14 Fast Food and Restaurant Employees Confess the One Item You Should Never Order

[flowers]

http://www.foodbeast.com/2014/03/04/fast-food-and-restaurant-employees-admit-the-one-item-you-should-never-order/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_256993

The following question was posed on Reddit:

"Fast food workers of Reddit, what should we NOT order at your restaurant? Why not?"

While it's important to know that none of these claims have been verified, we do recommend bookmarking this thread. Just in case. Tons of answers were submitted, we picked the most curious below.

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Anything McCafé at McDonald's

"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 bleep all either...All McCafe beverages run through a horrifically dirty machine - we're talking 5+ inches of uncleaned, liquid bullshit making up its inside parts"

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Do. Not. Order. Hot Dogs. At. Baseball. Games. Period.

"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."

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On steak and beans at Taco Bell

"I worked at taco bell a little bit ago and I warn everyone to stay away from both the beans, and the steak. The beans start out looking like cat food, and the directions are, 'Add water and stir until you can’t see white anymore.' The steak was just the worst on dish duty. If it would sit too long it would become like hair gel. It was the worst."

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On Wendy's chili

"I used 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."

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For the love of God, don't order anything off the Starbucks "Secret Menu"

starbucks butterbeer

"Former starbucks worker here. Please don't order anything off the 'Secret Menu'. It doesn't exist. If you want a snickerdoodle, nuttella, or captain crunch frappuchino (or whatever other overly sugery thing someone has since come out with), know the base drink and the modifications, and order that. If you just say the name, it's up to the barista to come up with what's in the drink, and it may not be what the last barista you ordered from put in there."

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On movie theatre popcorn

"I worked at a theater, don’t get popcorn for the first showing- that’s all just last night’s popcorn put into giant garbage bags and then reheated in the warmers in the morning.

Oh yeah and remember that sticky floor in the aisle of the theater? Well what do you think would happen if you had that at your house. YES THAT’S HOW YOU GET

[mountaineer]

On Wendy's chili

"I used 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've worked at Wendy's and this just isn't true, at least at those restaurants that do things as directed by Wendy's HQ. The chili meat is not old and dried up at all.

[jmyrlefuller]

On Wendy's chili

"I used 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."

The cheapo in me says that is a brilliant idea.

[mountaineer]

No cooked beef sits around drying up in a warming drawer at Wendy's. As closing time approaches, if there are a few cooked patties on the grill, those are refrigerated safely and chopped up the next morning for that day's batch of chili. It's the closing manager's responsibility to make sure enough cooked beef is available for the next morning, so he or she might have to throw a few more patties on the grill shortly before closing time.

[alicewonders]

I've worked at Wendy's and this just isn't true, at least at those restaurants that do things as directed by Wendy's HQ. The chili meat is not old and dried up at all.

I agree with you.  I love Wendy's chili and I would know if it wasn't made from fresh meat - you can tell!  Maybe the Wendy's that person worked at had a $hitty manager that did things that way.  I used to work at Subway and our manager had a budget to work with, when she saved any money - she pocketed that herself.  She never compromised on food quality though.

However, as a teen, I used to work at the local movie theater.  We had shipments of already popped popcorn come in large bags from the headquarters in Cincinatti  - we put those bags in the storage room and poured them into the popcorn machines to warm up before we sold it.  When you would go into the storage room to get a bag - you would turn on the light and watch the rats scatter!  Some bags had holes chewed in them where rats had eaten.  It turned me off on movie popcorn for many years!  Now, I look to see if it's popped on site.

Also, I happen to know that many restaurants don't clean their ice machines often enough and mold grows in there - also coffee machines.  That part I do believe and it is an area of concern for me. 

They say a lot of times when people feel sick - it's food related.  A lot more than we think. 

[aligncare]

Finally found a use for this emoticon:

 

[mountaineer]

They say a lot of times when people feel sick - it's food related.  A lot more than we think. 

You're quite right. Most people who think they have the flu really have ingested some foodborne toxin. In other words, they just got a touch of food poisoning.

I'm no cheerleader for Wendy's, necessarily, but I know the one in which I worked was run "by the book" and every possible food safety procedure was followed. Certainly can't attest to the cleanliness of all restaurants, though, and I've worked at a few.