what really goes on behind the counters...

you've probably read my previous thread on pizza hut; which brought up other gross things that happen at pizza places.

so now i'm asking everyone who's worked or works in a restaurant, or fast food place - or anything of the sort; to share the gruesome details about what really goes on behind the counters/in the back room/etc.

i'm already turned off commercial pizza, you might as well turn me off french fries and blizzards too.

for example: pizza hut makes their crust taste garlic-y by spraying it with garlic butter from an AEROSOL CAN. ew!

and my friend has told me that tim hortons doughnuts aren't that bad; if you brush away the flies that get on them as they sit on the cooling racks.

trust me, the fly thing happens more than you'd think at many places. but it's not like there's much to do about it.

where i work (Rita's- it's an Italian Ice place), sometimes flies come in the windows and will land on the ice. yeah it's gross, but there's really nothing else you can do except shoo it away, we're not gonna throw out a whole perfectly good batch of ice.

but actually, there aren't any gruesome stories about where i work. nothing "crazy" goes on. maybe because we do the service through windows i guess (it's like a stand type of thing) so we don't need to worry about making it look perfect for anyone to see. the only thing i know is that whenever someone makes the cookies and cream ice, sometimes people will mix in like double the amount of oreos the recipe calls for (trust me, that's definitely not a bad thing lol). i have work today, so maybe i'll come back with some stories.

I use to work at Papa Johns.. I'm a clumsy girl .


I drop slices [they serve slices around here] and my manager told me to pick em back up ....

10 second rule !

Ha.. I also dropped breadsticks .... =]

I hate to break this to you all but the Subway I work at doesn't even HAVE light mayo.  Some of our squeeze bottles are labeled as light mayo, but we fill them all with regular.  I know this is awful, I don't know why we do it this way, and I don't know if all Subways are like that but all the ones I've worked at (and I've worked at a few different stores) do this.

That subway thing is actually like really bad. I think they could really get in trouble if someone of authority found out about that 

That's it, the next time I go to subway I am asking them to show me the actualy container the light mayo comes in.  There are many other high cal/fat foods I could eat if they use regular instead of light (though I get the ham w/out cheese, but still).

I worked at the Hut all through high school and never had anything really "gross" going on there.  I guess I don't get why an aerosol can is THAT gross... people spray pans with cooking spray from aerosol cans all the time. 

I don't work there but there is this small take out pizza shop that pretty much everyone in the neighborhood gets pizza from. One guy manages and works it, sometimes with a helper, and then then there are a bunch of delivery people. Anyway, the 1 owner/manager handles money, pens, receipts, and the waste bin and then goes back to making the pizza (and that means touching every single ingredient!)

It's pretty gross really. Why do I go back there again? ><

I worked at Wendy's..

-when the patties are getting cooked, there goes an UNBELIEVABLE amount of salt on them. 
-same for the fries, tons of salt
-a lot of things are that we cut on a lot of stuff , eg, only 2 pickes, 2 onions. 
-hmm, the salads are NOT always daily fresh, if they aren't sold the day before they get sold the next day
-never get the cheese sauce on the baked potatoes.. it just sits there all day, and by the end of  the day its all crusty

I worked at a Pizza Inn as a server briefly in college, and it wasn't that bad at all.  Actually, one of the newer cooks assumed the "10 second rule" one time, and he got bitched out by the manager for it.  They put garlic butter on their regular crusts, but it was actual garlic butter, melted in a pot, that they brushed on the crust (and yes, it was thrown out at the end of the day, not to be reused).  They did have a tendency to let their toppings get "less than fresh", though.

I suppose the worst thing would be the salad bar - most places do have a tendency to let things sit / be reused as much as possible before switching it out.  Of course, there's a reason to avoid restaurant salad bars just from other customers' behavior/habits alone (that could be a whole other topic).

Wendy's I never eat there.  When I was a kid, I noticed the salt on the burger and no one in my family noticed it.  but later my cousin and I went to one (we were kids and had no choice) and she got sick.  Like weeping in bed hours later with a stomach ache.  I will never eat there. 

