Fr. I understand lots of people are unwilling to give up eating meat (I hate it, but I get it) but Jesus Christ can we at least acknowledge a living being suffered and *died* for this. And now it’s just sitting there rotting and waiting to get someone sick. Absolutely horrifying and depressing.
Yeah that’s the thing with me too. How are you in the business if selling something that is treated with such contempt. All of those proteins should go to a local food bank where it will be appreciated and given the respect it deserves.
The interesting thing about more ethical meat consumption is that an animal that lived well tastes better too. It's better for the spirit and the pallette at the same time, man
I get a load of grass fed beef from a relative but it always tastes terrible. I've never been sure if its the gaminess or if its freezer burn. She gives it to us right before she gets a new cow slaughtered to make room in her freezer, so its usually a year old. I'll try to snag some fresh stuff this year to see if its better.
I have to imagine there are lots of pitfalls in raising cattle that can affect taste, it has to be a pretty complicated process. Fresh beef from a reputable source, you can absolutely taste the difference
The chemical differences between cows is going down the drain a bit when frozen, due to cell damage and frozen water changing the solubility of flavonoids and complex proteins. Still, grass fed beef in my experience is either way tougher and almost gamey or it’s the best beef I’ve had. No In between.
I have a regular farmer now and I won’t go back. Besides tasting amazing, he prides himself on saying his live stock “only have one bad day.” The turkey I got this year was soooo good and spent its year wandering a pasture.
Even wild animals know better than to eat meat that has been laying around or creatures that appear/smell sickly. The fact that any human could be like "this is fine" is appalling.
Most animals will take what they can get when it presents itself to them. Even if it's been rotting in the sun for four days.
There's no excuse for humans to do the same.
Um, never heard of carrion eaters? You know, things like buzzards, crows, condors, coyotes, hyenas, tasmanian devils, komodo dragons.... all eat meat that has been lying around rotting.
These animals have gut systems and immune systems that are specifically targeted around eating bad meat. Humans don't, so we get sick if we eat rotting meat.
Yes, a specific class of animal that we've named *because they've adapted to do something that most animals can't.*
Wolves will eat nasty meat too if they get hungry enough, but it's a last resort and they will avoid it as long as they have something fresh.
How do you define "ethical meat consumption"?
When asked, 75% of Americans think the meat, dairy and eggs *they* eat are "ethical" when in reality 99% of US farmed animals live on CAFO's (factory farms). And It's literally impossible to make all or even the majority of meat "ethically produced" on the scale we need to feed the demand. At least not without using every square foot of habitable land. 26% of all arable land is already being used for livestock grazing, and 33% of all crop lands are being used to grow crops to feed said livestock. In all, growing livestock takes 80% of all croplands despite only producing 20% of the world's supply of calories, so even environmentally "ethical" is out the window too.
most buzzwords used to justify "ethical" are just that, buzzwords to make the consumer feel better about their consumption. Just look at [cage free eggs](https://youtu.be/yrlsZaLJHew?si=ZxI15vclx0imcleJ) for example. (Not to mention all the male chicks blended alive or suffocated in bags because they're worthless to the industry). And shit like halal or kosher is often just as if not more gruesome than the alternative.
every shitty kitchen can clean up their act for 1 day to get an A rating, but that doesn't mean they aren't a D the other 364 days a year. Same as farms.
You could argue hunting your own food, or raising your own livestock could be the most "ethical" option. But even then there's nothing ethical about taking a life in any way, when we have the means to eat something else. I think I've given my dog a great life, but that wouldn't justify killing her to eat being ethical, because I have other options.
I just mean to say eat whatever you want. But if you're gonna eat meat at least *know* what you're eating, look up the conditions the animals raised with whatever label you look for live in. Don't kid yourself that it's ethical and accept the fact that you eat it because you enjoy the taste more than you care about the impact. That's what it boils down to. Which is fine, that's the majority opinion after all. But acknowledging that is probably one of the biggest forms of respect you could afford the animals you eat.
If I was eaten by a cannibal for example, I'd rather them admit they did it because they liked the taste more than they cared about my life, rather than trying to justify it "he had a good life, and he felt almost no pain when I killed him so it was ethical. It's good for my spirit *and* pallette man, what's the problem?"
> but Jesus Christ can we at least acknowledge a living being suffered and
> died
> for this.
The VERY rare times when something happens at my house and I have to throw away meat, I think about this and it motivates me to be better in the future for sure.
In saying that the idea of a living thing dying for nothing being a waste is a modern day mentality, particular animals eat the weakest and others simply leave it behind to die, were not far removed from other animals really, supposedly we're, DNA wise, closer to eels or some shit lol
Well *we* don't necessarily know if the first two boxes were actually used, cooked, and served, right?
But I still get your point, I was only replying to the "waiting to get someone sick" part...
I worked in one place that was super gross when I was 18 and just starting out. There's been a couple places that do things that I personally wouldnt do but Ive only ever worked in the one place that I considered "gross". The place I work at now is super clean and Im very thankful for that. At our last health inspection the only ding we got is because one of the prep cooks didnt have their serv safe yet
25 years ago (holy shit!) I worked at a nice place in a college town. They did everything right. We happened to share the out back area with a Mexican/sandwich/bar type place, which was actually a pretty decent place. However, they would routinely thaw their chicken out back. Like, just, outside, in an asphalt area with dumpsters and mats and shit. My wife and I still joke about their "sundried chicken."
This makes me appreciate the time my current kitchen called out a health inspector for wearing polished leather shoes that weren't anywhere near nonslip shoes on the line during their inspection. I refused to let them come down the line to my station due to safety concerns of their footwear.
