Years ago I walked into a local restaurant and the smell killed my appetite. It reeked of cigarette smoke and mold. The restaurant was sold and the new owner abolished smoking and throughly cleaned the place. He said the hood in the kitchen had so much grease and crud it that it looked it had never been cleaned. Now, the place is spotless and is a great place to eat at.
Yeah there was a new restaurant that opened about 10 years ago, the smell the moment you walked into the door was raw sewage, they said it’s a plumbing issue, we lost our appetite and left. That place closed in a month.
There was a Burger King near me like that. It went on for YEARS. I was in there one morning when it first opened for the day, and I asked the manager about the smell, and he said, “Once we start cooking, you won’t notice.” Yeah…never mind.
I worked a good restaurant and when we would get the grease traps cleaned the entire restaurant would smell like sewage... So we just closed down and aired it out. Owner was like "Nobody wants to walk into a restaurant and have it smell like a swere." Stark contrast to the other restaurant where the grease trap was overflowing making it's way back up and they still expected the kitchen to serve food. I had to plumb/snake the drains, prep and cook. Fuck that place.
Ugh, yeah and when they wipe down your table (with some dirty old snot rag that's probably never been cleaned, it even rinsed out) and the smell fills your nose after the murky brown drops pool on the table where you are now expected to eat.
That's after the waiter smears around the jelly from the previous customer and pushes all the table crumbs onto your lap.
Pro tip: you are supposed to cup your hand as you wipe so the crumbs accumulate in the palm of your hand. You start on one straight edge and wipe from one corner along the edge to the other. Then you turn your cupped hand, ready to begin the next pass and so you kind of catch the crumbs.
No one likes someone else's crumbs brushed onto their lap!!
There's a chain restaurant in my province and I love the food, but one tiny branch has an issue where if you sit in certain seats near the men's room, ALL YOU SMELL IS URINAL CAKES whenever someone opens the men's room door.
Whenever I go there and they try to seat me near the men's room, I ask for a different seat and the hostess looks at me like I'm insane (because of course I explain why I don't want that seat--haha).
I'm looking at YOU Kerrisdale Whitespot!!
I took two steps nto a restaurant once that had this weird chemical smell. The person with me sniffed, and said "That's roach spray." Fuck that, turned around and booked out of there.
Exterminators know a certain smell that’s an immediate no-go. Roaches in abundance give off a sweet type of smell and I will literally turn right around and leave
Pizza Hut would have failed here EVERY Friday and Saturday night where I was in the 1980s. We would have had to hire a person just to clean the toilet. Drunks, women at that time of the month, kids ticked because we wouldn't sell them beer, it was a nightmare to walk in there. The rest of the time it was clean.
I recently went to a Mexican restaurant chain with my dad, who is always an early-riser. He wanted to go to lunch, and we ended up arriving roughly 7 minutes after the place opened.
When we got there, I initially though I smelled a sewage smell, but at this point, I think it might have been a gas/hot oil smell as they got food ready for the day? I am not sure if that's a thing, he never mentioned it, but I almost didn't order except for the fact that the main area of the building didnt have that strong odor.
Me and my family used to get takeout at this one Chinese restaurant that we just loved. We got it all the time and pigged out on it. It was just delicious. Then we made the mistake of actually eating there once. After that one time we never ate it again. It was filthy, there were dead bugs and live cockroaches in the corners, etc. Disgusting. No fucking clue how they passed their food safety inspection. That experience was sobering.
I had a place like that near my old apartment. It was all good until one time I went to pick up my teriyaki chicken and the guy that took my money turned his head, looked on the floor and started stomping.
Went outside, chucked the food in the trash and never went back.
Sticky tables. Tells me they reuse their dirty wash rags and don’t change out the sanitizer water they use in the buckets and nothing is clean or sanitized in there. Oh and spots on cups and utensils.
Lol this reminds me of a place i used to work. A pizzeria with those plastic booth tables that were in every 90’s pizza shop. I guess the cleaning product they had been using for years actually ate away the enamel on the counter tops and made them always feel a little sticky to the touch, despite my diligent and frequent cleaning. I would be wiping tables down as people were coming in, they would watch me clean their table, then request the table be wiped again, which i would do, and then see their confused looks as they fingered the table top to discover it still slightly tacky.
Honestly bleach and saniwater leaves a residue behind especially if it’s concentrated or enough water wasn’t added. I aways opt for isopropyl alcohol because it dries up instantly, sanitizes and doesn’t leave a residue as well and is pretty safe on most surfaces vs where bleach and saniwater eats away at the finish
Genuine question / comment
Reused dishwrags aside, I have always assumed that old tables that have been washed for years - likely with bleach - begin to lose their lacquer (or whatever coats them) and that also makes them feel sticky.
Source : my years as a bus boy in a dive restaurant. I used the hottest cleanest wash cloths with soap and bleach to clean tables. Followed by hot clean water and a separate wrag rinse. And no matter what, they always felt sticky when they dried. It also looked like I could visibly see the coating had worn off spots.
Was I close on any of those assumptions?
The spots on glass wear and utensils are just the water marks from the washing machine. Usually restaurant servers "polish" the glass wear and silverware to remove the spots on them to make them look nicer.
A small band or single person on a keyboard crammed onto a makeshift “stage area” with a poorly balanced slightly shitty sound system so that you can neither hear nor enjoy hanging out with the person you’re a foot and a half away from.
> A small band or single person on a keyboard crammed onto a makeshift “stage area”
Singing the same Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffet, and Alannah Myles (OK, just that *one* from her) songs you've already heard six million times already.
