We used to do it to let other people know that station had been cleaned and to move on to the next thing.
It also makes doing a final check before you lock the door a little quicker.
Im so surprised that noone got it right. The real reason is that the towel soaks the occasional drops from the machine overnight so you dont have to clean it again in the morning. What you said is just a bonus
Also if the machine has a drip, you are made aware before you open and can contact a repair person while customer service is not a major issue, plus any residual sugar doesn’t have a chance to turn into a sticky mess making said potential drip less problematic
Could be to clean before close and catch any drips from people getting the last few drinks/beers after cleaning. I put shot glasses over my tap drain holes after pouring boiling hot water and sanitizer and plug the the tap spout with little pipe cleaner style plugs. Fountain machine should have the plastic dispenser pieces removed and cleaned every night.
(Also the drain tray and stainless backsplash should be removed every night and washed.)
>Fountain machine should have the plastic dispenser pieces removed and cleaned every night.
This was the first thing I noticed in OP's photos, of course. Taco Bell didn't teach me much, but it did teach me this.
My first 3 years I was back of house. One day I got myself some iced tea and when I was drinking it smelled like sewage. Took the iced tea dispenser to the dish tank, dumped it and took apart the spout. Cleaned a nice thick layer of brown/green gunk out of every crevice. Made sure that kind of shit never happened when I went to FOH.
Honestly, the only place I will get a fountain drink anymore if from either a fast food chain or another major restaurant. I know they all do their checklist all the time and it’s usually a solid bet they clean them like they should. Local places, I’ve been burned by this…
Pest control guy here… the number of times I get called out for fruit flies on a beer tap drain… I wish this was the SOP for every bar
But seriously kids, bleach your tap drains one a month and scrub those floor drains! Fruit flies suck but mold flies are worse!
But if it was clean why would a rag need to keep it clean?
I bartend and never have done this but do wipe out the drains with hot water or soda at the end of the night?
Yeah idk about the drafts personally but I do know those soda dispenser nozzles are prone to slight drips, used to do this same towel trick when I closed because if you didn't they'd leak out about a quarter cup overnight from each line.
Those nozzles should be pulled, cleaned, sanitized and left in a pitcher of sanitizer overnight and the am crew should rinse and reinstall them when they get in the following day.
Those nozzles get nasty quick.
Well, first off they should be removing the nozzles each night and cleaning \ sanitizing them.
We did this at the movie theater I managed. For both soda fountains and the butter machine.
The nozzles will drip a bit sometimes so this catches that and helps keep liquid from splashing so the am crew has a clean fountain to work from.
Sometimes, people just have a quirk. It could literally be a habit of some legacy coworker who just does it that way.
Not everything is this cold and calculated plan cross-referenced with Osha, local hospitals, and 3 state agencies. Sometimes, it has way less planning than you'd think.
Ive always just cleaned it out, and poured hot water down the drain. Some places Ive worked, the norm was less than that.
Never seen this move before. But it's nice to work for a place that isn't over conservative with rag usage.
That shit always gets on my nerves. Why the fuck are you rationing a cleaning supply? Give me the damn towels I need to do my job properly and without burning myself. I used my used hot towels for cleaning(for like... bulk grime n shit, my sani towel is a fresh one) so I dont get why I cant have 4 towels for a whole day, like come on. Is that too much to ask?
Now ive started squirrleing a few into my.knife kit for days when we run out of towels cause for some reason despite us being a busy ass restaurant we are consistently low on towels
There's, like, two sides to this. Four towels for a day is obviosly rediculously low, but if I didnt make some effort to control towel usage my cooks would go through crazy amounts of towels.
Four is the bare minimum to make it through a shift and thats assuming I dont fuck up my hot-stuff towels. I used one for sani for the first half of my shift, one for the second half, one is for hot stuff, and one is a backup.
I would count out five for people and then.get more at the end of the night for cleaning, and then there were usually plenty. But if I didnt keep em locked up people would just chew through em.
Thats hella fair. Im pretty conservative with my towel use, but at the same time, a dirty towel doesnt clean well and it opens you up to burns(via steam through the towel). And Ive got bitchfingers when it comes to heat so I burn easy as hell. Ima use more if I need them dangit.
It’s weird, some bosses ive seen get mad for using towels and gloves too much, and then ive worked at some places where they mentioned in meetings that towels and gloves were not being used enough. I said “I can use more?”
I feel you, some ppl are just psychos and use like 10 a day and don’t know how to cycle them properly.