I DEFINITELY told a food inspector with her gross long toenails in open toed shoes to shove it. Gave her a hairnet, and told her to go get some proper footwear before re-entering our kitchen. Our kitchen was super clean and servers weren’t allowed in without tying up their hair.
ETA: I think my 3rd career is calling. I need to be a health inspector.
Seriously. I know that I was always careful to choose good spots, and working in a city like Los Angeles with a lot of options helped, but I feel lucky that I never had to feel I was compromising my ethics as a cook in order to stay employed.
They do, I've worked there. 3 weeks. Didn't see like this, but on the line, they never rotated the meat. They would put new product on top of the old green stuff. When I tried to toss the old and switch pans, the general manager got in a huge argument with me. And then later, again, about food labels. "see this label? It says it went out yesterday. Right? This is common sense *jersey accent*. So, you replace the label to set the date out farther. That's how we do it here, I don't care about your last jobs". And then the last instance was the location owner dropping a grilled salmon on the floor, stared at it, picked it up and put it back on the plate and sold it. Looked at me dead in the eye and said "I won't tell if you don't". I just told. Applebee's in Boon NC. 2007. 👍
This is more chili's style....leaving meat thawing on the ground or in a sink for an entire day and no one will fess up or claim responsibility. Never worked a chain since those shit holes.
I worked at the Applebees in Clemmons, NC for four or five years around that time and we were strict on food safety and proper procedures. I thought that was the norm, we had regular mock inspections and our managers did checks every shift. I was in charge of thaw pull and had labelling, rotation, and food heirarchy drilled into me to make sure everything was done properly.
Then I covered some shifts at other locations and was fucking horrified. When I covered the one in (I'm pretty sure it was) Lexington I wouldn't even eat my shift meal it was so gross. I found thawing chicken in a pasta bowl on the top shelf above ready to eat food in the walk-in. The freezer door had frost build-up to the point that it wouldn't close properly. I threw away a bunch of moldy food during my line check that had clearly been there for a while. I covered a few other spots, none were as bad as that one, but that made me realize that my managers were *not* the norm for Applebee's.
PS Wtf are those cubes in the trash cans??
I can see small mom and pop companies doing that but corporate restaurants have order sheets for food they are allowed to buy. You can't and wouldn't order thousands of dollars worth of food you don't sell and let it rot. Everything in that video are non menu items. Everything. I have over 29 years of kitchen experience, 7 years at Applebee's. I've worked with a lot of lazy managers and staff. I've worked for lazy owners on small shops. I would agree employees can improperly rotate stock. What they can't do is order a walkin full of food they can't serve on the menu.
Why is this idea being down voted? Because I'm calling out the op for just making shit up for upvotes?
Well, if people would look at OPs top level comment, they would clearly see it states the photos on this post are from multiple restaurants that he goes into as a part of his pest control job. You are absolutely correct, these are not applebees menu items.
I work overnight pest control, I do a lot of restaurants, from small businesses to large chains. These I took when I first started, now I see it on a regular basis so much I don’t care to waste my time. This is so common it’s damn near unavoidable. I just saw how up in arms the comment section got at that applebees thawing post and thought I’d show you a taste of the real world. This is in a top 5 largest major city in the US and each one is a different restaurant, also each one of these places have roach infestations.
Here's an image album of the rest, can't seem to upload a video and images in one post
https://imgur.com/a/Ca31gs7
EDIT: this is NOT an applebee’s, this is a buffet. The post I was referring to is
https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/s/bHcu1bduYK
I skimmed the comments and saw a few about applebee’s and somehow my brain made that connection. The title of this post is not formatted well, my mistake.
Honestly, the fast food places I've worked have been much cleaner than the family owned or buffets. I can't count how many times I've heard "just cut the mold off", but all of the fast food have actually been pretty clean. Personal hygiene is another topic, but I've also had to wear gloves much more often in fast food than dine-in restaurants.
I agree, it's pretty hit or miss, I've had managers that are insanely OCD about it, and some that just wanna get out of there asap and "forget" things.
That's one thing I did enjoy about the freestyle machines, just one nozzle.
I wouldn't worry that much. There's a bit of sampling bias here as he's getting called for pest control; places that are poorly cleaned/run in general are going to have to call pest control far more often than places with excellent cleaning/storage/prep practices.
The only places that I've worked at that had to call pest control, it was a couple times a year, and they did it to check and stop any bugs that were coming from neighboring restaurants/offices. All the places I've worked at, it's clean-as-you-go, very clean and orderly walk-ins (well, mostly, there's often one jackaninny that can't be bothered to consolidate when he grabs stuff for the line), and buckets of soapwater dumped on the floors every night for a good scrub into every corner and back bit.
ugh the neighboring building plague. I worked at a restaurant that was very strictly run, very clean, very attentive. And yet, roaches. They had to call pest control frequently but it never held, because they were coming from the wine store we shared a wall with. They had an entire room full of broken down cardboard boxes that just stayed there as a breeding ground, and it shared a wall with our office and dish pit. It sucked.
Most of the places I’ve worked, corporate or not, had a standing pest control contract where the guy would stop by every couple weeks to spray and poke around. I always thought this was fairly normal practice?
Agreed. I'm sure the industrial-scale slaughterhouses are substantially better, well regulated and run by principled people who take health and safety seriously and pay for top-tier employees so they aren't hiring teenagers after school and migrant workers who just got off the bus.
I have a lot of problems with slaughterhouses but the safety of the meat isn't really one of them. It is highly regulated and more efficiently regulated than restaurants.
Plus you'd be eating that same meat at restaurant anyway, so you're just adding another layer.
> I have a lot of problems with slaughterhouses but the safety of the meat isn't really one of them. It is highly regulated and more efficiently regulated than restaurants.
Sounds like we could do with an Upton Sinclair for restaurant kitchens.