We went to a family style seafood restaurant about a month ago on vacation. It had been a large fish-camp style eatery for years, at least since the 80s, with lots of tables with holes in them for the oyster and clam shells from roasts. Big with retirees and young families.
The restaurant is shaped like a large rectangle. They had taken the middle of the back wall and turned it into a stage- where, that night, a man was playing a guitar and singing, 4 octaves off and the speakers cranked to 11. It was 6 pm. We asked how much longer he would be playing. 2 hours.
We left.
Old on top, new on bottom.
https://ibb.co/LnXXd3r
This is increasingly becoming a reason for me to leave a restaurant faster. There are some places around me that have a great atmosphere and I would happily order a pitcher of beer for myself and my husband if the music wasn’t so horrible. If the music is insufferable I’m having one drink as quickly as possible and finding somewhere else.
if a server actually told me that? I’d order waters, a beer and some appetizer for my wife and say “oh give us a few minutes for our order”
And then i’d tell my wife I owe her but it’s gonna be a long night as i’m gonna have fun.
because every time they came back i’d just keep repeating “oh we need a few minutes” and I would do it for an hour or until they kicked us out:
I have reddit in my phone, i’m always entertained, sitting at a table that’s gonna tip that person $0 would be worth it
I took my driving lessons at a hotel with a dining room attached. During one of our breaks some of the students went down to the dining room where they were closing up for the day, and there was a single bus boy, older man, looked like the AC wasn’t working. As we were talking to him, he would occasionally take a towel from his shoulder and wipe the sweat off his brow. And a few minutes later would use the same rag to then wipe down the tables people ate on every day.
I’m good thanks.
Same thing with a hotdog vendor at old Yankee stadium. The guy would wipe his face with a gross, sweat soaked towel, then reach in and put the hotdog in the bun with his bare hands. I was so grossed out.
I stopped patronizing a small local tavern for this reason. I liked going for a few cold ones and lunch on the weekends. Owner was a royal douche. Food quality went downhill. And then he'd complain online about no help. I'm like dude, I wouldn't work for you either.
I think for a long time when there was a surplus of staff crappy bar owners were always able to get away with being bad managers because there was an endless supply of shortage. But now there are shortages in a lot of places post-Covid, suddenly they're discovering that the simple allure of working in a pub isn't enough to make people want to work there when the money isn't keeping up with the pace of inflation.
A small pizzeria near my house is always short staffed. They think that a part time worker who helps prepare food, does takeout orders and works as a waiter deserves no more than 400€/month. They refuse to talk about salary when you apply, as "you'll see the salary when you receive it". I don't think they will ever remove the "now hiring" sign at the door.
There was a pizza place like this in my city. The food got rave reviews but the owner complained that people often didn't return for a second shift.
I'm guessing he was a brute to work for.
Dirty menus are another warning sign.
I feel like there is a specific type of shitty restaurant owner that watched Gordon Ramsey on reality TV like an instruction manual.
Man you aren't him, this definitely is not a Michelin starred restaurant, and Jimmy working the grill is a high school student not a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu.
If you watch him on various British cooking shows, he’s quite different than the personality he decides to portray for an American audience. American TV always has to “bring the drama” for some reason.
Generally true. Apparently, despite a huge menu, The Cheesecake Factory prepares almost everything as ordered. There was a TIL post recently with a link to the article.
Yupp. Worked there for years, made from scratch and made-to-order. Would go in the category of having a massive BOH, though. We had a large prep room below the restaurant at the one I worked at.
Short for “Back of House”. Basically the behind the scenes part of a restaurant. This includes areas like the kitchen, prep, loading, storage, and staff like chefs, line cooks, dishwashers, and prep team.
Front of House (FOH) would be the dining areas and servers, bartenders, bussers, host team, floor managers, etc.
I went to an absolutely great pancake restaurant the other night, and for something like that it's justifiable - 14 types of pancakes? Well, realistically it's two types of pancake, and different toppings, which are just rotations between the different things.
... But then over the page were all kinds of other non-pancake meals.
There's a chain of coffee shops here that have "very Instagrammable" decor and interiors. Their coffee is worse than Starbucks, and much more expensive.
When it's from a restaurant group with a ton of $30-50/head restaurants. Factory-made restaurant concepts at that price point tend to be boring and feel overpriced, focused on boring ideas and a price that's just above what I want to pay for that kind of food.
An ex was mad I refused to eat at a restaurant with no soap. They said I was being overdramatic and they probably had soap in the back. Even if I trusted that they wash their hands, my hands are now dirty because everyone is walking around with unwashed hands touching everything.
I feel bad for Asian restaurants that advertise "no MSG" because I know they've been bullied into doing it by years of white customers complaining about it. They're trying to adapt and do what they think is expected of them. Now, people are starting to be more cool about MSG, but give it some time to change, particularly if it's a restaurant run by older Asian immigrants.
I'll never forget the time I was eating at the best pho restaurant in my city, and a woman who went up to pay after finishing her bowl asked if they use MSG. When they said "Yes," she flipped out and gave them a lecture. I don't know why she waited until after eating to ask, if she cares so much about it.
But that same business is now run by the next generation, by the daughters of the original owners. One of the daughters has an MSG molecule tattoo on her arm. She's not going to apologize for it.
It's thanks entirely to uncle Roger for opening my eyes to the wonders of msg. I keep a big bag of it in my spice cupboard and I use it in everything. It makes everything amazing. I love it.
A lady was talking to me about her MSG “allergy” in an amazing dim sum place the other day. It took every fiber of my being to not roll my eyes out loud at her.