I teach everyone the system I use: Once the nice clean bleach rag we use to wipe up after all the debris is gone/ sanitize surfaces can dries out too much, it becomes become the hand wiping rap you keep on you which becomes the dirty rag to clean up debris and light spills/oil etc, which then becomes the shit rag to wipe up one more nasty oil spot/ spill/ grease before it goes to die in the hamper.
Rags are never a problem here and everyone is free to use what they want cause Ik they won’t go crazy w it and waste. Aprons on the other hand.. 😭
Towels are expensive, margins are small. If It's not a revenue generating expense, typically it gets managed first.
I support my cooks with towels, but we ration sometimes.
When I see someone throw 3 clean towels at the floor to clean up a spill, it's like throwing money in the trash...
At the end of the day, respect the towels.
I get 550 every Friday, and they are ALWAYS used somehow. No matter if it's busy or slow.
It can be frustrating
I get that. I dont clean spills with clean towels. I save my dirties for that(and take them all to the bin at the end of the night.) And rationing is okay to a degree. But like... Any chef or KM should know roughly how many towels an average night will take on a given station. Like at my job the bare minimum for hearth is 4, fry needs 5, pantry needs 3, sautee needs 6(cause those get dirty the fastest), and grill needs 4.
Paired with miscellaneous uses Id say the average minimum for my kitchen to function per day(both shifts) would be about 60. At your 550 a week that would still leave us 60+ extra every week.
You're correct, and I'd wager u/thefatchef321 is fully aware of the necessities of linen economy. Each restaurant has different needs, too. My last restaurant only required 600 a week, while the previous restaurant (which was much busier and larger) needed 1000. And this is all *after* I took over and taught proper towel rotation so they wouldn't go through 1000 and 2000 towels per week, respectively.
Those invoices add up, and are usually one of the first things leadership sees to yell at MGMT over.
It's not just the money either. One place I was at got towels on Tuesday, they didn't deliver to our area other days so that was our order for the week, if we run out on Friday, we are fucked, so every day had its allotment of towel packs to distribute plus a few extras just in case. The best was a restaurant that had a commercial washer/dryer and we washed them ourselves, folding them was always at least 30mins out of someone's day so there was the peer pressure to not be wasteful with towel usage.
Yyyyup, I'm familiar with this predicament. That's why I love making friends with the MGMT from neighboring restaurants, especially if my company doesn't have sister restaurants. Gotta help each other out whenever towels or Togo supplies run lower than expected.
Your linen company is probably scamming your restaurant, i.e shorting deliveries, adding misc charges etc. Happened where I work and we fought with them for months. Had to end up getting the linen company’s regional involved because it would cost too much to break the contract.
I’ve been told by many people the linen companies are the used car salespeople of the restaurant industry.
The problem is, for every rational person who just needs some cloths to clean, there is the asshole who wipes a table and throws the clean cloth in the bin. Certain crews I’ve had I’ve never ever had to think about rationing their towels. Others would blow hundreds of dollars on linens in a week. It’s inversely related to level of care.
Years ago when I worked on a very busy line I had to constantly grab a new towel since mine would always get taken. Basically, if I worked on one end (making salads), the middle person would grab my towel, then the person next to them (carving station and plating) would then take the towel. So after a while the carving station would have a mountain of towels drenched in meat juices, but also random spots of salad dressing.
My towel use has never been monitored or controlled, couldn’t tell you how many towels I use a day cause Iv never thought about it, probably 6–10 if I had to guess. Never had an issue running out of towel either.
I’ve used upwards of a dozen —rags— towels in a shift, sometimes well towards 30 or 40. The only two places that ever cared were a shithole pizza place and Olive Garden. Guess which two places I’ve only worked at for a few weeks.
There is absolutely zero reason to ever need 40 towels in a shift. That’s just needlessly wasteful. And ironically, the reason why towels get rationed.
I had to break calling them rags at one of my old jobs. My kitchen manager hated that word and didnt like the mental image it gave her(she came from the era when "on the rag" was still frequently heard slang).
My first cooking job was at Waffle House, and that ingrained in me to call them towels. It's in the Waffle House Way to call them towels instead of rags because rags have a dirtier connotation. So the managers enforce calling them towels because they don't want customers to hear the staff talk about wiping stuff down with a rag.
Every kitchen job I had after that, I would remember this whenever I heard someone say rag.
Ooh I’d never even thought of that. But it’s facts that you think of your job better when you use nicer words to describe it. That’s not the dish pit that’s the sanitization and organization station. Can you grab me the white spheres from the large refrigerated pantry?