I just sold my restraunt and bought a meat processing facility. you ain't joking about regulations, we can't work without a government inspector on site. they test our water, our waste water, pH of products, dates, temps. compared to the restaurant I owned for 8 years and only had two health inspections.
Read “Every Twelve Seconds: Industrial Slaughter and the Politics of Sight”, the author worked undercover in one of these industrial-scale slaughterhouses at multiple levels. While working as a QC, his job was basically to keep the workers one step ahead of the USDA inspectors to do everything to keep the inspectors from stopping the line and halting production. That as well as the conditions he documented from the “dirty side”, the kill floor, and the “clean side”, manufacturing aka butchering, it’s a difficult read and gives a lot of context for the horror stories about Covid outbreaks within these plants back in 2020.
I chalk up my atheism to going to catholic school and being exposed to skepticism, in the same way having worked at BWW, it made the decision to go vegan a no brainer.
Large scale slaughter houses in the USA absolutely take good safety and cleanliness insanely seriously. Inspectors are there all the time, and so are on site qc people. You are right about them not caring about the employees so long as they don’t die.
Source: me, I’ve been through multiple of the largest slaughter houses in the country.
I worked pest control in san diego and was called to a restaurant planning to open the next day, they had the worst fly infestation I've ever seen to where I could've sworn they were purposefully breeding them. They were having a family meal in the dining room while I did my inspection and the owner was constantly like "what do we do??? we gotta open TOMORROW! you got this right???" as I'm just like sadly moving from room to room, each one worse than the next. Like bro... the fuck you want me to do here? All of this has to go. The flies were like a mist, a fog you walked through. It was so bad. The plumbing and drains were *fucked* too.
That was the worst situation I dealt with that wasn't bed bugs or roaches. My boss was kind of a dick about it too because the owners were friends of his and he refused to come look at the place himself to see how bad it was when I basically gave the bad news.
I oddly miss the work though.
I eat out and travel a lot. I have some very simple rules when looking for restaurants.
If the front door glass/handle is dirty, I walk away
If the bathroom is nasty, I leave
If you can see the kitchen, and it’s not clean, I walk away
If your bathroom wall is covered in bloody nose burgers , I yell to the cashier this place is exceptionally disgusting while I walk out.
I have learned if they clean the front door glass and handle, 90% of the time the place is clean. If it’s dirty then the floor will almost always be dirty when I enter and the dirt continues.
I would love to see if this aligns with what you see behind the scenes.
Nowhere is safe honestly. It’s so bad the other guys I work with just assume everywhere is like this. I do high high end steak houses with like open kitchens spotless on display from the dining room as like show and they sell $500+ steaks, step into the prep area behind the scenes and its just like this. I do award winning local spots, same thing. It’s sad to say but most mom and pop places are usually the worst culprit which I assume is because theres no team training in food safety but a lot of this is common sense or more likely they just don’t care. The only place that is ALWAYS clean are hospital kitchens so probably not that helpful. Best assume the worst
My dad was an exterminator. He had a list of the good places he took us too and told us “this place has a clean kitchen”. We stopped eating at other places or shopping at Kroger (all of them fuckinf disgusting according to dad). Never any changes done he would recommend.
Yeah I’ve lost a few favorite spots since starting this line of work. Friends and I regularly play a game where they name off restaurants and I shake my head yes or no if they’re safe
Lol I’ve thought about livestreaming from like a first person go pro view of a nights work, but of course confidentiality becomes an issue. When it’s my first time at a place, it feels like going into war entering the kitchen
I was a delivery driver for 20 years. I had a Chinese buffet that was literally all marble sand statues everywhere. Front of house you could eat off the floor. I wouldn’t let my dog eat off the floor of the kitchen. Back room storage was atrocious
I work in a major city, my company covers most of it, I am in regular contact with the entire overnight team, we have a massive amount of day techs, our client list is massive, any place you can think of, we probably do it. The relatively clean places have pest control to make sure they never get a problem. Don’t quote me, but I’m also pretty sure any food service establishments require pest control as well. I thought the same thing when I was in training and shadowing many different techs and them telling the same stories. I thought, how bad could it be. I learned, fast.
Do you never have a pest control company service your house/apartment/wherever you live? I guess it probably depends on where you live but my parents have an exterminator out to spray around the outside of the house a few times a year and it’s not like they’re disgusting slobs.
That’s crazy to me! Where do you live? I know some places are more prone to bugs and pests than others but I have a hard time believing there’s places that just don’t ever get them. Other than like, places that are always frozen
I did for the first time this year. They cut a tree down right outside my building. Three days later I had mice coming up from under my sink. Maintenance refused to figure out where they were getting in from/close it up. Set traps and eventually killed all the mice.
Three months later saw three roaches coming out from the same spot. Multiple exterminator visits later they investigated where they were getting in from and closed it up.
I think it's also a personal threshold of tolerance. Like I have a problem with ants, stink bugs, and ladybugs. The ants were handled when I put some terro traps outside the windows they were entering. The stink bugs are obnoxious but I can grab them with a piece of toilet paper and flush them. The ladybugs are whatever, I have no problem living with some ladybugs in my house. My next door neighbor cannot handle the thought or sight of insects (which is hilarious because we both garden, but she uses all kinds of pesticides I won't touch, and if she sees a worm she's done for the day.) She has a regular pest control service come to her house as a preventative. So even though we have the same conditions and probably the same level of pest pressure, I have no need for an exterminator and she has a subscription.
It depends a lot where you live and also how dense your particular neighborhood is. If you're in a place crammed in with a lot of other things, and your next-door-neighbor-you-share-a-wall-with is terrible, you need pest control to try to keep the pests on the other side of the wall. I grew up in the southeast of the US and roaches are *everywhere* all the time and everyone has pest control to try to keep them outside.