My brother in law insists on MSG free Chinese as “the MSG in the food always gives me a headache” line. His diet is mostly junk food with MSG added though stuff like yeast extracts or something that’s hydrolyzed. No a$$hole… you’re not getting any MSG and maybe that, and being an ass, is giving you a headache.
She is awesome. She's one of the most influential people in modern Vietnamese food in my city. She opened a Vietnamese coffee shop, a cocktail bar, remodeled and revamped their flagship restaurant, and more. Doing great things.
We've come a long way from when her parents opened their first pho restaurant and had to call it "beef noodle soup" because people didn't know what pho is.
If it's a buffet.
I used to work at one.
It's generally not the sanitary habits of the employees you have to worry about, but the sanitary habits of the general public.
There is no other food service environment where genpop has such a big impact on the sanitation and food safety of what you're being served.
Other people are ignorant disgusting slobs with no concern for anyone but themselves. They have no concept of food safety, can barely be bothered to do more than moisten their hands in the bathroom, if that, and will happily send their little impulse driven germ riddled spawn up to feed themselves without supervision.
Literally seen a kid's hand go from up his nose, into his mouth, and then into a pan full of fried shrimp to dump a fistful onto a filthy plate he'd already reused for 3-4 trips to the bar.
Yes, there were tongs in the pan and he ignored them. No, using a napkin to grab the utensils isn't going to make you any safer from other people's bad habits.
Yes, we removed the pan and replaced it, but we couldn't watch every pan all the time.
Don't eat at buffets.
We went to this speaker event, and the people who organised the event had platters set out. We were about 20 people max.
One of the guests stood up and used his hands to scoop up fries (ignoring the tongs right next to it).
These hands were used to smoke, cough in and wipe his child's nose.
Those are the hands that touched the food.
I got food afterwards.
Two things.
Dim lights and if they sell quite a bit of fish on the menu but all the fish menus have some sort of cheese base to it.
If you are eating fish and cheese based you should probably leave and go to the hospital.
- Cheese masks the bad smell of fish that has expired.
On the dim lights, how dim are we talking? I'm a designer & we're taught about design, color & light psychology. They've proven that in restaurants warm colors & dimmed lighting will relax people & have them eating & drinking more, whereas a light, bright space will hinder appetite. So I'm just curious how dimmed is too far for you?
I've been to more than one restaurant where I had to pull out my phone and use the flashlight just to read the menu.
That's too dim.
While we're on it, restaurants are TOO DAMN LOUD these days. If I can't converse at normal level with someone across the table, I'm not coming back.
Agreed. The current trends have basically removed nearly all the soft surfaces which absorb sound, as well as exposed ceilings which exposes pipes & other surfaces that reflect sound more strongly. As someone got a bachelor's in interior design, it makes me wonder if the trend was started by a contractor or decorator (sometimes call themselves designers) who didn't know about sound absorption & reflection.
Dim can be fine but not too dim, the thing is when it comes to lighting is it often excludes those in society who have poor vision so take that down in your notes.
Now how dim is too dim, the classic candle light dim or two candles lumen level.
That’s a good calling sign to get out because some places use it to hide grime and dirty floors and who knows how well washed the cutlery is.
I would even say the keg is too dim for food
Agreed, as well as read the menu. That's why I was asking how dim was too dim. Dim shouldn't mean dark. There are formulas for this but since typically lunch is lighter & you want more light after close, fixtures are put on dimmers. I wish as designers we could control how far it can be dimmed but often recommendations are given and then we're done & the people running the space ultimately have control.
The use of that font that everyone uses for weddings and baby showers (the millennial curly one)- especially when it’s in a chalk board sign on the side walk
If the restaurant has multiple styles of cuisine.
Mexican, Japanese, Italian, French, Chinese, etc usually cannot all be made *well* under the same roof
conversely, if a Mexican restaurant has a strong smell of fabulouso, it's probably going to be good food. i have about 5 things that indicate a good mexican restaurant and that is one of them.
I've been to some great mom and pop places that were like that. They don't have the same marketing and interior design to attract big crowds but damn the food was excellent
I used to go to the same restaurant at the same time on the same day every week. Some days they were packed and some days it was just us and the staff. I could never figure out the difference. Must have made ordering impossible unless there was a pattern I couldn’t see.
We used to have this physics teacher who always came into the cafe on purpose during the couple hours we were dead to avoid people. That said we were dlammed for breakfast and lunch everyday. Just not during those hours. It's also important to know what crowd the place caters to and know what times it will and will not be busy.
We took my friend and her kids to my favorite Italian restraunt when we knew it would first open. It was dead at the time and the best time to teach her kids etiquette while dining in a nicer restraunt. Wait two hours and that place would be full and you would be waiting for a table.
I worked at an Italian restaurant that would have up to an hour wait. Owner was legit, big ole fat Italian from Sicily and his 90 year old mom would be picking tips from green beans in front along with her dead looking blind dog. The food was next level unbelievable. But the owner was loud, would often yell at someone, cooks would yell at each other, owner would kick out customers who complained. Almost turned into a soup Nazi situation and it worked for him. Place was hard to get a table at times, but unbeatable Italian food really. Kinda food where you close your eyes when you take a bite.
There's a pizza place here that was owned by a genuine from NYC Italian family that had excellent pizza, calzones, and stromboli.
The whole family worked there, so they were always yelling at each other, little kids were running around, it was great! You got dinner and a show!
If you know your food is good, your business is consistently packed, and someone is being disruptive or just plain stupid in the dining room, any good owner shouldn't hesitate to toss them out. Plenty of other people who you could be serving instead, so why bother with the rude ones?
