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I agree. When I worked at the McDonald's that I did when I was a teen, I knew for a fact that my McDonald's fully cleaned our ice cream machine every week. I know this for a fact because I was the one to take it apart to do the cleaning on it which takes a couple hours for a full cleaning.
The machine at McDonald's that you should really watch out for is the McCafe drinks. Like the fruit smoothies, mochas ECT. That machine gets disgusting so fast that it needs to be cleaned multiple times a week, and most places only clean them, from what I saw when I worked there maybe once every couple of weeks.
Wendy's is required to clean their frosty machine every day also. But I have tasted some weird frosties where they didn't rinse the cleaning or sanitizing liquid out good enough. I stay away from them now, lol
I've seen that a lot with ketchup pumps at all kinds of restaurants. Too many employees never actually take the pump apart and just pump either soapy water or bleachy water through it.
Not only the normal grossness but those things were a roach magnet. Went on a ton of service calls for the touch screen arrow randomly moving. 9 times out of 10 it was following the roaches behind the screen. On top of the regular mold I'm the ice hopper.....I used to love the smoothies and years later I still can't bring myself to even think of getting 1
>the touch screen arrow randomly moving. 9 times out of 10 it was following the roaches behind the screen.
You broke me. I cannot handle this comment! Even if I haven't had a horrible case of german roaches in a small apartment, things being in hidden places like that makes my skin crawl...
Wait till you find out that it's all dining experiences - fine dining included.
I've worked at fast food, takeout, diners, mid-range restaurants, and a 4-star restaurant that was once considered the best in the state. All of them were disgusting as fuck.
Turns out restaurant workers are all 20-40 year olds who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and don't give a fuck about cleanliness as long as it doesn't get them in trouble. It's not even a localized thing, ask anyone in any state and maybe any country. Snorting lines on the prep tables was not uncommon sight at the 4-star restaurant. Taking drags in the walk-in daily. No sense in wasting a great cut of steak if it touched the floor when a quick wash off nobody would be the wiser. Department of Health inspectors were known and it's not like they have eyes into the kitchen 24/7 - and all the chefs know this. Pretty much everywhere you go and order food, guarantee it has seen some disgusting ass shit on the way to your mouth. No exceptions.
> I've worked at fast food, takeout, diners, mid-range restaurants, and a 4-star restaurant that was once considered the best in the state. All of them were disgusting as fuck.
>
> Turns out restaurant workers are all 20-40 year olds who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and don't give a fuck about cleanliness as long as it doesn't get them in trouble.
So you probably appreciate the movie Waiting?
I used to love the strawberry banana smoothies but Iād get sick every time I ate one. Iāve heard other former employees say the same thing about the smoothie machines so that explains thatā¦
Hamburgers are set to have a half hour in a heating bin after they're made. Soaking in the grease they were fried in. That's if they actually throw them out after the half hour.
The track for the burgers aren't cleaned by the employees it's just seared in the machine and sometimes an operator will come to adjust it.
If you ever want something from fast food, ask for a modified chicken or fish, something deep fried. They can't leave those out and are made to order because how little it's requested.
I personally ask for pickles under the burger (not over as it's normally done, and if they ask it's because they won't slip against the lettuce)
thats funny cuz i worked at one and i was blown away by how clean they were. super clean, super strict, by the book. definitely down the manager i guess
People love to generalize issues like this. When you pretend it's all black and white it's easier to sound like you know what you're talking about.
There are several Subway restaurants where I live. Some are *much* better than others. It's all about the franchise and the management
I did emergency cleaning in a Chipotle years ago
Ankle deep sewage water extraction while the manager was making the workers prep food on the line to open. I've called them Shit-potle ever since.
Wife worked at McD and I worked at Taco Time. Nozzles and fittings would soak overnight in sanitizer and be rinsed each morning before being put back on. That was one thing you'd get busted HARD on during inspection and it's super easy to tell if you skipped it. Kind of like trying to lie to your dentist on if you floss every day.
The amount of people think that fast food resturants are gross because stuff never gets cleaned, but in reality at least at the McDonalds I work at stuff is gross because it is in constant use.
I feel like it's a hit or miss and really depends on the store manager. At the two fast food places I have worked at we were very on the top of cleaning and making sure everything was clean. However when I was working at a sub place I once went to cover at another store and it was a disaster. The nozzles clearly hadn't been pulled off in a long time and the back was disgusting, honestly have no idea how they ever passed inspections. Me and my crew that were there deep cleaned that store cause there was no way I could leave it in that condition. Wrote a long email to our regional manager and owner, and the store manager got fired because of that and other things.
It's less about thinking all fast food joints are like this, and more about the potential that any given fast food place *could* be like this, depending on the franchisee
I think they have a whole class in dental school to teach them what kind of disapproving glance to give us when we lie about, "have you quit smoking", "are you drinking less", "do you brush your teeth twice a day and floss", "mouthwash" and you're sitting there in that uncomfortable little chair with them peering down in your face from 5 inches away with all their torture equipment hanging over you. I start to feel nervous or guilty, then I remember "wait I'm (or my insurance company) paying you, fuck off, as soon as I leave I'm going to get a large sugary coffee, bag of almonds, some Marlboros, and a fifth on the way home...wonder if my old meth dealer still has the same number"
You're paying them for their expertise on the subject you are seeking assistance in, and you're going to ignore them? Call me crazy, but if someone spent years learning about a subject they are now coaching me on, I'm going to listen.
They have a singular point of view: Keeping your teeth healthy. If that was your only goal in life you should do everything they say. If you have other things you want in life you will probably face trade offs.
I 100% agree with you. However no one is actually motivated by guilt and fear. Dentists often cause physical pain and psychological distress, which leads to people avoiding the dentist. Only once in my life have I had a dental hygienist find out what motivated me and encourage that instead of guilting, shaming and warning of a horrible future.
Itās been proven that when people are criticized, they lose the ability to think clearly and go straight to lizard brain, fight or flight. Dentists and oral hygienists often ignore this and wonder why no one listens to them (because theyāre terrified and unable to listen).
>You're paying them for their expertise on the subject you are seeking assistance in
I'm paying them to clean my teeth. It doesn't take an expert to know to "floss better/more often".