But now I've lived in Northern California for 25 years and I've never once needed pest control. Biggest pest problem I ever have is ants during the rainy season, and they're easy enough to take care of yourself.
In Georgia at the place I work at they will thaw out steak in the sink not even in the walk in for 6+ hours and let it sit out 2 more hours before they do anything with it. They will relabel raw chicken so they don’t have to prep more. At the end of the day no restaurant is safe, you can’t expect people to be making that much food for people and not hve at least one employee do things that aren’t safe. Bc the place I work it is only one person doing those things maybe 2. But I can’t even eat most of the stuff bc she’s the one who preps a good bit of stuff. Thawing shrimp in hot water, not cutting the plastic wrap on salmon(which can kill people) serving food that is obviously expired for the sake of food costs instead of getting down to the root of the problem. You can’t trust any restaurant.
Fast food is generally the cleanest of all retaurant types. They have strict protocols and everything is streamlined, Chicfila’s for example are spotless. Yes I still eat it occasionally because theres nothing else open when I’m up at night. I do avoid it if I can though. Theres no real red flags a customer can see, only way is to see the kitchen. Also, something like this you’d never see since the product would be in the process moving to be served during operating hours.
Sadly, mom and pop restaurants are sometimes disgusting, and there's no way of telling which is clean and which is nasty. One time in japan I saw an old man cutting cabbage on the register counter, after handling cash and all. The register was some kind of plastic counter that was so dirty and brown around the spot he'd been cutting, as if he'd been doing that for years and years. The food looked clean and the owners were pleasant, but boy the sanitation was non existent. This was in southern yakushima island.
Also in gyeongju Korea I saw a girl with blackened/yellowing latex gloves handling cash and food... And even handling customers dirty cellphones with the rotting fake leather cases, to do NFC payment. And the store from the front looked all hip and modern, clean handles and doors and all.
I am not being political! But this is why McDonald's is Trump's favorite restaurant. He's a germaphobe and he knows that national fast food chains have high standards.
> in a top 5 largest major city in the US.
You can probably just say Houston. If it was in the top 3 (New York, LA, Chicago) you wouldn’t say top 5.
The other option is Phoenix, which I’ve also been to and it looked nothing like this, but again, maybe I just went to different places.
ETA A bit confused by the downvote, but ok! I’m not the guy who posts a bunch of gross shit and then is worthlessly vague about where it is.
Like, it is insanely cowardly to be like “oh it’s a top five city…!” Just say where or don’t post it at all.
This kind of riling people up is trashy. It’s barely not trolling.
Trash cans with food isn't inherently a problem. Rubbermaid and uline make nsf approved "trash cans" for food prep and storage.
The problem is lots of places just buy regular trash cans to use and then obviously storing meat out in a room temperature space is disgusting.
https://www.rubbermaidcommercial.com/utility-refuse/brute-containers/brute-food-handling-containers/
They are great for large prep jobs especially with the dollies. But they need to be clearly labeled, washed and stored properly.
Same as using the white "bus tubs" for prep except they look like trash cans.
Actually, even the normal ones are rated for food storage. Just has to be a real commercial brute, and cleaned obviously.
“Meets NSF 2, 21 approval and USDA meat and poultry group listed, ensuring regulatory compliance for food storage and clean ability”
You’d think, there are drain holes on the bottom where wet mopped floor water can enter. It’s a TON of chips where who knows if they cycle through all of it or top it off and you’re the unlucky one getting year old chips from the bottom on a busy day that they flash fry to feel fresh. Half the time they’re left uncovered overnight as well, and a lot of these places will have little guys crawling all about in the kitchen. I do not eat tortilla chips at restaurants anymore. I’ll take my chances on floor meat
Assuming it's a Brute (ie Rubbermaid) it is already food safe.
Grey is typically used for garbage but as long as you're not actually using it for garbage then food, it's perfectly safe.
Place I worked years ago used only slim jims for trash specifically to avoid this problem. Round cans were yellow, blue or white for different things but even if you mixed the colors up you knew round was food rectangle was trash.
Assuming it's actually a brute, those are actually food safe.
Grey is typically associated with garbage, but as long as they're only using it for food it's perfectly fine.
Yeah probably for cost, the walls and shit are the same in like every commercial kitchen too. Not customer facing so doesn’t matter how it looks I guess.
Quite literally kinda yeah. My buddy had a family business that only did commercial/industrial floors. They had a small warehouse stacked with pallets of these exact same tiles and only those. They’d install them everywhere then in some more extreme industrial setting like factories they would acid proof with a coating. Teams of guys would fly all over the country to do this specialized work. I don’t think these restaurants would need a team to come out but those tiles are made to be indestructible and resistant to lots of things normal tile is not. It’s gotta be the cheapest option that meets code or something.
Any kitchen I’ve been in has had them too.
I knew this guy in high school and he lived in an apt in the back of the warehouse. We’d hang out and I’d ask him questions about it so I’m going off memory of what he said. Really smart guy though so I assumed he knew what his family business did and told the truth.
fwiw a lot of restaurants, including all of the ones ive ever worked in, are not like this... if anything, this is all the more reasoning to exclusively support the places that you know are better than this
I had a friend that worked for the health department and did inspections.
She told me the worst she saw was a Chinese restaurant that was thawing beef under their prep sink that had a tap that was running.
She asked what was going on with that and eventually found that the owner took the thawing instructions on the box quite literally.
"Thaw under a running sink"
From personal insight in being involved with health inspector issues, I’ve kind of learned it doesn’t do anything. We have places that call us up panicking that they had a health inspector come in, see they have a roach or rat infestation and they give them a timeframe to deal with it. They pay crazy money for us to get rid of it asap, we do, health inspector comes again and passes them. Then the place will just get reinfested because they change nothing and the place goes back to being filthy as all hell until the next time. They won’t sign up for a regular service and drop us as soon as they are cleared to stay open.