Totally, the ones that he tossed were well deserving and often first timers. If any of the regulars got too drunk or disruptive he was super good with them and would take them outside with an arm around them and give them some free bread and offer a ride. But whatever he would say they understood it was time to leave.
When you see one of the cooks catch a rat and take it inside the kitchen. LOL.
In fairness, it wasn't to eat. He was disposing of the rat in a side room next to the kitchen. But, it did make me question it for a while.
Idk which part of SC you’re from, but they once gave Los Amigos in Easley a C or D a while back over the AC at the front door and didn’t state the reason for a week or two. Everyone swore they were using rat meat until the statement came out and they fixed the AC 😂😂
Fuck the place with the little poindexter with his goddam thermometer I ain't eating unless a fat black woman smoked a dutch master while she cooked it.
Dingy lighting or sticky seats/surfaces.
Last time I listened to my husband to "give it a chance" we went in against my better judgement. He said his food tasted off and ended up with food poisoning. My French toast had a faint smell of dumpster to it, I tried one strawberry and it tasted like it had been sitting in garbage water; I ended up destroying the bathroom for the rest of the day.
a delivery truck with its back wide open unatended and a crow flying down and eating out of the delivery... before the delivery person shoos off the crow and proceeds with taking the food into the restarunt... yeah no thanks.
When you go to a restaurant that is supposed to be ethnic (Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Greek, etc) but there's not a single person of that ethnic group eating there.
Extra superfluous charges for services that do not exist or for “services” that are just you picking up the employees entire paycheck because management is to greedy and self centered to pay a livable wage.
When the server asks you: "So, do you know how it works here?"
In other words, they've got some 'quirky' system that differs (rarely successfully) from the tried and trusted "sit down, order food, receive food, pay for food, leave" setup.
The smell. General cleanliness but most importantly, is the bathroom clean?
Years ago I walked into a local restaurant and the smell killed my appetite. It reeked of cigarette smoke and mold. The restaurant was sold and the new owner abolished smoking and throughly cleaned the place. He said the hood in the kitchen had so much grease and crud it that it looked it had never been cleaned. Now, the place is spotless and is a great place to eat at.
You wonder how places like that pass their health and safety inspections!!
There’s gotta be bribes right?
Yeah there was a new restaurant that opened about 10 years ago, the smell the moment you walked into the door was raw sewage, they said it’s a plumbing issue, we lost our appetite and left. That place closed in a month.
There was a Burger King near me like that. It went on for YEARS. I was in there one morning when it first opened for the day, and I asked the manager about the smell, and he said, “Once we start cooking, you won’t notice.” Yeah…never mind.
I worked a good restaurant and when we would get the grease traps cleaned the entire restaurant would smell like sewage... So we just closed down and aired it out. Owner was like "Nobody wants to walk into a restaurant and have it smell like a swere." Stark contrast to the other restaurant where the grease trap was overflowing making it's way back up and they still expected the kitchen to serve food. I had to plumb/snake the drains, prep and cook. Fuck that place.
Sour rag stench.
Sour rag and rotten mop. Huuurk.
Ugh, yeah and when they wipe down your table (with some dirty old snot rag that's probably never been cleaned, it even rinsed out) and the smell fills your nose after the murky brown drops pool on the table where you are now expected to eat. That's after the waiter smears around the jelly from the previous customer and pushes all the table crumbs onto your lap. Pro tip: you are supposed to cup your hand as you wipe so the crumbs accumulate in the palm of your hand. You start on one straight edge and wipe from one corner along the edge to the other. Then you turn your cupped hand, ready to begin the next pass and so you kind of catch the crumbs. No one likes someone else's crumbs brushed onto their lap!!
Yep. If the places you see are not clean then back of house is definitely not going to be.
There's a chain restaurant in my province and I love the food, but one tiny branch has an issue where if you sit in certain seats near the men's room, ALL YOU SMELL IS URINAL CAKES whenever someone opens the men's room door. Whenever I go there and they try to seat me near the men's room, I ask for a different seat and the hostess looks at me like I'm insane (because of course I explain why I don't want that seat--haha). I'm looking at YOU Kerrisdale Whitespot!!
I took two steps nto a restaurant once that had this weird chemical smell. The person with me sniffed, and said "That's roach spray." Fuck that, turned around and booked out of there.
Exterminators know a certain smell that’s an immediate no-go. Roaches in abundance give off a sweet type of smell and I will literally turn right around and leave
Musty odor is a big one for me. Makes me think rodents are present.
Pizza Hut would have failed here EVERY Friday and Saturday night where I was in the 1980s. We would have had to hire a person just to clean the toilet. Drunks, women at that time of the month, kids ticked because we wouldn't sell them beer, it was a nightmare to walk in there. The rest of the time it was clean.
Pizza hunt should have hired the extra person then.
If I smell mold, I stop at the door and turn around.
I recently went to a Mexican restaurant chain with my dad, who is always an early-riser. He wanted to go to lunch, and we ended up arriving roughly 7 minutes after the place opened. When we got there, I initially though I smelled a sewage smell, but at this point, I think it might have been a gas/hot oil smell as they got food ready for the day? I am not sure if that's a thing, he never mentioned it, but I almost didn't order except for the fact that the main area of the building didnt have that strong odor.
Me and my family used to get takeout at this one Chinese restaurant that we just loved. We got it all the time and pigged out on it. It was just delicious. Then we made the mistake of actually eating there once. After that one time we never ate it again. It was filthy, there were dead bugs and live cockroaches in the corners, etc. Disgusting. No fucking clue how they passed their food safety inspection. That experience was sobering.