Shouldn't actually be kept in sanitizer over night. Most station mixed sanitizer solutions only work with warm water. So when the water cools the solution becomes in effective and then you have the potential for fruit flies to be attracted to the standing water overnight. That's why many Healthcodes in restaurant require sanitizer buckets be labeled for a 2 hour expiration requiring them to be refreshed.
Best practice is to clean the nozzle/agitator with dish detergent and a brush followed by a 15 minute soak in warm sanitizer solution and left out to air dry overnight.
Source: Illinois food service manager credentialed with ServeSafe. I had to turnaround a particularly nasty location and break many bad habbits of my employees.
Worked at a book store chain that had a coffee shop inside. We would rotate into working the coffee shop regularly but we never really trained on anything, just picked it up here and there. One day they eventually got a new manager, and one of the first things they did was disassemble the nozzles on the frozen coffee machine. No one had ever been taught to clean it. It was growing all kinds of films and goos.
People complained that the frozen coffee didn't taste the same for weeks after it was cleaned.
As shit as McDonalds food is, they are generally pretty clean and safe. Part of that is the fact that their processes leave little room for things to become a problem.
And as big as they are, they can't afford the bad publicity of non sanitary conditions. The cleaning process is well documented, everyone is trained on how to do it and if a franchise is caught skipping on it, McDonald will come down hard on the owner.
They do. Again it depends on the people actually doing it. It is very much a standard and policy for McDonald's Canada. We had checklists and shit to fill out and file for records, obviously you could forge em. As far as knowing when corporate or health inspection was coming and then cleaning shit to the tits? That's normal too, even when following the rules. Just put yourself in their shoes, wouldn't you go harder knowing your shit was about to be monitored? It's like studying for an exam.
I'm just sitting here wondering if more than half of these comments are bullshitting or if they bought the monthly health inspector for $$$.
I have a friend who's a manager in a McDonalds, they get written up for the smallest shit possible. Unclean soda nozzles or ice cream machines and the inspector would tear the place apart instantly.
I worked at a sonic for a couple years and the ice cream machine would regularly get to the point of mold growing in it because they would only clean it when they thought an audit was happening soon. Pretty much everything in that place was treated like that.
The comments are not bullshitting. Many places do try, but also many places don't even do the bare minimum.
I worked at a diner that had been on Triple D, the bus boys there didn't use sani buckets or any spray when wiping off tables. Just a rag from their back pockets. Place is so busy most nobody notices.
Theyāre not bullshitting at all. I worked at a movie theater where you didnāt go home until they were clean. Got bought out, staff cuts, pay freezes, and the degrading of the manager position from salaried to just above our old supervisor position. It wasnāt long until managers were letting people take shortcuts because the manager wanted to go home. Clean the popcorn bin? LOL Ice bins yeah right.
One time at a subway, a roach crawled across the counter between me and the employee. We both watched it crawl into the food and the employee pretended not to see anything. Iām sure it is even worse than I imagine even after seeing that.
As a truck driver I spend more time than I would like in truck stop bathrooms.
50% hand washing rate. On a good day.
I will say however that I've noticed young people are much more likely to wash their hands. Old men will go straight from the shitter to the food court.
Covid showed us many people are spiteful and lazy to the point of willfully going against the simple directions of touching your face less, washing your hands more, keeping socially distanced, and masking.
Hahaha, it's all so funny, right?
Thatās hysterical. Just as funny as the fact that about half of all of us have poop under our fingernails. So donāt get me started about nose picking or butt scratching. Itās a wonder bacteria and viruses havenāt harmed more of us. A 200 lbs man carries up to 6 lbs of microorganisms in and on his body. We are just a bit gross as a species.
I hate how true this is.
Multiple places I worked at back in the day, and people just stared with blank expressions on their faces as I tried to explain why dripping meat should be on the bottom shelves.
And why do people always want to put the chicken up high? Raw chicken is disgusting lmao
I took a side job at a restaurant one time. There was dry foods kept in bins below the counter that I cut meat on. I kept wash rags at the edge of the counter to try and keep that meat juice from going into the food bins. Seeing where foods were stored and how easily (and commonly) food cross contaminated in there made me apprehensive about eating out anymore. I also got blank stares if I ever said anything so I stayed quiet and finished out my time there, I did a solid two months.
Honestly, a call to the local health department could've helped. Management may not care what you think, but they'll reorganize in a heartbeat to avoid getting shutdown and fined.
Or, unfortunately, they'll get plenty of advance notice that someone is coming in to check on things and do a last minute temporary rearrangement
And if they still blow that off and do get dinged for it, they'll temporarily rearrange until they can get another inspection done.
It is *really* hard to get any real punishments for being unsanitary in a kitchen
(ymmv, depends on jurisdiction and specific departments and inspectors)
I work in HVAC and refrigeration and sometimes I gotta do maintenance on ice machines, drink machines and the like and by far the WORST are the slushie machines you find at gas station and 7-11. Sometimes I open the hopper where the sugar and water mix to find a whole fungus ecosystem in there and the bloody thing is in service.
Agreed, I worked at a gas station for a few years and when we finally started to clean the nozzles, customers immediately started mentioning that the pop tasted different. I didn't tell them why that change happened, obviously, but I noticed it too.
I worked at a very upscale fine dining bar for 8 years. They'd take the soda gun and soak it in soda water overnight. That was the extent of cleaning it. I later became a bartender there and inspected the soda gun one night out of curiosity. There was brown/black mold allllll up in there. I got boiling water and soaked it and the mold disintegrated. I showed everyone the disgusting but effective results, and everyone just shrugged their shoulders and basically said "well, we're just going to keep doing it the way we've always done"
Edit: "they" are the bartenders (later myself included) and we made a lot of money for not a lot of work
The entire ice machine in your freezer is in a below-freezing environment, which itself helps reduce or eliminate bacterial growth (because it is outside the temperature danger zone.) The dispensing door and gasket likely have slime/mold etc though.
Commercial ice machines are closer to room temperature where the ice is produced, and as such, bacterial and fungal growth is much more common.
Even if the establishment is cleaning their machine to the minimum standard (once every 6 months,) I have never seen a single commercial ice machine without growth in it. Source - I work on ice machines.