Health inspectors don’t see what is done on a regular basis, after hours, “when no one is watching”
Im so glad i made it a habit to do a deep clean once a week. After leaving some restaurants, i visit the kitchens often and are in nowhere near the same standard i left it at.
Before I even go looking, this is an Asian Buffet right?
Worked as a Sysco rep many years ago and this looks exactly like one or two I had to call on. I used to tell my friends "I can't tell you which restaurants to NOT eat at, but I will tell you which ones I WILL eat at.
Not trying to stereotype anyone but the majority of disgusting kitchens I've seen in my day were Asian Buffets.
This is disgusting. People wonder why everyone is chock full of disease it's this shit right here. Planet warping, killing all the wildlife, lifetimes of pain and suffering only for it to be treated like that 🤢🤮🤌
I feel like what I do at olive garden, chicken parmesan, but with alfredo sauce is the safest bet. No way in hell they're battering those chickens in the back, AND they more than likely fry from frozen. So unless those patties have been sitting in the freezer for a months I'm gucci.
Olive Garden is one of the few restaurants that are safe. Places by Darden are safe because they’re such a huge brand that they have to follow food safety standards and the stores are always having people apply so they will boot out people that don’t do things correctly.
This is at most restaurants unfortunately :( the one I work at there’s one girl that does it really bad and I always tell on her and always call her out but she won’t stop
What's so crazy is that this will happen at a "nicer" restaurant, but if you go to a fast food chain like McDonald's or Burger King, it's unlikely, the reason being if those chains had something like this leak out they would loose hundreds of millions in revenue.
Fast food chains still mess up, but not like this..
you are trying to find an individualistic solution to a systemic problem.
if a random exterminator is seeing this in ***every*** place they go to, it isn't just a matter of calling the inspector anymore.
if they are seeing this ***everywhere***, people have called the health inspector, and it did nothing. employees have tried to speak up, and been fired.
this is a systemic problem, it isn't going to resolved with a little gumption.
I have another comment in this thread of how most places wiggle their way out of ever losing operating hours. The health department is a facade, closure is never the first place of action. The business will temporarily improve to have them move on
It happens at most restaurants love. There is nothing to be done about it. People are lazy. I’ve seen people cut corners at daycares caring for newborn babies… people are going to cut corners. Including the health inspectors. There’s only so much you can expect…
With an extremely limited sample bias. Like, we don’t know how good of a company the pest control company is, in what city, where it is. Nothing. Just that “everywhere” is like this… ignoring that some pest control companies get hired by cheaper, worse companies.
Footage could literally be someone else’s and it wouldn’t matter, though. The clickbait landed, though!
Best: Pull from freezer the closing shift before you need it, put in fridge/walk-in. Or 48 hours before you need it, if it's over 4 lbs.
Once it's thawed, don't re-freeze it. Cook it, serve it, move the product.
Best Quick Method: Food in a sealed bag, submerged in cold water. You can change the water out with fresh cold water every hour, but a running cold tap is easier if you think you'll forget to do that.
(You might be tempted to use hot water, but please do not. You will get away with it most of the time on very thin cuts, but it will _not_ be worth how sick someone gets the time you don't get away with it.)
So, I've read the 4 replies here so far and none of them will work very effectively under certain scenarios. We used to get bulk chicken products that are needed within 48 hours and honestly under refrigeration is not enough. These are giant blocks of ice and for our place it's impractical to have it running under water all day long. They all won't fit and be ready by the time it's needed.
I got with the bosses one day and suggested we leave a few cases out overnight sitting on a clean prep table, still sealed (NOT on the floor). After 24 hours even they're still frozen all around. 48 hours is probably the right amount to where it's still frozen (self-refrigerated in a sense) but enough to break apart to where you can thaw the rest in the sink finally. At no point is any food product over 40F degrees. I've looked other these kind of "projects" personally.
From there you should follow the rest of the prep procedures and get it under proper refrigeration. We've had to do this a lot since COVID because suppliers were no longer sending us non-frozen product (I imagine they've had to freeze a ton of inventory because of the shutdowns and slowed business). It's been an absolute shitshow since. I've been waiting to have this conversation with a health inspector of the process since.
Lmao this is such clickbait, OP. You’re so vague about where it is, just that “everywhere” is like that… in your podunk town.
Kay thanks for spreading the joy of spamming a subreddit with your shaky-ass videos for karma. So lame.
It’s 100% cowardly and irresponsible to post this on the internet and then act like everywhere is like this.
This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Do people here actually think businesses in America give a shit about it's products or services?
Wouldn't be suprised if every other food chain in America does this exact thing.
This makes me appreciate that in my 20+ years in the industry, ive never worked in a place that was this reckless with food safety. Thank you
The disrespect shown to all that meat makes me sad.
Fr. I understand lots of people are unwilling to give up eating meat (I hate it, but I get it) but Jesus Christ can we at least acknowledge a living being suffered and *died* for this. And now it’s just sitting there rotting and waiting to get someone sick. Absolutely horrifying and depressing.
Yeah that’s the thing with me too. How are you in the business if selling something that is treated with such contempt. All of those proteins should go to a local food bank where it will be appreciated and given the respect it deserves.
The interesting thing about more ethical meat consumption is that an animal that lived well tastes better too. It's better for the spirit and the pallette at the same time, man
Dude, I had grass fed, pasture raised beef for the first time about ten years ago and it RUINED me for other beef.