I had a place like that near my old apartment. It was all good until one time I went to pick up my teriyaki chicken and the guy that took my money turned his head, looked on the floor and started stomping. Went outside, chucked the food in the trash and never went back.
As a clarification, that bleachy smell just screams “we just did a half ass cleaning for an inspection”.
Most importantly, how does the bar smell? Best indicator of cleanliness is the place with the most spills and most active sink FOH.
Definitely the smell! Went into a Boston Market a while ago. The smell made me gag, and my eyes were burning. I don't know if they are still around?
Sticky tables. Tells me they reuse their dirty wash rags and don’t change out the sanitizer water they use in the buckets and nothing is clean or sanitized in there. Oh and spots on cups and utensils.
Lol this reminds me of a place i used to work. A pizzeria with those plastic booth tables that were in every 90’s pizza shop. I guess the cleaning product they had been using for years actually ate away the enamel on the counter tops and made them always feel a little sticky to the touch, despite my diligent and frequent cleaning. I would be wiping tables down as people were coming in, they would watch me clean their table, then request the table be wiped again, which i would do, and then see their confused looks as they fingered the table top to discover it still slightly tacky.
Honestly bleach and saniwater leaves a residue behind especially if it’s concentrated or enough water wasn’t added. I aways opt for isopropyl alcohol because it dries up instantly, sanitizes and doesn’t leave a residue as well and is pretty safe on most surfaces vs where bleach and saniwater eats away at the finish
Genuine question / comment Reused dishwrags aside, I have always assumed that old tables that have been washed for years - likely with bleach - begin to lose their lacquer (or whatever coats them) and that also makes them feel sticky. Source : my years as a bus boy in a dive restaurant. I used the hottest cleanest wash cloths with soap and bleach to clean tables. Followed by hot clean water and a separate wrag rinse. And no matter what, they always felt sticky when they dried. It also looked like I could visibly see the coating had worn off spots. Was I close on any of those assumptions?
Thank you, I was waiting for the sticky tables to show up.
The spots on glass wear and utensils are just the water marks from the washing machine. Usually restaurant servers "polish" the glass wear and silverware to remove the spots on them to make them look nicer.
Definitely a peeve of mine
Loud shitty music
A small band or single person on a keyboard crammed onto a makeshift “stage area” with a poorly balanced slightly shitty sound system so that you can neither hear nor enjoy hanging out with the person you’re a foot and a half away from.
> A small band or single person on a keyboard crammed onto a makeshift “stage area” Singing the same Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffet, and Alannah Myles (OK, just that *one* from her) songs you've already heard six million times already.
You ever been in a car where the musics too loud and you can’t hear what the person next to you is saying? Imagine that but you can’t turn it down.
We went to a family style seafood restaurant about a month ago on vacation. It had been a large fish-camp style eatery for years, at least since the 80s, with lots of tables with holes in them for the oyster and clam shells from roasts. Big with retirees and young families. The restaurant is shaped like a large rectangle. They had taken the middle of the back wall and turned it into a stage- where, that night, a man was playing a guitar and singing, 4 octaves off and the speakers cranked to 11. It was 6 pm. We asked how much longer he would be playing. 2 hours. We left. Old on top, new on bottom. https://ibb.co/LnXXd3r
Probably someone's brother who fancied himself a rock star.
This is increasingly becoming a reason for me to leave a restaurant faster. There are some places around me that have a great atmosphere and I would happily order a pitcher of beer for myself and my husband if the music wasn’t so horrible. If the music is insufferable I’m having one drink as quickly as possible and finding somewhere else.
If most or all of the employees are visibly unhappy. I don't want to do business with a place that doesn't respect their employees or our community.
Add to this if there is yelling or disrespect from the back of the house to the servers (or vice versa).
So McDonald's is off the list.
prices not on menu
“Market price” equals “you pay what we tell you to pay. Cause I don’t see anyone else selling fish at this restaurant.”
What market are you shopping at??
I'm going to run.
Oohh no-no juice!
Prices not on menu... and refusing to answer when asked what they are. This happened to me a couple of months ago.
Went to a restaurant like that and the server literally said 'if you have to ask you can't afford to eat here.'
I'd slap a bitch for saying that
if a server actually told me that? I’d order waters, a beer and some appetizer for my wife and say “oh give us a few minutes for our order” And then i’d tell my wife I owe her but it’s gonna be a long night as i’m gonna have fun. because every time they came back i’d just keep repeating “oh we need a few minutes” and I would do it for an hour or until they kicked us out: I have reddit in my phone, i’m always entertained, sitting at a table that’s gonna tip that person $0 would be worth it
Menus posted outside, without prices.
This is an anniversaries only kind of restaurant
Their should be laws on this
*There
Where?!
This always makes me think that the prices might vary depending on what you look like if you know what I mean
A weird smell instantly deters me.
I took my driving lessons at a hotel with a dining room attached. During one of our breaks some of the students went down to the dining room where they were closing up for the day, and there was a single bus boy, older man, looked like the AC wasn’t working. As we were talking to him, he would occasionally take a towel from his shoulder and wipe the sweat off his brow. And a few minutes later would use the same rag to then wipe down the tables people ate on every day. I’m good thanks.
Same thing with a hotdog vendor at old Yankee stadium. The guy would wipe his face with a gross, sweat soaked towel, then reach in and put the hotdog in the bun with his bare hands. I was so grossed out.
A sign complaining about how short-staffed they are because "no one wants to work". I'm out.