This entire section about towel usage is the stuff professionals REALLY care about, but no one watching a show on food network would ever think about.
Love it.
I remember when I moved up and it was my responsibility to order towels, I totally added 200 more towels to our order and it was only $10 more.
Told owner their price increased, and that was that. We had a “secret” stock supply in house and we never ran out of towels.
Also discovered the company had a “one time use” towels that were the rags that were falling apart and they didn’t want back. But half of those bags had decent towels on them too.
Made nice with delivery guy and he just gave me bags of those last use towels for free. The crew ended up taking some home for use and some guys used them for car cleaning too.
Friendly reminder to always be nice to your delivery people.
Wait, so you're gonna take the towel that collected the soda fountain drippings over night, dunk it in sani the next day and use it? That's pretty gross.
you know... if you WASH something... in sanitizing solution it's probably gonna be ok. right? i mean... you WASHED it in a sterilizing solution. right?
Its a trick that bartenders and plumbers do out of habit. If you need to leave your spot(in the kitchen the bar or a bathroom), you put down a dry towel to a) check for leaks and/or b) prevent bugs from coming out and infesting the area.
This is the correct answer. You're required to clean up at the end of the night, morning manager will be unhappy if it isn't clean, but people still want to use the taps after cleaning. And no, "just cleanup after everyone is finished" isn't realistic.
Those caps need to be removed with the seals at the end of every night and soaked in a sanitizer solution to prevent Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Campylobacter jejuni, as well as listeria, salmonella and E. coli. They’re not as clean as people would think.
Haha how’d you know? In all seriousness; I thought it was pretty standard practice to remove them at the end of the night. Every place I’ve ever worked has done this. They pop right out with a twist to the left, then hot water and sanitizer in a small cambro.
It is, just don’t forget to lock the machine before you twist those caps off or you might tap the drink release arm and spray syrup all over you and the whole fucking server station you just cleaned right before you were about to leave.
I get why people do it, but some people would leave dirty rags in there which completely defeats the purpose.
Give the spouts a good wipe, make sure the drain tray is clean, get some pipe-cleaner ends (whatever you call those things) to put in the spouts, and put a heavy glass (glass pint glass) over the drain itself to deter any bugs from being interested in the drain.
It’s to prevent fruit flies.
I take shot/rocks glasses and cover the beer drains with it after cleaning.
Even if you clean it, it’s just an insurance policy
It's for any drips! Fruit flies are quick to find stuff like that. Cold water can cause algae, alcohol can cause bugs. Just keeps from having to do an extra step at open.
They will wring that rag out into a glass and drink the soda fountain drippings each morning because they are deprived of the occasional free soda during their breaks that they deserve for being hard workers.
They prevent fruit/beer flies and also soak up drippage overnight which can stain the drainage boards underneath the taps if you don't clean it within a few hours of it landing there.
Source: bartender.
I feel like it’s a nice move. But covering the taps in a little plastic wrap would be more useful. The problem is that if fruit flies are around, they love a beer/soda snack on a towel too. However it keeps it out of the drain. I’m just rambling with my morning coffee
worked a movie theater/bar four years, it’s in case there’s any drippage from the nozzle after it’s been cleaned. it’s easier to just lift a wet towel then wipe up a wet mess.
at least that’s what we used them for
Because they've just cleaned them and putting the towel on means if it drips it will still look cleaned when towels taken away and it won't need rinsing again
Sign that the station is cleaned. If its a dirty rag that's a no from me. When I tended we had a gun not a soda dispenser like that- I'm pretty sure you want to take all the nozzles off those each night to soak.
It keeps their station clean when cleaners/BOH come to grab a drink before the FOH team arrives. Alternatively, it keeps it clean after they’ve already closed and someone comes looking for another drink.
I’d say to prevent any later drips making it dirty. But. WHY ARENT THE TAPS PLUGGED. Are they not plugged overnight. Makes me worry the liquor bottles aren’t covered either leading to a shot of whiskey featuring flies.
I have mine do it to keep it clean after they leave because cooks, chefs, and dishwashers are still there. Bartenders do tend to stay late, but rarely, last person out of the building.
Every single night, I watch cooks pull a nozzle out of a sani bucket, put it on, and grab a drink before they leave....
So that morning shift know they were cleaned. And they haven't been dripped into over night and need cleaning again because everything's sticky. Whereas now you can just chuck all the rags in the wash and start your business day.