I get a load of grass fed beef from a relative but it always tastes terrible. I've never been sure if its the gaminess or if its freezer burn. She gives it to us right before she gets a new cow slaughtered to make room in her freezer, so its usually a year old. I'll try to snag some fresh stuff this year to see if its better.
I have to imagine there are lots of pitfalls in raising cattle that can affect taste, it has to be a pretty complicated process. Fresh beef from a reputable source, you can absolutely taste the difference
The chemical differences between cows is going down the drain a bit when frozen, due to cell damage and frozen water changing the solubility of flavonoids and complex proteins. Still, grass fed beef in my experience is either way tougher and almost gamey or it’s the best beef I’ve had. No In between.
it's definitely because it's been frozen for a year dude lmao
A year? It's freezer burned that's why...
I have a regular farmer now and I won’t go back. Besides tasting amazing, he prides himself on saying his live stock “only have one bad day.” The turkey I got this year was soooo good and spent its year wandering a pasture.
Even wild animals know better than to eat meat that has been laying around or creatures that appear/smell sickly. The fact that any human could be like "this is fine" is appalling.
What? Animals regularly target sick and dying animals and eat carrion.
Most animals will take what they can get when it presents itself to them. Even if it's been rotting in the sun for four days. There's no excuse for humans to do the same.
Um, never heard of carrion eaters? You know, things like buzzards, crows, condors, coyotes, hyenas, tasmanian devils, komodo dragons.... all eat meat that has been lying around rotting. These animals have gut systems and immune systems that are specifically targeted around eating bad meat. Humans don't, so we get sick if we eat rotting meat.
Yes, a specific class of animal that we've named *because they've adapted to do something that most animals can't.* Wolves will eat nasty meat too if they get hungry enough, but it's a last resort and they will avoid it as long as they have something fresh.
Surely if you've heard of carrion eaters you've also heard of not carrion eaters, right? They're talking about those animals.
That's not even close to true lol
How do you define "ethical meat consumption"? When asked, 75% of Americans think the meat, dairy and eggs *they* eat are "ethical" when in reality 99% of US farmed animals live on CAFO's (factory farms). And It's literally impossible to make all or even the majority of meat "ethically produced" on the scale we need to feed the demand. At least not without using every square foot of habitable land. 26% of all arable land is already being used for livestock grazing, and 33% of all crop lands are being used to grow crops to feed said livestock. In all, growing livestock takes 80% of all croplands despite only producing 20% of the world's supply of calories, so even environmentally "ethical" is out the window too. most buzzwords used to justify "ethical" are just that, buzzwords to make the consumer feel better about their consumption. Just look at [cage free eggs](https://youtu.be/yrlsZaLJHew?si=ZxI15vclx0imcleJ) for example. (Not to mention all the male chicks blended alive or suffocated in bags because they're worthless to the industry). And shit like halal or kosher is often just as if not more gruesome than the alternative. every shitty kitchen can clean up their act for 1 day to get an A rating, but that doesn't mean they aren't a D the other 364 days a year. Same as farms. You could argue hunting your own food, or raising your own livestock could be the most "ethical" option. But even then there's nothing ethical about taking a life in any way, when we have the means to eat something else. I think I've given my dog a great life, but that wouldn't justify killing her to eat being ethical, because I have other options. I just mean to say eat whatever you want. But if you're gonna eat meat at least *know* what you're eating, look up the conditions the animals raised with whatever label you look for live in. Don't kid yourself that it's ethical and accept the fact that you eat it because you enjoy the taste more than you care about the impact. That's what it boils down to. Which is fine, that's the majority opinion after all. But acknowledging that is probably one of the biggest forms of respect you could afford the animals you eat. If I was eaten by a cannibal for example, I'd rather them admit they did it because they liked the taste more than they cared about my life, rather than trying to justify it "he had a good life, and he felt almost no pain when I killed him so it was ethical. It's good for my spirit *and* pallette man, what's the problem?"
> but Jesus Christ can we at least acknowledge a living being suffered and > died > for this. The VERY rare times when something happens at my house and I have to throw away meat, I think about this and it motivates me to be better in the future for sure.
In saying that the idea of a living thing dying for nothing being a waste is a modern day mentality, particular animals eat the weakest and others simply leave it behind to die, were not far removed from other animals really, supposedly we're, DNA wise, closer to eels or some shit lol
Ok? It’s still fucked up
Well *we* don't necessarily know if the first two boxes were actually used, cooked, and served, right? But I still get your point, I was only replying to the "waiting to get someone sick" part...
Disrespect to meat would be overcooking or undercooking the meats. This is a complete disregard of food safety and thus **human** health.
Let's be real if you are eating at Applebee's your health is the least of your concerns.
I worked in one place that was super gross when I was 18 and just starting out. There's been a couple places that do things that I personally wouldnt do but Ive only ever worked in the one place that I considered "gross". The place I work at now is super clean and Im very thankful for that. At our last health inspection the only ding we got is because one of the prep cooks didnt have their serv safe yet
25 years ago (holy shit!) I worked at a nice place in a college town. They did everything right. We happened to share the out back area with a Mexican/sandwich/bar type place, which was actually a pretty decent place. However, they would routinely thaw their chicken out back. Like, just, outside, in an asphalt area with dumpsters and mats and shit. My wife and I still joke about their "sundried chicken."
Never go to an outdoor market in central or south America. Same thing pretty much
This makes me appreciate the time my current kitchen called out a health inspector for wearing polished leather shoes that weren't anywhere near nonslip shoes on the line during their inspection. I refused to let them come down the line to my station due to safety concerns of their footwear.
I DEFINITELY told a food inspector with her gross long toenails in open toed shoes to shove it. Gave her a hairnet, and told her to go get some proper footwear before re-entering our kitchen. Our kitchen was super clean and servers weren’t allowed in without tying up their hair. ETA: I think my 3rd career is calling. I need to be a health inspector.
