For Those Who Work/ed in Food Service
 

What is it that you have seen while working in food service that changed your opinion about food in general, a certain type of food, made you never eat out again, etc.? I am sure there are some things you saw working in the back that changed your opinion in some way.

:helpme

i delivered pizzas for a summer in college.

i learned that better pizza is made with mozzarella and not a provolone/mozzarella blend :2 cents:

I learned that people can live without porn, but no one can live without food.
I also learned I enjoy working with food far more than porn.
And I learned that it doesn't matter if McD's and Taco Hell want to serve shitty food, there are still plenty of people out there that would rather have something better. :2 cents:

I worked in the food service department of Six Flags one summer. Operating the stands and shit.

Don't ever eat amusement park food. Ever.

Here in the Philippines, the blend is 60/40 cheddar/mozzarella

I cooked at Sonic one summer when I was in high school. I learned not to be an asshole when ordering your food. You can't imagine what they do to your food if you fuck with them.

My first job was at Taco Bell. When I worked there everything was made fresh. We cut all the veggies the cheese, we even cooked the meat. The food was actually good. Now its all boil a bag shit. Nothing is made in house any more.

Many years ago, I worked at a bakery that made bagels.
Sometimes the bagels fell on the dusty floor, but the employees put them back on the tray.

That's the SECRET of IN N OUT Burgers---everything is made FRESH

Why are they so horrible then? Their food tastes like cat shit.

Yeah, I'll never forget seeing the Taco Bell lady "cook" the meat in the Student Union at college.

I watched her pick up a bag and place it in boiling water. I can't eat Taco Bell now.

I'm pretty sure In n' Out has crack in their burgers. That's the only reason I can think of someone going back for seconds.

I was a waiter and learned never to order a steak well done. At minimum you should order a steak medium because the chef will give you the worst/old/nasty piece of shit steak.

I alway order my steaks black and blue.

WHAT?!! IN N OUT BURGER and SHIT in the same sentence?! BLASPHEMY! You Infidel!:winkwink::1orglaugh:thumbsup

Don't be an asshole to those who serve/handle your food.

Why's dat red tootsie?

Nothing id say food wise made me think twice. BUt people and how they work in general.

Most of my food experience has been family business and we dont fuck around with food. One place I questioned things that wasnt ours , but it was more about the owner, not the food preparation.

There are horror stories. But Ill lay money on eating out being more safe than a lot of processed and stored foods.

We live in a dirty world. People do dirty things. Builds immunity if you dont worry about it. :thumbsup

plus i watch a bit of anothony bourdaine and andrew zimmer... I feel safe after watching some of their dining atmospheres.

I knew a farmer / field worker guy once that told me point blank, when they have a bad day, they all stand and take a piss in the peas before they are canned. I never ate peas again.

Fucking YUCK!

So how much piss do you think youve consumed thus far in your life through packaged goods?

Ill bet money youre underestimating...

I'm sure at least a few barrels.

I dont like working at subway man :(

The grease traps and the grease drip tray at Burger King. The non-cleaniness of minimum wage employees.

If you think that's fucked up wait till you realize how much bug shit, crushed bugs, rat parts, and other excreta are in processed meat foods. As for canned vegetable foods, the focus changes to pesticide, fungicide, rodenticide, and all sorts of "cide" residues :helpme:(

i leaned that if i am around good all day i eat too much so i got a job at a salad place

I've done retail, but never foodservice. I fear and respect people who touch my food. Treat them good, and they hopefully won't fuck with it.

i've worked concession stands at sporting events as a kid and then a nice steakhouse when I was older. nothing bothers me, the odd kitchen worker spits in something, kitchens in restaurants are a bit like frathouses but so what. i assume people make out with the opposite sex from time to time, their mouths are no cleaner than the kitchen worker. you're getting fresher food at restaurants than a lot of stuff from grocery stores - can't tell you how often I buy stuff from the deli counter or meat counter at a grocery store and when i get it home and smell it it's not fresh.

the food was very good quality anywhere i've worked. waiters and busboys would doggy bag stuff that customers didn't finish. i didn't but only because i don't like steak much.

working at a food processing/manufacturing plant - now that i'm sure might change me.

Nasty shit:

I prepped food at a high end restaurant for a few years when I was a teenager. It never dawned on me until a few years ago how nasty this was:

They'd cook the prime rib in the morning, and throw it on top of the convection oven so that it'd stay warm. Uncovered. On a serving plate.

Someone ordered prime rib...cut it...PUT IT IN THE FUCKING MICROWAVE to heat it up...and serve it. Cook it at 7am, serve that shit at 8PM for dinner...all the while sitting out.

Nasty.

I know full well about those too...

Ketchup... very red... Tons of flys in ketchup.

goes on and on...

Breaking down the broiler was the worst thing ever. My uniform always stunk no matter how many times I washed it. I can eat at BK today and enjoy it so long as I do not think back to working there.

Funny to read things like "I worked at X so I won't ever eat at X" or "I saw something last time I ordered at Y so I won't ever eat at Y again" when all the fast food places and restaurants do the same nasty things. If you want clean, well-prepared food you have to make it yourself.

I delivered pizzas for a nice italian restaurant and I worked at burger king a long time ago and I never did anything to the food and I never saw anyone else do anything to the food but I'm sure it happens just never witnessed anything gross.

I worked at Lil' Caesars for a few years when I was in high school. We had a friggin blast every day. It was rare we ever fucked with anyone's food, I never did anything unsanitary.

My friends who worked at Wendys did unspeakable things. I don't really ever do Wendys anymore but if you do DONT eat the Chili and skip the Frosty. They really do throw floor dropped burgers in the chili and the frosty machine is an easy target for dissatisfied employees that never gets properly emptied and cleaned. :Oh crap

I managed a subway when I was 18, shits a cakewalk.