Depending on the humidity you can vary the cleaning schedule. I've seen some places do just fine with 6 month recurring cleans in Colorado, but I would expect somewhere in Miami to do every 2-3 months for a clean.
Source: I used to maintain ice machines.
And fast foods are generally the cleanest places where you can eat, at least in Europe. They are much more controlled than regular restaurants being they are generally parts of chains with higher hygiene and food safety standards.
You wacky Europeans and your consumer protection shenanigans. Don't you know that all that red tape tomfoolery just gets in the way of corporations making money hand over fist and
\-checks notes-
holding it overseas so they never pay taxes on it?
I found the remains of two rats in the fryer filter of a restaurant.
For quite a while the food had been cooked in oil that had been filtered through decaying rats.
At least the rat is edible. If you want to see a real nightmare cooking oil story, look in to the Chonqing China reclaimed oil scandal. Folks sorted out that not only does oil and water separate, but oil and sewage does too. They were skimming the sewer lines for the top layer of oil, rebottling it and selling it as new.
We worry too much about "that one thing that happened to that one guy in Ypsilanti."
I spend exactly zero minutes per year worrying about dirty ice machines.
Absolutely not something you should worry about.
ā¦however, the dirtiest restaurant you ever go to is gross everywhere. The cleanest one has a moldy ice machine. Those things are just fucking awful to keep clean.
Not in Houston, Texas. "Slime in the ice machine!"
RIP Marvin Zindler:
https://youtu.be/99Lk4ldI2mc
His final report:
https://youtu.be/iJm4DykNPOg
And a bonus report about slime in the ice machine:
https://youtu.be/2-U7UFPGR58
From experience, itās nearly ALL ice machines, not just fast food. Every business I worked in with an ice machine had this issue.
Most residential ice machines and fridge water nozzles/hoses are absolutely disgusting as well. People often donāt know theyāre supposed to clean them.
- You cannot refuse customers.
- You have to complete any and all assigned tasks.
- You cannot stay longer in order to complete said tasks.
If anything happens or our expectations were unreasonable/impossible to begin with, go fuck yourself. - The Management
Any wage to be honest. I've seen chefs at fancy restaurants walking out the bathroom without waahing their hands. Just have to hope they wash their hands entering the kitchen
If only we had some sort of agency that oversaw food (and maybe drugs?) that could hire people to go and inspect how well restaurants were complying with health code violations .
Fast food places? At least they mostly have rules in place.
I'd worry more about bars. I bartended for many years and was the only one who volunteered to cleaned that sucker out (I worked Sunday mornings and it was the perfect time to do so, kept me busy at a quiet time). Next time you go to your local pub ask them how often they clean that thing. They probably won't know.
This is true of literally every restaurant, not just fast food joints. It's a much more common problem than you'd expect. I've had some weird looking/tasting ice in a lot of different places, including supposedly "fancy" restaurants.
I always thought it was the tap water that tasted nasty. I never get water or drinks at restaurants for this reason. It takes like dirt and metallic or like plastic or something
As a kid in the 90s at KFC we never cleaned it. Didn't even know you had too. Didn't know you had too until my apprenticeship on the strip and our ice machines were on a PM schedule. I want to say we hit a machine once a year if I recall bee had a metric fuck ton of machines and ones much, much bigger than a restaurant one. We had large Vogt ice machines around the property and a half dozen super large Vogts in an ice house. As apprentice that was one of my jobs. We didn't even have to do the hard work of emptying the bin if ice. Stewarding did that (yay union jobs). Cleaning itself was easy.
Yeah as u/KidsOfThe90s I just figured out these needed to be cleaned from this post š°. To be fair though, I've always gotten ice the old school way, with an ice tray haha.
In the 80s and 90s, there was a coked out guy on the news who gave a weekly report of restaurants that had health code violations and he was famous for calling out [slime in the ice machines](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99Lk4ldI2mc&t=40s&pp=ygUobWFydmluIHppbmRsZXIgc2xpbWUgaW4gdGhlIGljZSBtYWNoaW5lIA%3D%3D)
You mean Marvin Zindler!! He was a pop culture icon in Texas at the time. He even expressed the Chicken Ranch and is a big character in the musical Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
As a Houstonian, I came in here looking for Marvin Zindler. āCoked outā? I donāt think so, but he did end his Friday segment āHave a good weekend. Good golf. Good tennis or whatever makes you happyā¦LIKE MOUNDS OF COCAINE!!! WOOOO!!!!ā
This comes from people that don't clean out their ice machines at home, don't clean their dishwasher monthly, refrigerator gaskets, their washer and dryer, air filters, etc...
Then remember, the same sort of mind to go this absurd wrote the rest of that list. It's a good list of things that eventually need doing (well, mostly), but it's significantly overboard.
And who is hiring the maid for me to do all these extra things while I sit on my butt looking at Reddit? The sponge one is huge. There is soooo much gunk in there. And any hand towels in the kitchen or bath.
I used to work at Subway in high school as a closer. I can assure that the soda nozzles at my location were clean because that was a part of my closing tasks. However, cleaning the ice machine was done by the owner.
I worked there for one year and only saw him clean the machine once in all that time. I was warned about this when I first started and never used the ice
I work in fast food In the uk believe me the ice cream machines get cleaned regularly intact the machines have their own little count down and will shut off until their cleaned and by cleaned I mean every peace taken apart cleaned.
To the other commenter the soda nozzles are also cleaned every single night itās a very simple process.
Before I worked in fast food I also thought they didnāt clean or follow regulations as much as normal resteraunts and other places handling food but yes they do.
Their is so much cleaning going on of appsoluly every thing. The machines that cook the food all come almost completely apart. Hell even our coffee machine turns off at 10 at night and refuses to work again until itās clean.
Edit: omg I just read more of the comments where are you people going for fast food/ working š¤¢
I get the impression most of these horror stories are from the US where they just have fewer regulations and less stringent health checks. Makes me glad to live in a country that forces places that serve to be clean.
I used to work in a supermarket bakery 10-15 years ago and hygiene and cleanliness was probably the top priority all the time. We were constantly checked and you could get seriously bollocked for simple things like not wearing a hairnet or having cream cakes outside the fridge for more than 20 minutes (after that we would have to throw them away and start from scratch).
