insects and mold. Our store was opened nearly five years ago.
13.
“The cooked burgers that aren’t sold go in a pan in a fridge, and they become the chili of TOMORROW. The crispy chicken that isn’t sold today? It goes in a pan in the fridge and becomes the chili TOMORROW Crispy Chicken Salads.”
14.
“The cheapest bottle of wine in a restaurant often has the biggest markup.”
15.
“Having worked in grocery stores, I can tell you that everything is frozen. Even in the bakery section when it says ‘made fresh daily’, it’s usually frozen and cooked. As a rule, older items are out front and fresher items are in And ALWAYS check the expiration date.Especially if you are shopping in the morning.Most stores empty expired items each morning, but things are often overlooked.
16.
“Kirkland (the Costco brand) products are independently tested to beat the industry leading product in this category, whether it’s razor blades or laundry detergent pods. If it doesn’t beat the industry leader, they won’t put the Kirkland name on it.”
17.
“There’s a rule for how long something can sit under heat lamps, but no one follows it. If you don’t order during the lunch or dinner rush, assume whatever you get has sat for hours.”
18.
“In any fast food drive-thru, the speakerphone hears everything from the moment you pull up to when you leave. If you talk about us, we hear it. If you argue with your other passengers or on the phone, we hear that too.”
19.
“Please don’t ask your server how an item is or what meal you should order. This puts us in a really tricky position because 9 out of 10 times you will blame us if you don’t like your meal. I swear some customers do this on purpose so they have an excuse to tip us or demand that everyone’s meal be counted since ‘the waitress told me I should order this and I didn’t liked it.” Also, we don’t know what your personal preferences are. No two people have the same palate.”
20.
“Restaurant health inspection is really a sham, in my opinion. Health inspectors tend to inspect all the restaurants in a given area around the same time. usually warns other restaurants of We were bringing in extra people to deep clean everything It didn’t matter that for most of the year, every time we hosed down under the fryer or the food prep lines, we were drowning hundreds cockroaches. When the health inspector showed up everything was clean so we still had 100% on our health inspection.”
21.
“I used to work at Panera, and it shocks people that other than meats, vegetables, and dressings, everything is frozen. Pasta, soup, bread dough, bagels, and pastries are all frozen. Pasta is microwaved, breads and pastries are thawed, cooked and decorated, and soup is thrown into what is essentially a hot water bath.”
22.
“Starbucks supervisor here. There’s no secret menu, and we’re not trained to make these viral TikTok drinks. Some of the most common, like a Cotton Candy Frap, baristas might know, but don’t Don’t bet on it. If you want us to make something “off the menu” have the recipe handy. By the way, many of these drinks also rely on seasonal ingredients, so you should have a backup choice ready. .
23.
I worked for a long time in the service sector. You can probably bet restaurant menus, ice machines, lemons and limes for drinks, and slush machines are dirty.”
24.
“I work in Wawa. Good news: if anything is supposed to be made fresh (hoagies, salads, coffee), it’s damn fresh. Bakery items and salad bar supplies arrive daily, and supplies Sandwich boxes are regularly checked and replaced. The bad news is that anything picked up (mac ‘n’ cheese, mashed potatoes, meatballs, soup, etc.) arrives frozen.”
25.
“If a restaurant has a one-page menu, that’s usually a pretty good sign. It means their cooks have become specialists and can usually nail all the dishes listed. Conversely, if a restaurant has a giant menu several pages, it’s a gigantic red flag.”
26.
“I worked at a fancy country club ($25,000 initiation fee, then $7,000/year in the ’90s). A slice of “homemade” cheesecake was $7 on the menu. one of the sous chefs would stop by the grocery store every day on the way to work to buy a whole cheesecake for about $5.”
27.
“I was a shift manager at a fast food joint and years later I still refuse to eat anything with ice cream in it. The machine we had was still covered in mold and spoiled cream, while the owner’s “solution” was to scrape off a layer of mold and spray Clorox on it.”
Do you work in the restaurant or service sector? What’s an insider secret that customers might not expect to hear?
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