A few days ago, someone started a Reddit thread asking ‘Fast food workers of Reddit, what should we NOT order at your restaurant? Why not?‘ The responses (over 3,000 of them so far) have been both funny and nauseating (and occasionally profane). For example:
- I work for Mcdonald’s and make sure everyone that matters to me never orders anything that comes out of the “McCafe” machine as these are routinely neglected, in practically all the McDonalds. Not only are staff not properly trained in its cleaning and maintenance, at almost every McDonalds I’ve had experience with, the managers in charge of training them don’t know **** all either. There is a compartment that catches the coffee/espresso grounds and when you take it out there is a hole that gives you access to the inside of the machine. Very dark, can’t be taken apart without someone specialized in servicing it coming it, and normally needs special brushes to be cleaned – I’ve been to a couple different McDonalds and have never seen anyone have the proper ones. A couple of times I stuck my hand in the machine to pull out a literal fist-full of black soot to show to the managers that it’s not in proper condition, and nothing has come of it. The insides are caked with it, the lines where the product comes out as well. Also, I’m not sure about all places but the McDonalds I’m at now also has us cleaning the smoothie machine with ****ing glass cleaner. I work nights so unless I really hate the person coming in, I try to play it off like these machines are in their “automatic cleaning cycles” and can’t be used but really I can’t morally justify serving people this (dangerously) ****ty stuff. All McCafe beverages run through a horrifically dirty machine – we’re talking 5+ inches of uncleaned, liquid bull**** making up its inside parts, and the smoothies have glass cleaner in them.
- I use to work at Wendy’s.. the meat used in the chili, yeah that comes from the meat on the grill top that expires and dries up that’s put in to a warming drawer until you have enough for a batch of chili, which we first freeze and then thaw the next day. Also if the chili sitting in the warmer doesn’t sell fast enough we just added hot water to it to mix it up.
- I used to work in a baseball park concession stand. The short answer is not to order anything, but if you absolutely have to buy something, don’t buy the hotdogs. Do not. Buy. The Hot Dogs. They made it out of the package okay, and might even have been edible after we finished grilling them – and then they went into the water. We kept three pans of water at the back of the grill, that held the hot dogs. Any hot dogs left at the end of the day went back into the fridge, and came out again the next day. Me and the other cook put our feet down on throwing out the water and old hotdogs after two full days, but the management didn’t want to let us. Oh, and our freezer broke so all the meat got stored in the ice bin. And our management always told us when the suprise health inspections were gonna show up, usually a week or so in advance.
There are many more horror stories at the link. Enlightening . . . and scary! That thread’s certainly changed the way I’m going to look at (not to mention order) fast food in future!
Peter
My father's rule, which I think is probably reasonable… is never eat food that a teenager has touched.