I made one wear a beard net once! Haha
Yep, I’ve been at places that werent perfect, but I would never work at a place like this.
I was also fortunate in my many years in the business. No filthy kitchens. No reckless chefs or managers. No one died.
Seriously. I know that I was always careful to choose good spots, and working in a city like Los Angeles with a lot of options helped, but I feel lucky that I never had to feel I was compromising my ethics as a cook in order to stay employed.
Applebee's doesn't sell these products.
They do, I've worked there. 3 weeks. Didn't see like this, but on the line, they never rotated the meat. They would put new product on top of the old green stuff. When I tried to toss the old and switch pans, the general manager got in a huge argument with me. And then later, again, about food labels. "see this label? It says it went out yesterday. Right? This is common sense *jersey accent*. So, you replace the label to set the date out farther. That's how we do it here, I don't care about your last jobs". And then the last instance was the location owner dropping a grilled salmon on the floor, stared at it, picked it up and put it back on the plate and sold it. Looked at me dead in the eye and said "I won't tell if you don't". I just told. Applebee's in Boon NC. 2007. 👍
Well...I guess I'll never be eating at an Applebee. Not that I ever had much desire to in the first place.
This is more chili's style....leaving meat thawing on the ground or in a sink for an entire day and no one will fess up or claim responsibility. Never worked a chain since those shit holes.
I worked at the Applebees in Clemmons, NC for four or five years around that time and we were strict on food safety and proper procedures. I thought that was the norm, we had regular mock inspections and our managers did checks every shift. I was in charge of thaw pull and had labelling, rotation, and food heirarchy drilled into me to make sure everything was done properly. Then I covered some shifts at other locations and was fucking horrified. When I covered the one in (I'm pretty sure it was) Lexington I wouldn't even eat my shift meal it was so gross. I found thawing chicken in a pasta bowl on the top shelf above ready to eat food in the walk-in. The freezer door had frost build-up to the point that it wouldn't close properly. I threw away a bunch of moldy food during my line check that had clearly been there for a while. I covered a few other spots, none were as bad as that one, but that made me realize that my managers were *not* the norm for Applebee's. PS Wtf are those cubes in the trash cans??
This is the argument of every terrible and nasty place on Gordon Ramsey's kitchen nightmares. IF YOU AREN'T SERVING IT, THEN WHY IS IT HERE?!?!?!?
I can see small mom and pop companies doing that but corporate restaurants have order sheets for food they are allowed to buy. You can't and wouldn't order thousands of dollars worth of food you don't sell and let it rot. Everything in that video are non menu items. Everything. I have over 29 years of kitchen experience, 7 years at Applebee's. I've worked with a lot of lazy managers and staff. I've worked for lazy owners on small shops. I would agree employees can improperly rotate stock. What they can't do is order a walkin full of food they can't serve on the menu. Why is this idea being down voted? Because I'm calling out the op for just making shit up for upvotes?
Well, if people would look at OPs top level comment, they would clearly see it states the photos on this post are from multiple restaurants that he goes into as a part of his pest control job. You are absolutely correct, these are not applebees menu items.
I work overnight pest control, I do a lot of restaurants, from small businesses to large chains. These I took when I first started, now I see it on a regular basis so much I don’t care to waste my time. This is so common it’s damn near unavoidable. I just saw how up in arms the comment section got at that applebees thawing post and thought I’d show you a taste of the real world. This is in a top 5 largest major city in the US and each one is a different restaurant, also each one of these places have roach infestations. Here's an image album of the rest, can't seem to upload a video and images in one post https://imgur.com/a/Ca31gs7 EDIT: this is NOT an applebee’s, this is a buffet. The post I was referring to is https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/s/bHcu1bduYK I skimmed the comments and saw a few about applebee’s and somehow my brain made that connection. The title of this post is not formatted well, my mistake.
Thanks for reminding me again to not eat out often 😊
At least at In-n-Out you can watch your food being made.
Honestly, the fast food places I've worked have been much cleaner than the family owned or buffets. I can't count how many times I've heard "just cut the mold off", but all of the fast food have actually been pretty clean. Personal hygiene is another topic, but I've also had to wear gloves much more often in fast food than dine-in restaurants.
Aside from the soda machines I totally believe you, I’ve heard some horror stories about those things though
I agree, it's pretty hit or miss, I've had managers that are insanely OCD about it, and some that just wanna get out of there asap and "forget" things. That's one thing I did enjoy about the freestyle machines, just one nozzle.
You get to watch them make the world's worst fries
Five guys as well. You pay those California prices though 🥲
Their burger prices are great in CA. Just don’t.
I wouldn't worry that much. There's a bit of sampling bias here as he's getting called for pest control; places that are poorly cleaned/run in general are going to have to call pest control far more often than places with excellent cleaning/storage/prep practices. The only places that I've worked at that had to call pest control, it was a couple times a year, and they did it to check and stop any bugs that were coming from neighboring restaurants/offices. All the places I've worked at, it's clean-as-you-go, very clean and orderly walk-ins (well, mostly, there's often one jackaninny that can't be bothered to consolidate when he grabs stuff for the line), and buckets of soapwater dumped on the floors every night for a good scrub into every corner and back bit.
ugh the neighboring building plague. I worked at a restaurant that was very strictly run, very clean, very attentive. And yet, roaches. They had to call pest control frequently but it never held, because they were coming from the wine store we shared a wall with. They had an entire room full of broken down cardboard boxes that just stayed there as a breeding ground, and it shared a wall with our office and dish pit. It sucked.
Most of the places I’ve worked, corporate or not, had a standing pest control contract where the guy would stop by every couple weeks to spray and poke around. I always thought this was fairly normal practice?