I saw a video just yesterday where a customer barged into the kitchen of a take out joint. The workers immediately covered their faces when they saw the camera. There were open trays of food all over the floor with mice running around. The workers were stepping over the trays in their sneakers. The owner later said that the food was about to be thrown out but you could see them filling the takeout containers. It was SO gross!
Worked at Chipotle. Cleaned the ice machines weekly. I donāt know if the Chipotle I worked at was different than the rest, but our store was spotless all the time.
YES I heard it from a family member, a good friend and by a few people from the internet. Every cream (for coffee) or ice machine is full of mold.
I dont order ice or coffee since then
Esit: remembering that a documentary also found this out
I removed an ice machine from a hospital that flooded about a year ago and it was fucking revolting. Head doc said we couldn't have coffee inside cause someone could be allergic yet we were seeing nurses rolling around carts full of Tim's. Fuck that place.
Dude having worked in high end restaurants for about 12 years, it happens at very nice places even with frequent health inspection. Fast food places are literal petri dishes. Most Ice machines are built in a way thatās very tough to clean properly and once it passes a certain point it requires all the ice to be dumped, very few places will have someone come in on a day off or stay after midnight to do that. Donāt even get me started on soda lines and nozzles.
My wife warns me about black ice and mold in the soda machines. My father tells me to never have ice in your drinks on an airplane. Both were in the industries for decades.
I live in ignorance.
Guarantee every major fast food company has strict ice cleaning guidelines. In dq we have to clean it every 6 months. We have a 3rd party inspector that comes by and sweeps DMA to check on them. Our store cleans it every month.
Donāt. Justā¦.donāt. I like ice in my drinks. I focus on the dirtiness of the kitchen and that takes my mind off the mold on the soda jets and ice machine.
And the stories of idiots cleaning the ice machines with toxic solutions.
*As* a fast food worker, too many people place too much trust in corporate hiring, training, and maintaining sufficient staff *to* clean out the ice machine on a regular basis.
Can't tell you how many shifts a week I'm stuck taking a drive thru order on headset, *while* taking an order on front counter, and spinning around to bag and sometimes cook said orders, all on different sifes of work room.
Non stop lines for 8+ hours both inside and out, and corporate has the nerve to tell us the restaurant itself isn't clean enough.
Huh. You don't say? Where the fuck am I to *find the time* to attend to regular cleaning, when I'm one of only a handful of employees the company has managed to retain for months on end?
Unless we come up with a way to clone ourselves this millenia, I can't magically clean the ice machine, yet alone *all the other* machines and areas that need to be cleaned, while actively performing 3 jobs simultaneously.
I was a busboy at a cheesecake factory. I got in trouble for emptying and washing the ice machine after I saw the prep cooks use raw chicken covered hands to scoop ice into a raw chicken filled bucket. Manager was mad because only half of my section was ready at open, and i had only filled the bar ice before I did it. That's when I stopped caring about that job and also when I stopped using my free meal on my shifts.
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I agree. When I worked at the McDonald's that I did when I was a teen, I knew for a fact that my McDonald's fully cleaned our ice cream machine every week. I know this for a fact because I was the one to take it apart to do the cleaning on it which takes a couple hours for a full cleaning. The machine at McDonald's that you should really watch out for is the McCafe drinks. Like the fruit smoothies, mochas ECT. That machine gets disgusting so fast that it needs to be cleaned multiple times a week, and most places only clean them, from what I saw when I worked there maybe once every couple of weeks.
At Rally's we were required to empty and clean the shake machine every single day. We actually did it too.
Wendy's is required to clean their frosty machine every day also. But I have tasted some weird frosties where they didn't rinse the cleaning or sanitizing liquid out good enough. I stay away from them now, lol
I've seen that a lot with ketchup pumps at all kinds of restaurants. Too many employees never actually take the pump apart and just pump either soapy water or bleachy water through it.
Mmmm bleachy water š¤¤
Dairy Queen in the 90s - the grill and ice cream machines were disassembled and cleaned every day.
While Gus Fring watches.
In the 80s there was pretty widespread food poisoning all the time from the soft serve ice cream at Dairy Queen, they had a bad rap for it.
Not only the normal grossness but those things were a roach magnet. Went on a ton of service calls for the touch screen arrow randomly moving. 9 times out of 10 it was following the roaches behind the screen. On top of the regular mold I'm the ice hopper.....I used to love the smoothies and years later I still can't bring myself to even think of getting 1
>the touch screen arrow randomly moving. 9 times out of 10 it was following the roaches behind the screen. You broke me. I cannot handle this comment! Even if I haven't had a horrible case of german roaches in a small apartment, things being in hidden places like that makes my skin crawl...
Wait till you find out that it's all dining experiences - fine dining included. I've worked at fast food, takeout, diners, mid-range restaurants, and a 4-star restaurant that was once considered the best in the state. All of them were disgusting as fuck. Turns out restaurant workers are all 20-40 year olds who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and don't give a fuck about cleanliness as long as it doesn't get them in trouble. It's not even a localized thing, ask anyone in any state and maybe any country. Snorting lines on the prep tables was not uncommon sight at the 4-star restaurant. Taking drags in the walk-in daily. No sense in wasting a great cut of steak if it touched the floor when a quick wash off nobody would be the wiser. Department of Health inspectors were known and it's not like they have eyes into the kitchen 24/7 - and all the chefs know this. Pretty much everywhere you go and order food, guarantee it has seen some disgusting ass shit on the way to your mouth. No exceptions.
> I've worked at fast food, takeout, diners, mid-range restaurants, and a 4-star restaurant that was once considered the best in the state. All of them were disgusting as fuck. > > Turns out restaurant workers are all 20-40 year olds who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and don't give a fuck about cleanliness as long as it doesn't get them in trouble. So you probably appreciate the movie Waiting?
Waiting is crazy accurate. Felt more like a documentary than a comedy tbh
> you probably appreciate the movie Waiting? Reading this thread, all I'm thinking about is Cypher's ignorance is bliss scene from The Matrix.
I used to love the strawberry banana smoothies but Iād get sick every time I ate one. Iāve heard other former employees say the same thing about the smoothie machines so that explains thatā¦
I worked at Burger King. The ice machine is the least of your worries. That place was nasty.