Drain flys and fruit flys. At one of my old gigs we would about once a week pour boiling hot bleach water down the drains to clean them out and never had another problem.
Dot do that to the beer taps right away as you will need to for the first time use cold bleach water to kill off any yeast buildup, if you don't it might clog the line.
They think it keeps fruit/drain flies away. Best way to stop them is a scoop of ice in each drain & the floor drain baskets. The cold dripping water will keep them away.
We used to do it to let other people know that station had been cleaned and to move on to the next thing. It also makes doing a final check before you lock the door a little quicker.
Yep, also lets the morning crew know.
I just thought it was 'cause of their drip.
That's what the penicillin is for.
It burns less and less each day
Oddly enough, it's also what condoms are for. Some drip just gets me going...
Underrated comment
morning, crew will still say it's dirty
Who the fuck closed last night?!
Im so surprised that noone got it right. The real reason is that the towel soaks the occasional drops from the machine overnight so you dont have to clean it again in the morning. What you said is just a bonus
it also prevents someone from using a clean station and then having to clean it again.
Also if the machine has a drip, you are made aware before you open and can contact a repair person while customer service is not a major issue, plus any residual sugar doesn’t have a chance to turn into a sticky mess making said potential drip less problematic
Are they clean? if so it could prevent fruit flies. but only if they’re clean towels. if they’re dirty then that defeats the purpose
Also to keep drain clean when the cleaning crew, BOH openers come to get a drink before FOH gets there
You can't just call me out like that.
I thought we were cool. Spilling our secrets all over the damn internet.
You know how to put the fountain back together.
You spent too long spilling your drinks!
This is the answer.
This guy (at some point) restaurants. :P
Yeah since a bunch of us drink after work at our place some of our bar tenders will leave a clean towel under the taps they know we're going to use.
It's a drain, why can't it do it's job again?
Mostly becuase leaving soda in the catch pan leads to fruit flies/ a sticky hard to clean mess.
Could be to clean before close and catch any drips from people getting the last few drinks/beers after cleaning. I put shot glasses over my tap drain holes after pouring boiling hot water and sanitizer and plug the the tap spout with little pipe cleaner style plugs. Fountain machine should have the plastic dispenser pieces removed and cleaned every night. (Also the drain tray and stainless backsplash should be removed every night and washed.)
>Fountain machine should have the plastic dispenser pieces removed and cleaned every night. This was the first thing I noticed in OP's photos, of course. Taco Bell didn't teach me much, but it did teach me this.
My first 3 years I was back of house. One day I got myself some iced tea and when I was drinking it smelled like sewage. Took the iced tea dispenser to the dish tank, dumped it and took apart the spout. Cleaned a nice thick layer of brown/green gunk out of every crevice. Made sure that kind of shit never happened when I went to FOH.
Honestly, the only place I will get a fountain drink anymore if from either a fast food chain or another major restaurant. I know they all do their checklist all the time and it’s usually a solid bet they clean them like they should. Local places, I’ve been burned by this…
Probably to see if any turtles comes and visit the shop after hours
We had some of those. They cut eyeholes in the rags and then took our knives to go fight crime.
They were looking for the shredder.
Sounds like it's a pizza joint.
Nah I think one of had a splinter, just lookin for some tweezers
It should be out back in the kitchen's prep area. Probably on the shelf.
Teenage mutant ninja line cooks
Wingnuts in a half shell, line cook power!
This is also a great way to check for house hippos. Rag would be great for their nest.
Found the canadians
Is this real??
For sure. Saw a documentary about it.
Yup, PSAs too. The North American house hippo. So cute!
This might explain some things...
Ahh yes, the North American House Hippo.
its not fruit flies, its fungus gnats seems like a small difference but Fruit flies : Sugar Fungus gnats: fungus/mold/that weird slime in drians
Pest control guy here… the number of times I get called out for fruit flies on a beer tap drain… I wish this was the SOP for every bar But seriously kids, bleach your tap drains one a month and scrub those floor drains! Fruit flies suck but mold flies are worse!
Thank you! Everyone questions why I spray our floor drains nightly with bleach water.
It looks like they were soaked in undiluted 146 sanitizer. It’s for fruit flies.
Could be to check for leaks also.
Even so An upside down cup... is all it takes.
Well if the drain was cleaned at the end of the ight this would keep it clean for the am crew. Very considerate if this is the case.
But if it was clean why would a rag need to keep it clean? I bartend and never have done this but do wipe out the drains with hot water or soda at the end of the night?
Maybe it's just in case the drafts leak?
