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(#1) When Your Meal Arrives Too Quickly
From Redditor /u/marahsnai:
If you order a meal that should take a long time to cook and it comes out very quickly, it’s been precooked...
This applies mostly to quiet nights. If it’s quiet and comes out immediately it’s just been sitting there. But if it’s busy, there’s enough turnover that it’s likely all right and chefs are just being prepared.
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(#2) When There's A Multi-Page Menu
From Redditor /u/fancyfrenchtoilet:
If a restaurant has a one-page menu, that's usually a pretty good sign. It means their line cooks have become specialists and can usually nail all the dishes listed.
Conversely, if a restaurant has a giant, multi-page menu, that's a gigantic red flag. The longer the menu, the better the odds you're paying to eat a boiled-bag frozen meal.
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(#3) When There's A Buffet
From Redditor /u/contrabardus:
Buffets are disgusting. Don't eat at buffets. Yeah, it's cheap, and often a "good deal" That "all you can eat" thing sure sounds appealing.
No matter how well managed a buffet is, it can never be sanitary. It is not reasonably possible to run a sanitary buffet business. This is true of salad bars, hot bars, desert bars, or whatever other kind of bulk food in a trough they are serving you.
You are relying on the sanitation habits of the general public... and underpaid employees who wear plastic gloves, had to watch a video about food safety once, and get told to wash their hands by an assistant manager every few days or so.
That oblivious 80-year-old... took a pair of tongs from the fried fish and used it to grab the piece of rotisserie chicken, green beans, three raw oysters, the pile of roast beef, and the pizza slice on his plate before putting it back in the pan where he found it, and none of the employees noticed.
Ignoring several easily visible signs that instruct customers not to reuse plates, some... lady decided she didn't want that piece of fried fish she took and put on the plate she reused for several trips to the food trough, and put it back in the pan on the bar again. No employees saw this happen.
That 8- to 10-year-old kid wiping his... nose into the sleeve of his shirt? He has been coughing into his unwashed hands all day and touched every utensil in every pan on every bar while trying to figure out what he might want before ultimately deciding on his third identical plate full of mac and cheese, spaghetti, a single chicken tender, and a half-dozen chocolate chip cookies.
That 6- to 7-year-old sucking on their own fingers and picking their nose at the same time? Yeah, the little germ ninja went up to the bar by themselves, avoiding the gaze of any employee and unattended by any adult, and just grabbed fistfuls of whatever is on their plate...
"I didn't pee on my hands, so I don't need to wash them": 60% of adult males and 95% of young boys.
You don't want to eat at a buffet. It's one of those things that seems like a good idea until you actually think about it. When you do, it just gets less and less appealing.
I have no idea how buffets are even legal in this country. Everything about them is a sanitation red flag.
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(#4) When A Lot Of 'Specials' Are Available
From Redditor /u/Tickle_bottom:
Businesses with a bunch of signs/specials out front. "Lunch special: 4.99$!" "Free appetizer from 5-8 pm weekdays!" "BOGO main course Wednesdays all day!" That kind of thing.
[It] usually means they're going under and are trying to drum up business, unless they're a chain.
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(#5) When Menu Items Are Purposely Misspelled
From Redditor /u/Splinkyyy:
In culinary school... every single chef instructor says the same thing: if it's misspelled on the menu it's on purpose.
It's so they don't have to sell you the real thing. A prime example is "Krab Cakes."
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(#6) When One Menu Item Is An Outlier
From Redditor /u/drMyronReducto:
If you go to a place that has a menu item that doesn't quite fit with the rest, it's best to avoid it. When I started, I worked at a pub and we made mostly steaks, burgers, chicken, and pasta. But for whatever reason, they kept this orange roughy on the menu and it was rarely ordered. It would go bad quickly.
Our bosses didn't like us throwing it away because it's expensive. It was gross. Get something that place specializes in.
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(#7) When The Flooring Is Carpet
From Redditor /u/eyebrowshampoo:
Not a chef but worked in food a lot.
Carpet. Yeah it's quieter and doesn't get slick, but it is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. I saw them pull it up when they remodeled (and put in more carpet). Vacuuming only goes so far in a restaurant and I know they never, ever shampooed it.
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(#9) When The Server Argues About Sending Food Back
From Redditor /u/A_pencil_artist:
If employees try to argue with you about food quality in order to dissuade you from sending something undercooked back, just leave.
It means they have a cook who can't take criticism and your chances at getting a sneezer are greatly increased.
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(#10) When Staff Are Clueless About Seafood Origins
From Redditor /u/heroesforsale:
Ask where your oysters come from. If they don’t know, you don’t want them.
Works for most seafood.
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(#11) When The Employees Are Angry Or Apathetic
From Redditor /u/robotran:
Pastry chef here... The biggest thing to keep an eye on... is the staff. If there's p*ssed-off people, get out as fast as you can, obviously.