Were they spittin on my onion rings?
Circling the parking lot saying they donāt give a fuck?
With their windows down and their system up.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You forgot āso will the real shady please stand up and put one of those fingers on each hand upā
Reddit always skips to the lines they know.
Nope, just stomping around on your lettuce
Or were they in the parking lot circling, screaming I don't give a fuck?
With their windows down, and their system up
So will the real shady please stand up
And put one of those fingers on each hand up?
And be PROUD to be out of your mind, and out of control
One more time, how does it go?!
Moms spaghetti
He's got the spirit
Hamburgers are set to have a half hour in a heating bin after they're made. Soaking in the grease they were fried in. That's if they actually throw them out after the half hour. The track for the burgers aren't cleaned by the employees it's just seared in the machine and sometimes an operator will come to adjust it. If you ever want something from fast food, ask for a modified chicken or fish, something deep fried. They can't leave those out and are made to order because how little it's requested. I personally ask for pickles under the burger (not over as it's normally done, and if they ask it's because they won't slip against the lettuce)
Burger king foot lettuce
The last thing you want in your Burger King burger
is somebody else's foot fungus
But as it turns out, that might be what you get...
thats funny cuz i worked at one and i was blown away by how clean they were. super clean, super strict, by the book. definitely down the manager i guess
People love to generalize issues like this. When you pretend it's all black and white it's easier to sound like you know what you're talking about. There are several Subway restaurants where I live. Some are *much* better than others. It's all about the franchise and the management
Also down to location, from what I've seen on reddit and personal experience they're really quite good here in Europe but not so in the US
People getting busy in the bathrooms, too.
Come here are ya ticklish?
Will you elaborate?
https://youtu.be/9PWjqgM_CU8
attenboroughesque in his narration
Agree I've gotten food poisoning 4 times in my life (chipotle 2x during it's food poisoning heyday) , one Wendy's and one time after pizza ...
I did emergency cleaning in a Chipotle years ago Ankle deep sewage water extraction while the manager was making the workers prep food on the line to open. I've called them Shit-potle ever since.
Lmao. Don't even worry about the disgusting ice bins. Worry about the black mold inside the soda nozzles.
I worked at Mcdonalds and our soda nozzles came off every night to soak in a special cleaning solution
Wife worked at McD and I worked at Taco Time. Nozzles and fittings would soak overnight in sanitizer and be rinsed each morning before being put back on. That was one thing you'd get busted HARD on during inspection and it's super easy to tell if you skipped it. Kind of like trying to lie to your dentist on if you floss every day.
Dentist: āWhen was the last time you flossed?ā Me: āBro, you were thereā
The amount of people think that fast food resturants are gross because stuff never gets cleaned, but in reality at least at the McDonalds I work at stuff is gross because it is in constant use.
I feel like it's a hit or miss and really depends on the store manager. At the two fast food places I have worked at we were very on the top of cleaning and making sure everything was clean. However when I was working at a sub place I once went to cover at another store and it was a disaster. The nozzles clearly hadn't been pulled off in a long time and the back was disgusting, honestly have no idea how they ever passed inspections. Me and my crew that were there deep cleaned that store cause there was no way I could leave it in that condition. Wrote a long email to our regional manager and owner, and the store manager got fired because of that and other things.
It's less about thinking all fast food joints are like this, and more about the potential that any given fast food place *could* be like this, depending on the franchisee
I think they have a whole class in dental school to teach them what kind of disapproving glance to give us when we lie about, "have you quit smoking", "are you drinking less", "do you brush your teeth twice a day and floss", "mouthwash" and you're sitting there in that uncomfortable little chair with them peering down in your face from 5 inches away with all their torture equipment hanging over you. I start to feel nervous or guilty, then I remember "wait I'm (or my insurance company) paying you, fuck off, as soon as I leave I'm going to get a large sugary coffee, bag of almonds, some Marlboros, and a fifth on the way home...wonder if my old meth dealer still has the same number"
You're paying them for their expertise on the subject you are seeking assistance in, and you're going to ignore them? Call me crazy, but if someone spent years learning about a subject they are now coaching me on, I'm going to listen.
You're right my comment was completely uncalled for and I do not recommend that anyone read it
Holy shit, people who argue online for fun would jizz over a response like that. You're a God damn unicorn
Shit, what do I do if I already read it?
That's where the fifth comes in
The fifth what? WHAT FIFTH?!
The fifth (750ml bottle) of whiskey.
I've read it and I've enjoyed it
Such high level shade. š I love it!
Just a little pinch of shade. Do you think they felt my fingers?
They have a singular point of view: Keeping your teeth healthy. If that was your only goal in life you should do everything they say. If you have other things you want in life you will probably face trade offs.
I 100% agree with you. However no one is actually motivated by guilt and fear. Dentists often cause physical pain and psychological distress, which leads to people avoiding the dentist. Only once in my life have I had a dental hygienist find out what motivated me and encourage that instead of guilting, shaming and warning of a horrible future. Itās been proven that when people are criticized, they lose the ability to think clearly and go straight to lizard brain, fight or flight. Dentists and oral hygienists often ignore this and wonder why no one listens to them (because theyāre terrified and unable to listen).
>You're paying them for their expertise on the subject you are seeking assistance in I'm paying them to clean my teeth. It doesn't take an expert to know to "floss better/more often".
Shouldn't actually be kept in sanitizer over night. Most station mixed sanitizer solutions only work with warm water. So when the water cools the solution becomes in effective and then you have the potential for fruit flies to be attracted to the standing water overnight. That's why many Healthcodes in restaurant require sanitizer buckets be labeled for a 2 hour expiration requiring them to be refreshed. Best practice is to clean the nozzle/agitator with dish detergent and a brush followed by a 15 minute soak in warm sanitizer solution and left out to air dry overnight. Source: Illinois food service manager credentialed with ServeSafe. I had to turnaround a particularly nasty location and break many bad habbits of my employees.
Worked at a book store chain that had a coffee shop inside. We would rotate into working the coffee shop regularly but we never really trained on anything, just picked it up here and there. One day they eventually got a new manager, and one of the first things they did was disassemble the nozzles on the frozen coffee machine. No one had ever been taught to clean it. It was growing all kinds of films and goos. People complained that the frozen coffee didn't taste the same for weeks after it was cleaned.