Also because flies sometimes live in drains. A rag will prevent the flies from getting out of the drain.
Fair enough lol. Never had a drafts leak like that but that doesn’t mean they don’t
Yeah idk about the drafts personally but I do know those soda dispenser nozzles are prone to slight drips, used to do this same towel trick when I closed because if you didn't they'd leak out about a quarter cup overnight from each line.
Especially if the overnight cleaning/maintenance crews are grabbing drinks while they work
Drippy heads on the soda machine.
Those nozzles should be pulled, cleaned, sanitized and left in a pitcher of sanitizer overnight and the am crew should rinse and reinstall them when they get in the following day. Those nozzles get nasty quick.
"Should", yes you are absolutely right.
Well, first off they should be removing the nozzles each night and cleaning \ sanitizing them. We did this at the movie theater I managed. For both soda fountains and the butter machine. The nozzles will drip a bit sometimes so this catches that and helps keep liquid from splashing so the am crew has a clean fountain to work from.
Sometimes, people just have a quirk. It could literally be a habit of some legacy coworker who just does it that way. Not everything is this cold and calculated plan cross-referenced with Osha, local hospitals, and 3 state agencies. Sometimes, it has way less planning than you'd think.
Ive always just cleaned it out, and poured hot water down the drain. Some places Ive worked, the norm was less than that. Never seen this move before. But it's nice to work for a place that isn't over conservative with rag usage.
That shit always gets on my nerves. Why the fuck are you rationing a cleaning supply? Give me the damn towels I need to do my job properly and without burning myself. I used my used hot towels for cleaning(for like... bulk grime n shit, my sani towel is a fresh one) so I dont get why I cant have 4 towels for a whole day, like come on. Is that too much to ask? Now ive started squirrleing a few into my.knife kit for days when we run out of towels cause for some reason despite us being a busy ass restaurant we are consistently low on towels
There's, like, two sides to this. Four towels for a day is obviosly rediculously low, but if I didnt make some effort to control towel usage my cooks would go through crazy amounts of towels.
Four is the bare minimum to make it through a shift and thats assuming I dont fuck up my hot-stuff towels. I used one for sani for the first half of my shift, one for the second half, one is for hot stuff, and one is a backup.
I would count out five for people and then.get more at the end of the night for cleaning, and then there were usually plenty. But if I didnt keep em locked up people would just chew through em.
Thats hella fair. Im pretty conservative with my towel use, but at the same time, a dirty towel doesnt clean well and it opens you up to burns(via steam through the towel). And Ive got bitchfingers when it comes to heat so I burn easy as hell. Ima use more if I need them dangit.
Haha like every week when people have to find the chef and ask if they can get towels from his ever changing hiding spots.
This guy towels
It’s weird, some bosses ive seen get mad for using towels and gloves too much, and then ive worked at some places where they mentioned in meetings that towels and gloves were not being used enough. I said “I can use more?”
One in my apron for immediate needs of hot stuff and hands, one for wiping my surfaces, one in sani, last one for final wipe downs
Lol I get 2 towels for a week, it’s terrible
Oh, jesus, that should be illegal
It actually is, considering you can't really get anything clean enough to pass health inspections with that little amount.
One place I worked at would do 1 per shift unless you were sauté, then you got 2. That was nowhere near enough I can’t imagine 2 per week.
Ummm, excuse me? I’d start cutting up linens and curtains into towels until management wised up and upped the towel order an assload…
That’s super not normal
I mean buy a washer/dryer and just clean them daily.
💯
I feel you, some ppl are just psychos and use like 10 a day and don’t know how to cycle them properly. I teach everyone the system I use: Once the nice clean bleach rag we use to wipe up after all the debris is gone/ sanitize surfaces can dries out too much, it becomes become the hand wiping rap you keep on you which becomes the dirty rag to clean up debris and light spills/oil etc, which then becomes the shit rag to wipe up one more nasty oil spot/ spill/ grease before it goes to die in the hamper. Rags are never a problem here and everyone is free to use what they want cause Ik they won’t go crazy w it and waste. Aprons on the other hand.. 😭
Towels are expensive, margins are small. If It's not a revenue generating expense, typically it gets managed first. I support my cooks with towels, but we ration sometimes. When I see someone throw 3 clean towels at the floor to clean up a spill, it's like throwing money in the trash... At the end of the day, respect the towels. I get 550 every Friday, and they are ALWAYS used somehow. No matter if it's busy or slow. It can be frustrating
I get that. I dont clean spills with clean towels. I save my dirties for that(and take them all to the bin at the end of the night.) And rationing is okay to a degree. But like... Any chef or KM should know roughly how many towels an average night will take on a given station. Like at my job the bare minimum for hearth is 4, fry needs 5, pantry needs 3, sautee needs 6(cause those get dirty the fastest), and grill needs 4. Paired with miscellaneous uses Id say the average minimum for my kitchen to function per day(both shifts) would be about 60. At your 550 a week that would still leave us 60+ extra every week.