I'd like to know what's in the Subway roasted chicken patty. It's not even close to being real chicken meat...

EDIT:  CHICKEN PATTY: Chicken breast meat with rib meat, water, seasoning [corn syrup solids, vinegar powder (maltodextrin, modified corn & tapioca starch, dried vinegar), brown sugar salt, dextrose, garlic powder, onion powder, flavour (hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, partially hydrogenated soybean oil & cottonseed oil, thiamine hydrochloride, disodium inosinate & disodium guanylate)], soy protein, sodium phosphates. (disgusting).

I think you'd be better off with the CHICKEN STRIPS... Boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, water, seasoning (salt, modified corn starch, flavour, yeast extract, spice, chicken fat, sesame oil, onion powder), soy protein, sodium phosphate, flavour.

Original Post by cellophane_star:

I'd like to know what's in the Subway roasted chicken patty. It's not even close to being real chicken meat...

EDIT: CHICKEN PATTY: Chicken breast meat with rib meat, water, seasoning [corn syrup solids, vinegar powder (maltodextrin, modified corn & tapioca starch, dried vinegar), brown sugar salt, dextrose, garlic powder, onion powder, flavour (hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, partially hydrogenated soybean oil & cottonseed oil, thiamine hydrochloride, disodium inosinate & disodium guanylate)], soy protein, sodium phosphates. (disgusting).

I think you'd be better off with the CHICKEN STRIPS... Boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, water, seasoning (salt, modified corn starch, flavour, yeast extract, spice, chicken fat, sesame oil, onion powder), soy protein, sodium phosphate, flavour.

thats gross.

Yeah...I got the subway grilled chicken patty as a salad once...it was inedible. And I usually really like subway. But no. NEVER getting "chicken" from there again. I don't want to know what they did to it.

i got one of those chicken patty things once in a salad and ended up VIOLENTLY ILL. i'll never get that again, but i still eat there - i just don't eat their meats or cheeses.. too processed.

veggie wraps all the way <3

i work at dairy queen.

the hotfudge and hot caramel pumps get moist with condensation from the heat, and grow mold. we clean the pumps once a week or so, and they're always moldy. the mold isn't in the hotfudge/caramel, but its on the inside of the lid of the pump, if you can imagine. so that is kind of gross, i guess.

other than that, we're pretty sanitary. lol

I worked at a deli that was also a produce market. When the produce started to wilt, we gave it to the kitchen. That's the only thing that could be questionable, though. I'll bet for every one of these posts there are many clean restaurants. Still, clean =/= low calorie. :( 

Ok I will admit this was a long time ago when I worked in fast food (Roy Rogers in a Phila suburb).... but there were always roaches (small ones) that would "hang out" around the milkshake machines.....many would end up in the milkshakes.  Yuck. 

Based on the ingredient list for Subway, they offer real natural cheddar and monteray jack cheese. The others are processed.

I never worked there, but I was told by an ex-employee that Mr. Donut crumb topping is made by grating stale doughnuts.

The pit of all food contamination stories I've heard was from a guy who used to scoop ice cream at the old Farrells chain in California.  He looked down at his hand and realized he'd cut himself on the tub rim.  But he couldn't feel it because his hand was cold.  He had no idea how long he had been BLEEDING INTO THE ICE CREAM.

This gives Raspberry Ripple a whole new meaning.

I used to work at an applebee's and ALL of the steaks are coated with melted butter before being served, which I personally think is disgusting. The cooks always messed with any food ordered by a cop..including rubbing their steaks in and arround the floor drain before cooking (gross!!! >.<) And after they plate the food, they are supposed to clean the edges of the plate so it looks neat, and they use a nasty dirty old rag that has been *God knows where* probably been using it all day ..that always grossed me out.

We also very rarely used "light" ranch. If someone ordered it, you just get regular! Same goes for honey mustard. Just laziness I guess.. I really don't trust eating out at restaurants too much after working in one =/