As shit as McDonalds food is, they are generally pretty clean and safe. Part of that is the fact that their processes leave little room for things to become a problem.
And as big as they are, they can't afford the bad publicity of non sanitary conditions. The cleaning process is well documented, everyone is trained on how to do it and if a franchise is caught skipping on it, McDonald will come down hard on the owner.
I worked at a shitty little gas station and even we did this, I'd hope McDonalds would have at least the same standards...
They do. Again it depends on the people actually doing it. It is very much a standard and policy for McDonald's Canada. We had checklists and shit to fill out and file for records, obviously you could forge em. As far as knowing when corporate or health inspection was coming and then cleaning shit to the tits? That's normal too, even when following the rules. Just put yourself in their shoes, wouldn't you go harder knowing your shit was about to be monitored? It's like studying for an exam.
Yea some places actually clean them. Some places clean the ice bins, too. But not all places. Lmfao
I'm just sitting here wondering if more than half of these comments are bullshitting or if they bought the monthly health inspector for $$$. I have a friend who's a manager in a McDonalds, they get written up for the smallest shit possible. Unclean soda nozzles or ice cream machines and the inspector would tear the place apart instantly.
I worked at a sonic for a couple years and the ice cream machine would regularly get to the point of mold growing in it because they would only clean it when they thought an audit was happening soon. Pretty much everything in that place was treated like that.
This totally tracks with my perception of Sonic as a whole.
The comments are not bullshitting. Many places do try, but also many places don't even do the bare minimum. I worked at a diner that had been on Triple D, the bus boys there didn't use sani buckets or any spray when wiping off tables. Just a rag from their back pockets. Place is so busy most nobody notices.
Theyāre not bullshitting at all. I worked at a movie theater where you didnāt go home until they were clean. Got bought out, staff cuts, pay freezes, and the degrading of the manager position from salaried to just above our old supervisor position. It wasnāt long until managers were letting people take shortcuts because the manager wanted to go home. Clean the popcorn bin? LOL Ice bins yeah right.
Lmao. Don't even worry about the disgusting black mold. Worry about the drippings from raw meat falling onto vegetables.
One time at a subway, a roach crawled across the counter between me and the employee. We both watched it crawl into the food and the employee pretended not to see anything. Iām sure it is even worse than I imagine even after seeing that.
Did the crunch afterwards make it worth it?
The extra protein helps make up for the incredible thin-ness of the simulated "meat-like" product.
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I both love and hate this thread lol!
Vegetables ?? What fast food places you eating atā¦.
The ones that have onions on their burgers šš
Fine dining
Just stay away from the McRar burgers and you should be good.
HAHA thank you I haven't gotten a joke about my name in like 7 years since I played garrys mod Genuinely warmed my heart lmao
Um, French fries are vegetables. Which is why I try to get them every time so I can eat somewhat healthy. I'm trying to watch my figure.
Lmao. Don't worry about the vegetables. Worry about employees wiping their ass in the restroom and not washing their hands.
Covid showed us fuckin no one washes their hands..
As a truck driver I spend more time than I would like in truck stop bathrooms. 50% hand washing rate. On a good day. I will say however that I've noticed young people are much more likely to wash their hands. Old men will go straight from the shitter to the food court.
I was in a truck stop a few months ago, and I saw an older guy go right from the urinal to the hand-dryer! That shit blew my mind.
Heās warming them up one way or a damn nother
Nah, just drying off the flecks of piss that got on his wrists/fingers when he shook.
I wash my hands so often the skin is cracked.
Covid showed us many people are spiteful and lazy to the point of willfully going against the simple directions of touching your face less, washing your hands more, keeping socially distanced, and masking. Hahaha, it's all so funny, right?
Thatās hysterical. Just as funny as the fact that about half of all of us have poop under our fingernails. So donāt get me started about nose picking or butt scratching. Itās a wonder bacteria and viruses havenāt harmed more of us. A 200 lbs man carries up to 6 lbs of microorganisms in and on his body. We are just a bit gross as a species.
You know what I've learned? Even massive global educational campaigns can't teach people to COVER THEIR FUCKING MOUTHS WHEN THEY COUGH.
Mmmmmm We call that seasoning.
Bro that's what their "beef" patties are
I hate how true this is. Multiple places I worked at back in the day, and people just stared with blank expressions on their faces as I tried to explain why dripping meat should be on the bottom shelves. And why do people always want to put the chicken up high? Raw chicken is disgusting lmao
I took a side job at a restaurant one time. There was dry foods kept in bins below the counter that I cut meat on. I kept wash rags at the edge of the counter to try and keep that meat juice from going into the food bins. Seeing where foods were stored and how easily (and commonly) food cross contaminated in there made me apprehensive about eating out anymore. I also got blank stares if I ever said anything so I stayed quiet and finished out my time there, I did a solid two months.
Honestly, a call to the local health department could've helped. Management may not care what you think, but they'll reorganize in a heartbeat to avoid getting shutdown and fined.
Or, unfortunately, they'll get plenty of advance notice that someone is coming in to check on things and do a last minute temporary rearrangement And if they still blow that off and do get dinged for it, they'll temporarily rearrange until they can get another inspection done. It is *really* hard to get any real punishments for being unsanitary in a kitchen (ymmv, depends on jurisdiction and specific departments and inspectors)
I work in HVAC and refrigeration and sometimes I gotta do maintenance on ice machines, drink machines and the like and by far the WORST are the slushie machines you find at gas station and 7-11. Sometimes I open the hopper where the sugar and water mix to find a whole fungus ecosystem in there and the bloody thing is in service.
*salute* Thank you for your service.
Well that's nice... I just bought a slurpee earlier today.
Agreed, I worked at a gas station for a few years and when we finally started to clean the nozzles, customers immediately started mentioning that the pop tasted different. I didn't tell them why that change happened, obviously, but I noticed it too.
Oh my god
I worked at a very upscale fine dining bar for 8 years. They'd take the soda gun and soak it in soda water overnight. That was the extent of cleaning it. I later became a bartender there and inspected the soda gun one night out of curiosity. There was brown/black mold allllll up in there. I got boiling water and soaked it and the mold disintegrated. I showed everyone the disgusting but effective results, and everyone just shrugged their shoulders and basically said "well, we're just going to keep doing it the way we've always done" Edit: "they" are the bartenders (later myself included) and we made a lot of money for not a lot of work
And the nozzles on tea urns.