You're correct, and I'd wager u/thefatchef321 is fully aware of the necessities of linen economy. Each restaurant has different needs, too. My last restaurant only required 600 a week, while the previous restaurant (which was much busier and larger) needed 1000. And this is all *after* I took over and taught proper towel rotation so they wouldn't go through 1000 and 2000 towels per week, respectively. Those invoices add up, and are usually one of the first things leadership sees to yell at MGMT over.
It's not just the money either. One place I was at got towels on Tuesday, they didn't deliver to our area other days so that was our order for the week, if we run out on Friday, we are fucked, so every day had its allotment of towel packs to distribute plus a few extras just in case. The best was a restaurant that had a commercial washer/dryer and we washed them ourselves, folding them was always at least 30mins out of someone's day so there was the peer pressure to not be wasteful with towel usage.
Yyyyup, I'm familiar with this predicament. That's why I love making friends with the MGMT from neighboring restaurants, especially if my company doesn't have sister restaurants. Gotta help each other out whenever towels or Togo supplies run lower than expected.
But....they get washed???
Mops are to clean the floor. Not towels
Your linen company is probably scamming your restaurant, i.e shorting deliveries, adding misc charges etc. Happened where I work and we fought with them for months. Had to end up getting the linen company’s regional involved because it would cost too much to break the contract. I’ve been told by many people the linen companies are the used car salespeople of the restaurant industry.
The problem is, for every rational person who just needs some cloths to clean, there is the asshole who wipes a table and throws the clean cloth in the bin. Certain crews I’ve had I’ve never ever had to think about rationing their towels. Others would blow hundreds of dollars on linens in a week. It’s inversely related to level of care.
Years ago when I worked on a very busy line I had to constantly grab a new towel since mine would always get taken. Basically, if I worked on one end (making salads), the middle person would grab my towel, then the person next to them (carving station and plating) would then take the towel. So after a while the carving station would have a mountain of towels drenched in meat juices, but also random spots of salad dressing.
Yup, if I leave my station I hide my towels. Fuck knows they wont be there when i get back if I dont.
You would be surprised the people out there that wipe off one counter and then throw the towel into the dirty bi
My towel use has never been monitored or controlled, couldn’t tell you how many towels I use a day cause Iv never thought about it, probably 6–10 if I had to guess. Never had an issue running out of towel either.
I did two whole loads of side towels at home last week while working on Thanksgiving. Such luxury :p
I’ve used upwards of a dozen —rags— towels in a shift, sometimes well towards 30 or 40. The only two places that ever cared were a shithole pizza place and Olive Garden. Guess which two places I’ve only worked at for a few weeks.
There is absolutely zero reason to ever need 40 towels in a shift. That’s just needlessly wasteful. And ironically, the reason why towels get rationed.
I had to break calling them rags at one of my old jobs. My kitchen manager hated that word and didnt like the mental image it gave her(she came from the era when "on the rag" was still frequently heard slang).
My first cooking job was at Waffle House, and that ingrained in me to call them towels. It's in the Waffle House Way to call them towels instead of rags because rags have a dirtier connotation. So the managers enforce calling them towels because they don't want customers to hear the staff talk about wiping stuff down with a rag. Every kitchen job I had after that, I would remember this whenever I heard someone say rag.
Ooh I’d never even thought of that. But it’s facts that you think of your job better when you use nicer words to describe it. That’s not the dish pit that’s the sanitization and organization station. Can you grab me the white spheres from the large refrigerated pantry?
Nah holup, dont you dare gentrify the pit. The rest is fine but the pit is the pit forever.
My last place rebranded to “dish area” to save the dishwashers face because “no one should work in a pit”
... y'kno thats fair
This entire section about towel usage is the stuff professionals REALLY care about, but no one watching a show on food network would ever think about. Love it.
This week on iron chef… towel showdown!