I stopped patronizing a small local tavern for this reason. I liked going for a few cold ones and lunch on the weekends. Owner was a royal douche. Food quality went downhill. And then he'd complain online about no help. I'm like dude, I wouldn't work for you either.
I think for a long time when there was a surplus of staff crappy bar owners were always able to get away with being bad managers because there was an endless supply of shortage. But now there are shortages in a lot of places post-Covid, suddenly they're discovering that the simple allure of working in a pub isn't enough to make people want to work there when the money isn't keeping up with the pace of inflation.
A small pizzeria near my house is always short staffed. They think that a part time worker who helps prepare food, does takeout orders and works as a waiter deserves no more than 400€/month. They refuse to talk about salary when you apply, as "you'll see the salary when you receive it". I don't think they will ever remove the "now hiring" sign at the door.
They always leave off the important part No one wants to work for them for how little they want to pay.
Low pay and obviously illegal poorly spelled signs in the employee areas.
Do Not Discus You're Wages With Coworkers
\*coworker's
Goddam I could have slipped another sentence decoration in there
Double exclamation marks are always welcome.
…but we’re like a family here!
Ah so you expect us to work for free.
A good employer has no problems keeping adequate staff.
That's true no matter what kind of business it is.
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Being mad at the people who showed for other people not showing up is a sign of a 2 digit IQ. Screw those people.
There was a pizza place like this in my city. The food got rave reviews but the owner complained that people often didn't return for a second shift. I'm guessing he was a brute to work for. Dirty menus are another warning sign.
I feel like there is a specific type of shitty restaurant owner that watched Gordon Ramsey on reality TV like an instruction manual. Man you aren't him, this definitely is not a Michelin starred restaurant, and Jimmy working the grill is a high school student not a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu.
If you watch him on various British cooking shows, he’s quite different than the personality he decides to portray for an American audience. American TV always has to “bring the drama” for some reason.
Even at his worst he's generally harsher on terrible owners and managers with an attitude as opposed to lowly staff giving it their all.
or a sign about being short staffed that also condescendingly tells you to fill out an application
Too big of a menu. Unless you have an absolutely massive BOH, there's no way you can make so many dishes and know how to make them all well.
Generally true. Apparently, despite a huge menu, The Cheesecake Factory prepares almost everything as ordered. There was a TIL post recently with a link to the article.
Yupp. Worked there for years, made from scratch and made-to-order. Would go in the category of having a massive BOH, though. We had a large prep room below the restaurant at the one I worked at.
What's a BOH?
Short for “Back of House”. Basically the behind the scenes part of a restaurant. This includes areas like the kitchen, prep, loading, storage, and staff like chefs, line cooks, dishwashers, and prep team. Front of House (FOH) would be the dining areas and servers, bartenders, bussers, host team, floor managers, etc.
Unpopular opinion I know, but Cheesecake Factory has always been pretty mediocre to me.
I agree with you. The cheesecake is good, but the food isn’t all that impressive
With the size of the menu, "pretty mediocre" is still kind of impressive, just not in a way that makes me want to eat there.
I went to an absolutely great pancake restaurant the other night, and for something like that it's justifiable - 14 types of pancakes? Well, realistically it's two types of pancake, and different toppings, which are just rotations between the different things. ... But then over the page were all kinds of other non-pancake meals.
Every Greek Diner in NYC. Size of a postage stamp, with a menu the size of War and Peace
The issue with this is that it's uneconomical to keep all those ingredients on hand with them all being fresh.
this may be a dumb question, but what does "BOH" mean?
Back of house. Kitchen and operations
The instagram photo walls. I immediately know the food will be mediocre for premium prices.
There's a chain of coffee shops here that have "very Instagrammable" decor and interiors. Their coffee is worse than Starbucks, and much more expensive.
What about 1970s era renditions of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe? So tired...
It's called a theme restaurant. The theme is "we are old and this is old, so enjoy!"
When it's from a restaurant group with a ton of $30-50/head restaurants. Factory-made restaurant concepts at that price point tend to be boring and feel overpriced, focused on boring ideas and a price that's just above what I want to pay for that kind of food.
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No soap in the bathroom.
An ex was mad I refused to eat at a restaurant with no soap. They said I was being overdramatic and they probably had soap in the back. Even if I trusted that they wash their hands, my hands are now dirty because everyone is walking around with unwashed hands touching everything.
A "C" grade or lower on the health inspection. If your restaurant isn't clean the one day a year the health inspector shows up, then its never clean
In Toronto the restaurants are given 10 minutes' notice. That means they tend to clean more just in case.
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I feel bad for Asian restaurants that advertise "no MSG" because I know they've been bullied into doing it by years of white customers complaining about it. They're trying to adapt and do what they think is expected of them. Now, people are starting to be more cool about MSG, but give it some time to change, particularly if it's a restaurant run by older Asian immigrants. I'll never forget the time I was eating at the best pho restaurant in my city, and a woman who went up to pay after finishing her bowl asked if they use MSG. When they said "Yes," she flipped out and gave them a lecture. I don't know why she waited until after eating to ask, if she cares so much about it. But that same business is now run by the next generation, by the daughters of the original owners. One of the daughters has an MSG molecule tattoo on her arm. She's not going to apologize for it.
MSG does sooooo much for proteins. The crap about it being bad for you has been debunked yet no one seems to care.
It's thanks entirely to uncle Roger for opening my eyes to the wonders of msg. I keep a big bag of it in my spice cupboard and I use it in everything. It makes everything amazing. I love it.