Quoted for truth. If you ever send something back never ask for it remade, just take it off the bill.

One night a few years back one of my friends picked Ruby Tuesdays for their birthday dinner. Most of us at the table don't eat red meat so there were alot of veggie burgers ordered. I guess just the fact that we ordered a meatless meal was enough to set the cooks off, one of the veggie burgers had bacon hidden under the cheese and another friend got floor sweeps- dried ancient peices of chicken- hidden in her salad.

The bacon veggie burger got sent back to be remade, I knew it was going to happen as soon as it came back to the table, flipped off the bun and hidden again was more bacon.

I think the only thing that kept us from going back into the kitchen was fear of police action. I was on fire and had the manager almost in tears. I tore coroprate a new asshole and they sent me a stack of $25 gift certificates (to a po box).

We had easily over $100 in vouchers, maybe even $200, but none of us would use them, going into a place like that using one of those is like being marked for death. Fucking forget it. Someone lifted some of the from me and I just think its perfect karma. Spit for a theif I'm sure. :1orglaugh

when i was 14 I worked at George web's...a crappy restaurant. I never really saw anything disgusting though, at least nothing I didn't expect to see.

i worked 10 years in a Hotel. no crazy stories about the food. other then when people ordered Medium rare but want medium well. thats when we stuck pans on the steak on the grill and got it there fast and dry

Brfore computers/internet/pron, I was mainly a food service employee...did a stint as a busser and waiter, but found cooking to be my real calling. I worked at a lot of different restaurants and had heard horror stories at each, but had witnessed very few...most of the stories seemed to be urban legends.

I worked at the Coyote Cafe at the MGM Grand when it opened and was there almost 3 1/2 years and didn't see much that would turn me off...there was an unspoken 5 second rule with well done steaks hitting the floor...hehe

One nasty thing I did see was when i was working at Sam's Town in Laughlin, NV as a line cook and we had an egg man that went totally insane during a busy rush (we had a 49 cent eggs/bacon/sausage meal and it brought in an INSANE amount of people) and he started blowing his nose in the towels he used to wipe out his egg pans....he was fired and I became the egg man..worst fucking job ever...8 straight hours of nothing but 8 egg pans of eggs going at all time...I couldn't eat eggs for about 5 years after working 5 months at that position...to this day I can barely eat eggs...

I managed a taco johns when I was 18 and my buddy managed the little ceasars next door in the strip mall. He got all the cool stoners to work with him. I got all the highschool kids. I did bang HS girl on the prep table in back but besides that, i got the short end of the stick.

Needless to say at the end of the night I would walk next door, smoke joints and eat pizza pizza.

Details please.

I put myself through college working the bars and restaurants in South Beach. I learned to always try to eat at a place with an open kitchen. Open kitchens are usually much cleaner. Also the more you pay for your food the more likely the chef will pick it up off the floor and cook it because they do not want their expenses (food cost) to go up. Have a nice day :)

I saw some dishwasher licking food off customers toes once.

McDonald's - very, VERY clean
Pizza place - you do not want to know
and bars: you don't want to clean an ice machine . . . really nasty

I ran 5 restaurants including Canada's only 5 diamond establishment. Took the place from 50 wines to 500, spent $2.2 million in the process. Won an Award of Excellence from the Wine Spectator, a DiRoNA award and passed my Master Sommelier Basic Certificate over 15 years ago.

Hard work, no time for family life, which is why i retired from that and occasionally consult. For the most part people who work in the food industry and overworked and under appreciated. Bear that in mind next time you're an asshole to someone serving your food.

i once almost served a pizza with mouse shit on it cause those little fuckers nibbled their way into a bag of thyme

but i always think that our ancestors ate much worse than anything we can find today and we're proof that it didn't kill them (all).

Indeed. Although I did encounter a nasty one in West Virginia one time. There was no hand soap anywhere in the restaurant, including the kitchen. They insisted that employees washed their hands but they did not have an answer as to what they washed with. That was the worst of the problems but I remember there being like 30 nasty things observed like filthy stinky water (not just dirty) in the mop bucket in the middle of the dining room. I called corporate and they promised to turn that store upside down and remedy the situation. Also got a call from the store manager who profusely apologized.

It was a franchise store.

Caesars was the best. I doctored my ID and started working there when I was 15. I was running shifts and closing the store at 16 - 17. Its a miracle we didn't burn the place down.

This was our manager:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._8382914_n.jpg

As a kid I worked at a hot bagel place, helped bake bagels. It was as hot as hell but very cool. Probably but on 20 lbs working there eating just baked goods out of the oven. lol
Then I worked at a pizza place as a dish washer it really blew.My first day the pots and dough tins are plied up to the ceiling. They let me know hot water is broken.
Then I was a dishwasher in my senior yr at a little restaurant by my house. Worked hard, the owner was a cool stoner guy. His 150 lb mastiff used to hang out next to me because I would feed him off the plates and prime rib bones.That had to be so against the board of health. It was hard fucking work but we laughed alot.
Then I was a manager of a hot dogs and more. Kids worked for you and I was all of 19 yrs old. The mall was in a rich area so none of them had to work it sucked,couldnt get anyone to work. I was there open to close 7 days a week. The mall besides lunch and some activity on the weekends sucked and would be dead.I developed a barter system with the other bored food court owners. Again I gained a shit load of weight.lol The pizza guy next to me would trade veal parm with ricotta subs for hotdogs and french fries. One thing when you asked for a kosher hotdog, it was a choice on the menu. There was a 50 50 chance you actually got one.

i used to swat flies. When the fly lands on the meat, bam! Then we cook the meat :1orglaugh