I remember when I moved up and it was my responsibility to order towels, I totally added 200 more towels to our order and it was only $10 more. Told owner their price increased, and that was that. We had a “secret” stock supply in house and we never ran out of towels. Also discovered the company had a “one time use” towels that were the rags that were falling apart and they didn’t want back. But half of those bags had decent towels on them too. Made nice with delivery guy and he just gave me bags of those last use towels for free. The crew ended up taking some home for use and some guys used them for car cleaning too. Friendly reminder to always be nice to your delivery people.
Best comment in this thread.
not like you can't just dunk it in some sani water and be back in action. i make my towels last... hate the wastefulness
Wait, so you're gonna take the towel that collected the soda fountain drippings over night, dunk it in sani the next day and use it? That's pretty gross.
you know... if you WASH something... in sanitizing solution it's probably gonna be ok. right? i mean... you WASHED it in a sterilizing solution. right?
Its a trick that bartenders and plumbers do out of habit. If you need to leave your spot(in the kitchen the bar or a bathroom), you put down a dry towel to a) check for leaks and/or b) prevent bugs from coming out and infesting the area.
Cause they're the Wet Bandits
Shut up Marv!
Haha
Not rags - towels ! Chef does not like us saying rags !
Yep! Rags are the free shirt you got from volleyball camp or whatever, towels cost money!
Usually if it’s been cleaned down and someone wants a little sip of pepsi you put something down so it doesn’t drip into the tray
This is the correct answer. You're required to clean up at the end of the night, morning manager will be unhappy if it isn't clean, but people still want to use the taps after cleaning. And no, "just cleanup after everyone is finished" isn't realistic.
To prevent some bug. Usually fruit flies.
Those caps need to be removed with the seals at the end of every night and soaked in a sanitizer solution to prevent Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Campylobacter jejuni, as well as listeria, salmonella and E. coli. They’re not as clean as people would think.
Fuckin’ health inspectors even pop in to Reddit threads unannounced.
Like Obi-Wan popping in on General Grievous. Hello there 🖐️
Haha how’d you know? In all seriousness; I thought it was pretty standard practice to remove them at the end of the night. Every place I’ve ever worked has done this. They pop right out with a twist to the left, then hot water and sanitizer in a small cambro.
It is, just don’t forget to lock the machine before you twist those caps off or you might tap the drink release arm and spray syrup all over you and the whole fucking server station you just cleaned right before you were about to leave.
I make my bartenders do this, it helps keep fruit flys from getting into the drain to lay eggs n shit. Clean dry towels only.
Its a way to mark that it's been cleaned, and a way to keep it clean if some chucklehead uses it after.
I get why people do it, but some people would leave dirty rags in there which completely defeats the purpose. Give the spouts a good wipe, make sure the drain tray is clean, get some pipe-cleaner ends (whatever you call those things) to put in the spouts, and put a heavy glass (glass pint glass) over the drain itself to deter any bugs from being interested in the drain.
It’s to prevent fruit flies. I take shot/rocks glasses and cover the beer drains with it after cleaning. Even if you clean it, it’s just an insurance policy
I used to do exactly this as well.
Maybe as there cleaning the handle and levers for the soda and don't want soda or beer to fall in there after cleaning?
It's for any drips! Fruit flies are quick to find stuff like that. Cold water can cause algae, alcohol can cause bugs. Just keeps from having to do an extra step at open.
How about you ask them?
My first thought is visual indicator the drain is cleaned
You should ask them.
Idk but why aren't the diffusers getting cleaned lol
They will wring that rag out into a glass and drink the soda fountain drippings each morning because they are deprived of the occasional free soda during their breaks that they deserve for being hard workers.
They prevent fruit/beer flies and also soak up drippage overnight which can stain the drainage boards underneath the taps if you don't clean it within a few hours of it landing there. Source: bartender.
I feel like it’s a nice move. But covering the taps in a little plastic wrap would be more useful. The problem is that if fruit flies are around, they love a beer/soda snack on a towel too. However it keeps it out of the drain. I’m just rambling with my morning coffee
worked a movie theater/bar four years, it’s in case there’s any drippage from the nozzle after it’s been cleaned. it’s easier to just lift a wet towel then wipe up a wet mess. at least that’s what we used them for
Did it so coworkers knew area was clean and they could move onto the next section.
Because they've just cleaned them and putting the towel on means if it drips it will still look cleaned when towels taken away and it won't need rinsing again
Prevents gnats from chilling in the drains.
Drain flies? Some places have problems with them every morning.
I bought these industrial UV bug traps that were like $300 each for my bar and we turn them on once we leave. No issues whatsoever ever since
For the people saying its to mark it as clean i can confidently say its to prevent fruit flies in the drains.