If everyone is [kind of] apathetic and not talking to each other much, get out. That's also a sh*tty environment; everyone is probably really passive aggressive, and that's going to show.
If people seem genuinely good with being there even if it's busy, or if there's playful ragging going on, that's where you want to be. The better the staff gets along, the better everything in the place runs.
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(#12) When The Menus Aren't Clean
From Redditor /u/SoMuchBsHere:
When the menus are super dirty and never cleaned, that means everything is super dirty and never cleaned.
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(#13) When Servers Pause If You Ask A Question About A Dish
From Redditor /u/kjimbro:
I’ve worked in restaurants for over a decade - a couple years in the kitchen and the rest as FOH [front of house].
If your server’s response to “how is the [item]” seems disingenuous, that’s a big red flag. We know what goes on in the kitchen; we know the complaints; and we know which items to stress over when we deliver them.
[If] servers... pause or seem uncomfortable with that question, [it] generally equates to a menu full of stuff we wouldn’t eat even as a free shift meal.
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(#14) When The Air Smells Sterile Or Like Perfume
From Redditor /u/CrossFox42:
How does the place actually smell? Does it smell like good food? Then it likely is. Does it smell like perfume or too sterile when these is clearly food on the tables?
That could be a bad sign they are trying to hide something less than pleasant.
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(#15) When You Smell Grease
From Redditor /u/FoxZach63:
I clean kitchen exhaust systems. If you walk in a restaurant and can smell grease, walk out. That means the place isn’t clean, from the exhaust system to cooking equipment.
We clean some places where grease drips off the hoods onto cooking surfaces.
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(#16) When Lunch/Dinner Places Start Serving Brunch
From Redditor /u/Tickle_bottom:
Regular lunch/dinner restaurants that start to offer brunch:
1. Brunch service is the worst. Chefs hate it, and are usually disgruntled.
2. Brunch is a money maker. Companies charge over the top for thin pancakes and orange juice with a splash of $4 [sparkling wine]. Sudden brunch means the place is trying to make more money, charging double, and using chefs that don't want to be there.
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(#17) When The Area Near The Trash Cans Is A Mess
From Redditor /u/liberty285code6:
I was a chef for four years. Honestly, if you’re ever curious, go hang out near the back door/trash cans.
If it’s a good restaurant, it’ll look like a regular back-door trash can area. If it’s somewhere you shouldn’t eat, it’ll look like a... disaster zone.
Cooks who can’t keep up in the kitchen can’t keep up with breaking down boxes and taking out garbage, so they just throw stuff outside and deal with it later: full-size, not-collapsed boxes; garbage bags not in the dumpsters; food waste leaking out of orifices, etc.
A messy outdoors is a reflection of a poorly run kitchen indoors.
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(#18) When No ServSafe Certificates Are Posted
From Redditor /u/-knave1-:
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: the [number] of ServSafe certificates posted on their wall.
ServSafe is a national food safety training course that all managers have to take and pass to become managers. It is required in all food service establishments, and for every ServSafe-certified employee, there should be a certificate visible to customers (similarly to health inspection).
So basically, the more certificates you see, the more employees who work there truly understand food safety. It's an incredibly tough test and you have to actually understand the material in order to pass.
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(#19) When The Cutlery Isn't Clean
From Redditor /u/thefabulousbomb:
Check your cutlery. Most cutlery barely gets washed. It gets rubbed with soap, sprayed with water, and chucked in a dishwasher.
It’s then meant to be polished with hot water when it’s brought to the table set-up area; this is where we actually check it for leftover grime. If your cutlery is gross, chances are your wait staff aren’t doing their job properly.
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(#20) When No One Is In The Restaurant In A Busy Part Of Town
From Redditor /u/AAiBee:
If the area is busy but the restaurant is empty, that’s usually a bad sign.
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(#21) When Your Server Is Sick But Still Working
From Redditor /u/thefabulousbomb:
If your server visibly has a cold and is still working, don’t eat there. They’re either not paying their staff enough to have days off, or they’re forcing staff to work in conditions where they shouldn’t be handling food.
The kitchen staff probably get the same treatment and have the same illness.
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(#22) When You See Dust On Ceiling Fixtures
From Redditor /u/Derelyk:
[I] was a line cook. Best advice I have is look up. See dust caked on the ceiling fans/ornaments/light fixtures?
That means it's in the kitchen just as bad, if not worse, and raining that crap down on the food and prep surfaces.
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About This Tool
Everyone expects to eat delicious and safe foods in restaurants. However, this is not always the case. The bad environment and cooking habits of chefs may cause illness, especially when they are busy serving food for hungry customers. The habits and cooking skills of chefs are important factors for a restaurant’s success, and their behavior is also the key to ensuring food safety.
More and more people are reluctant to eat in restaurants without open kitchens because they cannot confirm whether their food is clean. This random tool includes the sharing of some restaurant chefs, which are 22 signs that a restaurant may not meet food safety standards.
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