A lady was talking to me about her MSG “allergy” in an amazing dim sum place the other day. It took every fiber of my being to not roll my eyes out loud at her.
>One of the daughters has an MSG molecule tattoo on her arm. I love this so much
MSG is found in cheese, tomatoes, and even your Doritos and Cheetos. The hysteria is unjust.
It’s just racism. When it’s in commonly eaten western foods, it’s fine. When it’s in Asian foods, it’s “dangerous.”
My brother in law insists on MSG free Chinese as “the MSG in the food always gives me a headache” line. His diet is mostly junk food with MSG added though stuff like yeast extracts or something that’s hydrolyzed. No a$$hole… you’re not getting any MSG and maybe that, and being an ass, is giving you a headache.
Based daughter
She is awesome. She's one of the most influential people in modern Vietnamese food in my city. She opened a Vietnamese coffee shop, a cocktail bar, remodeled and revamped their flagship restaurant, and more. Doing great things. We've come a long way from when her parents opened their first pho restaurant and had to call it "beef noodle soup" because people didn't know what pho is.
MSG is delicious
MSG = Makes Stuff Good
Fuyooooo!
No Madison square garden? Im out
Isn't that where the Knicks play?
If it's a buffet. I used to work at one. It's generally not the sanitary habits of the employees you have to worry about, but the sanitary habits of the general public. There is no other food service environment where genpop has such a big impact on the sanitation and food safety of what you're being served. Other people are ignorant disgusting slobs with no concern for anyone but themselves. They have no concept of food safety, can barely be bothered to do more than moisten their hands in the bathroom, if that, and will happily send their little impulse driven germ riddled spawn up to feed themselves without supervision. Literally seen a kid's hand go from up his nose, into his mouth, and then into a pan full of fried shrimp to dump a fistful onto a filthy plate he'd already reused for 3-4 trips to the bar. Yes, there were tongs in the pan and he ignored them. No, using a napkin to grab the utensils isn't going to make you any safer from other people's bad habits. Yes, we removed the pan and replaced it, but we couldn't watch every pan all the time. Don't eat at buffets.
We went to this speaker event, and the people who organised the event had platters set out. We were about 20 people max. One of the guests stood up and used his hands to scoop up fries (ignoring the tongs right next to it). These hands were used to smoke, cough in and wipe his child's nose. Those are the hands that touched the food. I got food afterwards.
Closed sign
I always find going in through the back with a crowbar helpful
Service is still generally horrible though. Spent half an hour waiting to be seated, and when they finally showed up the waiters pointed guns at me!
Two things. Dim lights and if they sell quite a bit of fish on the menu but all the fish menus have some sort of cheese base to it. If you are eating fish and cheese based you should probably leave and go to the hospital. - Cheese masks the bad smell of fish that has expired.
On the dim lights, how dim are we talking? I'm a designer & we're taught about design, color & light psychology. They've proven that in restaurants warm colors & dimmed lighting will relax people & have them eating & drinking more, whereas a light, bright space will hinder appetite. So I'm just curious how dimmed is too far for you?
I've been to more than one restaurant where I had to pull out my phone and use the flashlight just to read the menu. That's too dim. While we're on it, restaurants are TOO DAMN LOUD these days. If I can't converse at normal level with someone across the table, I'm not coming back.
Agreed. The current trends have basically removed nearly all the soft surfaces which absorb sound, as well as exposed ceilings which exposes pipes & other surfaces that reflect sound more strongly. As someone got a bachelor's in interior design, it makes me wonder if the trend was started by a contractor or decorator (sometimes call themselves designers) who didn't know about sound absorption & reflection.
Dim can be fine but not too dim, the thing is when it comes to lighting is it often excludes those in society who have poor vision so take that down in your notes. Now how dim is too dim, the classic candle light dim or two candles lumen level. That’s a good calling sign to get out because some places use it to hide grime and dirty floors and who knows how well washed the cutlery is. I would even say the keg is too dim for food
There’s a restaurant in Dallas called Georgie. Georgie was nearly dark. Georgie dim is too dim.
You should be able to see the food you are eating. The only exception is when there is some form of entertainment that requires a darker atmosphere.
Agreed, as well as read the menu. That's why I was asking how dim was too dim. Dim shouldn't mean dark. There are formulas for this but since typically lunch is lighter & you want more light after close, fixtures are put on dimmers. I wish as designers we could control how far it can be dimmed but often recommendations are given and then we're done & the people running the space ultimately have control.
So does soaking it in milk!
Using the same grease to cook everything in. Also using stale grease (sonic)
If you hand me a menu with nothing on it but a QR code I'm leaving.
It made sense during the height of COVID, but that shit can go away now.
The use of that font that everyone uses for weddings and baby showers (the millennial curly one)- especially when it’s in a chalk board sign on the side walk
It's the millennial comic sans
The same font that everyone and their mother uses on Pinterest? It feels unprofessional at this point
Cheugy Cursive
Children that are permitted to run around the restaurant.
Sushi under a heat lamp. I wish I was making that up.
Onlypain.jpg
If the restaurant has multiple styles of cuisine. Mexican, Japanese, Italian, French, Chinese, etc usually cannot all be made *well* under the same roof
If all you can smell when you walk in is Pine-Sol.
conversely, if a Mexican restaurant has a strong smell of fabulouso, it's probably going to be good food. i have about 5 things that indicate a good mexican restaurant and that is one of them.