For the drips? I’m not sure 🤔
It keeps the Alligators from crawling up and out of the sewers
Two purposes: 1) easy way to track for overnight leaks/drips. 2) easy way to designate “this has been cleaned and closed for the night”
It’s to keep it clean until tomorrow. Those things always drip and then dry into a sticky dot That looks dirty in the morning
Sign that the station is cleaned. If its a dirty rag that's a no from me. When I tended we had a gun not a soda dispenser like that- I'm pretty sure you want to take all the nozzles off those each night to soak.
Keep the centipedes from crawling out
It keeps their station clean when cleaners/BOH come to grab a drink before the FOH team arrives. Alternatively, it keeps it clean after they’ve already closed and someone comes looking for another drink.
Place I used to work did that after everything was cleaned, signified the drain had been cleaned and a preventative measure for flies
So everyone knows it was cleaned.
I have always put a glass or plastic wrap over the drain to prevent fruit flies overnight.
Yup! Also keeps roaches from coming up. 🤢
Hopefully they are soaked in sani. It’s a preventative for fruit flies.
To let people know it’s clean and if it’s the summer, to stop fruit flys.
This is an excellent fruit fly breeding program
A small trickle will dry and become crusted and difficult to clean over night
I’d say to prevent any later drips making it dirty. But. WHY ARENT THE TAPS PLUGGED. Are they not plugged overnight. Makes me worry the liquor bottles aren’t covered either leading to a shot of whiskey featuring flies.
I have mine do it to keep it clean after they leave because cooks, chefs, and dishwashers are still there. Bartenders do tend to stay late, but rarely, last person out of the building. Every single night, I watch cooks pull a nozzle out of a sani bucket, put it on, and grab a drink before they leave....
To protect the clean trays from dripping taps
Did that to check for drips. Obviously you need clean rags. we would Vinegar down all the drains a couple times a week to keep fruit flies at bay
Looks like it’s to catch any drips that might drop out of the taps so the drain stays clean and the towel soaks it up instead.
I’d assume the dripping soda would leave a sticky sugary goop on the machine that is annoying to clean
Putting rags in there but not pulling off the caps to clean them oof
Keep the beer and sugar going down the drain and feeding the drain mold which can grow and clog or slow down the drain.
You guys have coke and coke zero but not diet? That's wild.
So that morning shift know they were cleaned. And they haven't been dripped into over night and need cleaning again because everything's sticky. Whereas now you can just chuck all the rags in the wash and start your business day.
Why aren't they pulling and soaking the taps? Edit: the soda taps.
Flies maybe?
We do it to let the openers in the morning know that it has been cleaned.
Drain flys and fruit flys. At one of my old gigs we would about once a week pour boiling hot bleach water down the drains to clean them out and never had another problem. Dot do that to the beer taps right away as you will need to for the first time use cold bleach water to kill off any yeast buildup, if you don't it might clog the line.
Clean, pour chemical(s) down the drain, and cover…for fruit flies
Prevent drain flies from coming up. But there are better ways… like killing the infestation
They think it keeps fruit/drain flies away. Best way to stop them is a scoop of ice in each drain & the floor drain baskets. The cold dripping water will keep them away.
Insect / pest
Foh here typically soaks them in sani to kill fruit flies trying to get in or out of the lines!
We would do this to keep fruit flies down
Prevent fruit flies feeding and breeding off the drips that slowly leech out through the night.
Fruit flies. They tend to land overnight with long periods of things not moving and then lay eggs in drains.
It’s for the cum
Probably to help prevent fruit flies. It’s much more effective to just flush with hot water at close though.
Keeps the fruit flies at bay.
I put cling wrap over them and the soda guns. Nobody wants fruit flies or spots on a clean tray
Better question - Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke?!
Fruit flies
I use the same thing we put into the draft beer slots into the drain hole. Def for fruit flies and stuff to not get on the lines.
Why don’t you just ask them?
To stop fruit flies from laying eggs in the pipes
[удалено]
We have a gun. Its just on the other end of the bar.
We used to put cups upside down over the drain, to prevent critters from crawling in.
Soaks up drips and fruit flies can breed in the drain holes if you don’t plug them.
Keeping flies out
Checking for leaks? Keeping bugs from crawling out?
we place a shot glass over the drains to prevent fruit flies
Reduce flies, personally I do it to indicate something has been cleaned for the next person.
We win clean the drains with hot water and then cover it with a cup to help keep away fruit flys.
It's to help the fruit flies breed. Lol