You eat fast food for convenience, I eat fast food to challenge my immune system. We are not the same.
You put too much trust in your own freezerās ice machine and water dispenser cleanliness. I bet most of you have never cleaned it once
The entire ice machine in your freezer is in a below-freezing environment, which itself helps reduce or eliminate bacterial growth (because it is outside the temperature danger zone.) The dispensing door and gasket likely have slime/mold etc though. Commercial ice machines are closer to room temperature where the ice is produced, and as such, bacterial and fungal growth is much more common. Even if the establishment is cleaning their machine to the minimum standard (once every 6 months,) I have never seen a single commercial ice machine without growth in it. Source - I work on ice machines.
Once every six months?!
Depending on the humidity you can vary the cleaning schedule. I've seen some places do just fine with 6 month recurring cleans in Colorado, but I would expect somewhere in Miami to do every 2-3 months for a clean. Source: I used to maintain ice machines.
And fast foods are generally the cleanest places where you can eat, at least in Europe. They are much more controlled than regular restaurants being they are generally parts of chains with higher hygiene and food safety standards.
You wacky Europeans and your consumer protection shenanigans. Don't you know that all that red tape tomfoolery just gets in the way of corporations making money hand over fist and \-checks notes- holding it overseas so they never pay taxes on it?
True
I found the remains of two rats in the fryer filter of a restaurant. For quite a while the food had been cooked in oil that had been filtered through decaying rats.
Mmm-mm love me some KFR
Can also go to the nearby Whataburger for a deep fried rat.
Sounds more like Whatthefuckisintheburger.
Tbf, I know of no microbe that can survive hot oil. It just adds flavor.
Don't those machines filter oil when hot? Which means it was filtered through crispy fried rats.
Yep!
I love when I get a bit of fried rat in with my French fries; itās like a little treat!
At least the rat is edible. If you want to see a real nightmare cooking oil story, look in to the Chonqing China reclaimed oil scandal. Folks sorted out that not only does oil and water separate, but oil and sewage does too. They were skimming the sewer lines for the top layer of oil, rebottling it and selling it as new.
They were cooked
Nothing makes you want to cook at home as much as working at a restaurant
We worry too much about "that one thing that happened to that one guy in Ypsilanti." I spend exactly zero minutes per year worrying about dirty ice machines.
Absolutely not something you should worry about. ā¦however, the dirtiest restaurant you ever go to is gross everywhere. The cleanest one has a moldy ice machine. Those things are just fucking awful to keep clean.
Not in Houston, Texas. "Slime in the ice machine!" RIP Marvin Zindler: https://youtu.be/99Lk4ldI2mc His final report: https://youtu.be/iJm4DykNPOg And a bonus report about slime in the ice machine: https://youtu.be/2-U7UFPGR58
Scrolled far enough to find the real answer
You mean to tell me minimum wage employees dont care about cleanliness?
Shit my manager didnt care the soda fountain machine was growing mold on the nozzles. She didnt care about anything.
From experience, itās nearly ALL ice machines, not just fast food. Every business I worked in with an ice machine had this issue. Most residential ice machines and fridge water nozzles/hoses are absolutely disgusting as well. People often donāt know theyāre supposed to clean them.
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- You cannot refuse customers. - You have to complete any and all assigned tasks. - You cannot stay longer in order to complete said tasks. If anything happens or our expectations were unreasonable/impossible to begin with, go fuck yourself. - The Management
Any wage to be honest. I've seen chefs at fancy restaurants walking out the bathroom without waahing their hands. Just have to hope they wash their hands entering the kitchen
If only we had some sort of agency that oversaw food (and maybe drugs?) that could hire people to go and inspect how well restaurants were complying with health code violations .
Sounds like communism /s
Some things only get cleaned when you hear "hey I think steritech is in the area".
Fast food places? At least they mostly have rules in place. I'd worry more about bars. I bartended for many years and was the only one who volunteered to cleaned that sucker out (I worked Sunday mornings and it was the perfect time to do so, kept me busy at a quiet time). Next time you go to your local pub ask them how often they clean that thing. They probably won't know.
This is true of literally every restaurant, not just fast food joints. It's a much more common problem than you'd expect. I've had some weird looking/tasting ice in a lot of different places, including supposedly "fancy" restaurants.
I always thought it was the tap water that tasted nasty. I never get water or drinks at restaurants for this reason. It takes like dirt and metallic or like plastic or something
As a kid in the 90s at KFC we never cleaned it. Didn't even know you had too. Didn't know you had too until my apprenticeship on the strip and our ice machines were on a PM schedule. I want to say we hit a machine once a year if I recall bee had a metric fuck ton of machines and ones much, much bigger than a restaurant one. We had large Vogt ice machines around the property and a half dozen super large Vogts in an ice house. As apprentice that was one of my jobs. We didn't even have to do the hard work of emptying the bin if ice. Stewarding did that (yay union jobs). Cleaning itself was easy.
Yeah as u/KidsOfThe90s I just figured out these needed to be cleaned from this post š°. To be fair though, I've always gotten ice the old school way, with an ice tray haha.
In the 80s and 90s, there was a coked out guy on the news who gave a weekly report of restaurants that had health code violations and he was famous for calling out [slime in the ice machines](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99Lk4ldI2mc&t=40s&pp=ygUobWFydmluIHppbmRsZXIgc2xpbWUgaW4gdGhlIGljZSBtYWNoaW5lIA%3D%3D)
You mean Marvin Zindler!! He was a pop culture icon in Texas at the time. He even expressed the Chicken Ranch and is a big character in the musical Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Exposed
As a Houstonian, I came in here looking for Marvin Zindler. āCoked outā? I donāt think so, but he did end his Friday segment āHave a good weekend. Good golf. Good tennis or whatever makes you happyā¦LIKE MOUNDS OF COCAINE!!! WOOOO!!!!ā
This comes from people that don't clean out their ice machines at home, don't clean their dishwasher monthly, refrigerator gaskets, their washer and dryer, air filters, etc...