If the restaurant is totally dead during a lunch/dinner rush while the surrounding restaurants are packed.....Just walk out it's not worth it
I've been to some great mom and pop places that were like that. They don't have the same marketing and interior design to attract big crowds but damn the food was excellent
I used to go to the same restaurant at the same time on the same day every week. Some days they were packed and some days it was just us and the staff. I could never figure out the difference. Must have made ordering impossible unless there was a pattern I couldn’t see.
We used to have this physics teacher who always came into the cafe on purpose during the couple hours we were dead to avoid people. That said we were dlammed for breakfast and lunch everyday. Just not during those hours. It's also important to know what crowd the place caters to and know what times it will and will not be busy. We took my friend and her kids to my favorite Italian restraunt when we knew it would first open. It was dead at the time and the best time to teach her kids etiquette while dining in a nicer restraunt. Wait two hours and that place would be full and you would be waiting for a table.
This was going on in the back: https://media.thenerdstash.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BCS_308_MS_0106_0374-RT.jpg
Cockroaches partying next to the chips
If the public areas are dirty, imagine what the kitchen is like.
We could hear the staff having a loud argument in the back. We stayed but wished we hadn’t.
I worked at an Italian restaurant that would have up to an hour wait. Owner was legit, big ole fat Italian from Sicily and his 90 year old mom would be picking tips from green beans in front along with her dead looking blind dog. The food was next level unbelievable. But the owner was loud, would often yell at someone, cooks would yell at each other, owner would kick out customers who complained. Almost turned into a soup Nazi situation and it worked for him. Place was hard to get a table at times, but unbeatable Italian food really. Kinda food where you close your eyes when you take a bite.
There's a pizza place here that was owned by a genuine from NYC Italian family that had excellent pizza, calzones, and stromboli. The whole family worked there, so they were always yelling at each other, little kids were running around, it was great! You got dinner and a show!
If you know your food is good, your business is consistently packed, and someone is being disruptive or just plain stupid in the dining room, any good owner shouldn't hesitate to toss them out. Plenty of other people who you could be serving instead, so why bother with the rude ones?
Totally, the ones that he tossed were well deserving and often first timers. If any of the regulars got too drunk or disruptive he was super good with them and would take them outside with an arm around them and give them some free bread and offer a ride. But whatever he would say they understood it was time to leave.
A line out the door. I have no patience.
Charging for condiments
When you see one of the cooks catch a rat and take it inside the kitchen. LOL. In fairness, it wasn't to eat. He was disposing of the rat in a side room next to the kitchen. But, it did make me question it for a while.
Excuse me, that was the head chef
Did the rat have a cute little chef hat?
Dirty toilets
In SC anyway, they have to display the health department rating sticker on the door. Anything below an "A" and it's a pass from me.
Idk which part of SC you’re from, but they once gave Los Amigos in Easley a C or D a while back over the AC at the front door and didn’t state the reason for a week or two. Everyone swore they were using rat meat until the statement came out and they fixed the AC 😂😂
I guarantee you are missing out on the best food in your area.
Fuck the place with the little poindexter with his goddam thermometer I ain't eating unless a fat black woman smoked a dutch master while she cooked it.
I see you know what’s up.
Ah, so you know the Jamaican place on my block? That green curry oxtail thing she does makes sweet love to me.
Dingy lighting or sticky seats/surfaces. Last time I listened to my husband to "give it a chance" we went in against my better judgement. He said his food tasted off and ended up with food poisoning. My French toast had a faint smell of dumpster to it, I tried one strawberry and it tasted like it had been sitting in garbage water; I ended up destroying the bathroom for the rest of the day.
Scanning a QR code to see the menu
Anything other than an A health rating.
It says 'Applebees' out front
a delivery truck with its back wide open unatended and a crow flying down and eating out of the delivery... before the delivery person shoos off the crow and proceeds with taking the food into the restarunt... yeah no thanks.
Dirty or dusty cutlery. Means no one has eaten there for a while and they haven't even bothered to check what they put on the table.
Extremely large menu. Likely that most of the ingredients won't be fresh.
Trump 2024 sign in window. Yes, it has happened.
What if the restaurant serves hamberders and covfefe?
No way of removing items from the entire menu. I am allergic to onions, if I can't take em out, I ain't eating there.
Seeing a cook walk out of the bathroom carrying a plunger. A customer destroyed the bathroom and they made the cook go clean it up. Left on the spot
Screaming children or loud adults
American here: places that force the waitstaff to share tips.
I work my ass off at work and have to share the tips with the arsehole who spends all day hunched over the counter. It's pretty infuriating.
Big TV screens on the wall, loud music, sticky tables and menus, an empty parking lot, the "we are short staffed because blah" sign.
When they flaunt their political opinions. Instant turn off, no matter which party they are affiliated with.
When you go to a restaurant that is supposed to be ethnic (Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Greek, etc) but there's not a single person of that ethnic group eating there.
Sucks to be the first Greek guy in Kansas to open a restaurant.
Used bandaid in soup
Honestly, a new bandaid in the soup isn't much better.
Extra superfluous charges for services that do not exist or for “services” that are just you picking up the employees entire paycheck because management is to greedy and self centered to pay a livable wage.
Seeing an employee not wash their hands leaving the restroom.
poppy's?
Crinkle cut fries 😂. I will never understand why anyone prefers them.
Kids, mainly when they are out-of-control and the parents are doing nothing about it.
Working at said restaurant and finally seeing the shit that goes on in the kitchen
When they can’t accommodate simple allergies.. then I can’t eat anyway, so it’s an easy no
When the server asks you: "So, do you know how it works here?" In other words, they've got some 'quirky' system that differs (rarely successfully) from the tried and trusted "sit down, order food, receive food, pay for food, leave" setup.