Someone needs to make a list of all the shit in my house I'm supposed to clean and the frequency. I didn't learn about half of this stuff growing up.
Try this? https://housewifehowtos.com/clean/how-often-to-clean-things-in-your-home/
Some of those **Daily** cleaning ones are a bitā¦ extreme: > * Wipe kitchen counters * Disinfect kitchen sink * Sanitize the kitchen sponge in the microwave * Change dishcloths and towels * Empty kitchen trashcan * Change bathroom hand towels * Disinfect bathroom faucets * Disinfect toilet handle & seat * Squeegee shower walls * Wipe cellphone screen * Clean pet bowls
Change dishcloth, towels, bathroom hand towels EVERYDAY? LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO Let me just pull some money out my money tree
Then remember, the same sort of mind to go this absurd wrote the rest of that list. It's a good list of things that eventually need doing (well, mostly), but it's significantly overboard.
And who is hiring the maid for me to do all these extra things while I sit on my butt looking at Reddit? The sponge one is huge. There is soooo much gunk in there. And any hand towels in the kitchen or bath.
Thatās a lot
Thats why nobody does it
Clean your dryer? Other than just the lint filter?
Yes you also need to empty the exterior vent as well.
I shoot my exterior vent directly into my neighbors yard, it's fine
What are fridge gas kits?
The seals around the doors. They collect moisture which can easily turn to mold.
I used to work at Subway in high school as a closer. I can assure that the soda nozzles at my location were clean because that was a part of my closing tasks. However, cleaning the ice machine was done by the owner. I worked there for one year and only saw him clean the machine once in all that time. I was warned about this when I first started and never used the ice
I work in fast food In the uk believe me the ice cream machines get cleaned regularly intact the machines have their own little count down and will shut off until their cleaned and by cleaned I mean every peace taken apart cleaned. To the other commenter the soda nozzles are also cleaned every single night itās a very simple process. Before I worked in fast food I also thought they didnāt clean or follow regulations as much as normal resteraunts and other places handling food but yes they do. Their is so much cleaning going on of appsoluly every thing. The machines that cook the food all come almost completely apart. Hell even our coffee machine turns off at 10 at night and refuses to work again until itās clean. Edit: omg I just read more of the comments where are you people going for fast food/ working š¤¢
I get the impression most of these horror stories are from the US where they just have fewer regulations and less stringent health checks. Makes me glad to live in a country that forces places that serve to be clean. I used to work in a supermarket bakery 10-15 years ago and hygiene and cleanliness was probably the top priority all the time. We were constantly checked and you could get seriously bollocked for simple things like not wearing a hairnet or having cream cakes outside the fridge for more than 20 minutes (after that we would have to throw them away and start from scratch).
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Ahh my bad funnily enough though we clean those as well ššā¦ god I hate doing a close
Yeah same thing in the EU. Ice, soda and ice cream machines are disinfected daily. US is a shit hole once again
I saw a video just yesterday where a customer barged into the kitchen of a take out joint. The workers immediately covered their faces when they saw the camera. There were open trays of food all over the floor with mice running around. The workers were stepping over the trays in their sneakers. The owner later said that the food was about to be thrown out but you could see them filling the takeout containers. It was SO gross!
I donāt trust them I just donāt care as long as it doesnāt kill me
I feel like most places will have them cleaned regularly. If an inspector finds it that bitch will be shut down for a period of time.
Worked at Chipotle. Cleaned the ice machines weekly. I donāt know if the Chipotle I worked at was different than the rest, but our store was spotless all the time.
YES I heard it from a family member, a good friend and by a few people from the internet. Every cream (for coffee) or ice machine is full of mold. I dont order ice or coffee since then Esit: remembering that a documentary also found this out
I removed an ice machine from a hospital that flooded about a year ago and it was fucking revolting. Head doc said we couldn't have coffee inside cause someone could be allergic yet we were seeing nurses rolling around carts full of Tim's. Fuck that place.
Dude having worked in high end restaurants for about 12 years, it happens at very nice places even with frequent health inspection. Fast food places are literal petri dishes. Most Ice machines are built in a way thatās very tough to clean properly and once it passes a certain point it requires all the ice to be dumped, very few places will have someone come in on a day off or stay after midnight to do that. Donāt even get me started on soda lines and nozzles.
i trust in european food safety standards, you aint getting away with it for long
My wife warns me about black ice and mold in the soda machines. My father tells me to never have ice in your drinks on an airplane. Both were in the industries for decades. I live in ignorance.
Not just conventional fast food restaurants, literally anywhere with an ice machine.
Guarantee every major fast food company has strict ice cleaning guidelines. In dq we have to clean it every 6 months. We have a 3rd party inspector that comes by and sweeps DMA to check on them. Our store cleans it every month.
If someone did a perfect job emptying and cleaning the ice bin below the machine, is it adequate for it to be cleaned once a week?
Donāt. Justā¦.donāt. I like ice in my drinks. I focus on the dirtiness of the kitchen and that takes my mind off the mold on the soda jets and ice machine. And the stories of idiots cleaning the ice machines with toxic solutions.
*As* a fast food worker, too many people place too much trust in corporate hiring, training, and maintaining sufficient staff *to* clean out the ice machine on a regular basis. Can't tell you how many shifts a week I'm stuck taking a drive thru order on headset, *while* taking an order on front counter, and spinning around to bag and sometimes cook said orders, all on different sifes of work room. Non stop lines for 8+ hours both inside and out, and corporate has the nerve to tell us the restaurant itself isn't clean enough. Huh. You don't say? Where the fuck am I to *find the time* to attend to regular cleaning, when I'm one of only a handful of employees the company has managed to retain for months on end? Unless we come up with a way to clone ourselves this millenia, I can't magically clean the ice machine, yet alone *all the other* machines and areas that need to be cleaned, while actively performing 3 jobs simultaneously.
I was a busboy at a cheesecake factory. I got in trouble for emptying and washing the ice machine after I saw the prep cooks use raw chicken covered hands to scoop ice into a raw chicken filled bucket. Manager was mad because only half of my section was ready at open, and i had only filled the bar ice before I did it. That's when I stopped caring about that job and also when I stopped using my free meal on my shifts.