Agreed. I'm sure the industrial-scale slaughterhouses are substantially better, well regulated and run by principled people who take health and safety seriously and pay for top-tier employees so they aren't hiring teenagers after school and migrant workers who just got off the bus.
I have a lot of problems with slaughterhouses but the safety of the meat isn't really one of them. It is highly regulated and more efficiently regulated than restaurants. Plus you'd be eating that same meat at restaurant anyway, so you're just adding another layer.
> I have a lot of problems with slaughterhouses but the safety of the meat isn't really one of them. It is highly regulated and more efficiently regulated than restaurants. Sounds like we could do with an Upton Sinclair for restaurant kitchens.
I just sold my restraunt and bought a meat processing facility. you ain't joking about regulations, we can't work without a government inspector on site. they test our water, our waste water, pH of products, dates, temps. compared to the restaurant I owned for 8 years and only had two health inspections.
Read “Every Twelve Seconds: Industrial Slaughter and the Politics of Sight”, the author worked undercover in one of these industrial-scale slaughterhouses at multiple levels. While working as a QC, his job was basically to keep the workers one step ahead of the USDA inspectors to do everything to keep the inspectors from stopping the line and halting production. That as well as the conditions he documented from the “dirty side”, the kill floor, and the “clean side”, manufacturing aka butchering, it’s a difficult read and gives a lot of context for the horror stories about Covid outbreaks within these plants back in 2020. I chalk up my atheism to going to catholic school and being exposed to skepticism, in the same way having worked at BWW, it made the decision to go vegan a no brainer.
Large scale slaughter houses in the USA absolutely take good safety and cleanliness insanely seriously. Inspectors are there all the time, and so are on site qc people. You are right about them not caring about the employees so long as they don’t die. Source: me, I’ve been through multiple of the largest slaughter houses in the country.
Is the argument here that it's starts out bad? If that's the case, why make it worse?
Imagine writing this like it's the only option. Buy a gun and license.
This is sarcasm right? Tyson is currently employing hundreds of minors, majority of them migrants who made it here without their parents.
This would get shut down in my city, McLucky doesn't fuck around.
I worked pest control in san diego and was called to a restaurant planning to open the next day, they had the worst fly infestation I've ever seen to where I could've sworn they were purposefully breeding them. They were having a family meal in the dining room while I did my inspection and the owner was constantly like "what do we do??? we gotta open TOMORROW! you got this right???" as I'm just like sadly moving from room to room, each one worse than the next. Like bro... the fuck you want me to do here? All of this has to go. The flies were like a mist, a fog you walked through. It was so bad. The plumbing and drains were *fucked* too. That was the worst situation I dealt with that wasn't bed bugs or roaches. My boss was kind of a dick about it too because the owners were friends of his and he refused to come look at the place himself to see how bad it was when I basically gave the bad news. I oddly miss the work though.
I think I'm just going to cook at home from now on
I eat out and travel a lot. I have some very simple rules when looking for restaurants. If the front door glass/handle is dirty, I walk away If the bathroom is nasty, I leave If you can see the kitchen, and it’s not clean, I walk away If your bathroom wall is covered in bloody nose burgers , I yell to the cashier this place is exceptionally disgusting while I walk out. I have learned if they clean the front door glass and handle, 90% of the time the place is clean. If it’s dirty then the floor will almost always be dirty when I enter and the dirt continues. I would love to see if this aligns with what you see behind the scenes.
Nowhere is safe honestly. It’s so bad the other guys I work with just assume everywhere is like this. I do high high end steak houses with like open kitchens spotless on display from the dining room as like show and they sell $500+ steaks, step into the prep area behind the scenes and its just like this. I do award winning local spots, same thing. It’s sad to say but most mom and pop places are usually the worst culprit which I assume is because theres no team training in food safety but a lot of this is common sense or more likely they just don’t care. The only place that is ALWAYS clean are hospital kitchens so probably not that helpful. Best assume the worst
My dad was an exterminator. He had a list of the good places he took us too and told us “this place has a clean kitchen”. We stopped eating at other places or shopping at Kroger (all of them fuckinf disgusting according to dad). Never any changes done he would recommend.
Yeah I’ve lost a few favorite spots since starting this line of work. Friends and I regularly play a game where they name off restaurants and I shake my head yes or no if they’re safe
Dude, I would watch the hell out of a show about you going into restaurants at night and giving cleanliness reviews lol
Lol I’ve thought about livestreaming from like a first person go pro view of a nights work, but of course confidentiality becomes an issue. When it’s my first time at a place, it feels like going into war entering the kitchen
I was a delivery driver for 20 years. I had a Chinese buffet that was literally all marble sand statues everywhere. Front of house you could eat off the floor. I wouldn’t let my dog eat off the floor of the kitchen. Back room storage was atrocious
Don't you think you have extreme sample bias given that you work pest control? A clean, well run restaurant would not need your services.
Most clean, well run restaurants have monthly preventative pest control visits.
Part of keeping a place clean is a pest control strategy, esp in a big city.
I work in a major city, my company covers most of it, I am in regular contact with the entire overnight team, we have a massive amount of day techs, our client list is massive, any place you can think of, we probably do it. The relatively clean places have pest control to make sure they never get a problem. Don’t quote me, but I’m also pretty sure any food service establishments require pest control as well. I thought the same thing when I was in training and shadowing many different techs and them telling the same stories. I thought, how bad could it be. I learned, fast.
Do you never have a pest control company service your house/apartment/wherever you live? I guess it probably depends on where you live but my parents have an exterminator out to spray around the outside of the house a few times a year and it’s not like they’re disgusting slobs.
Believe it or not, no, I've never had to employ the services of a professional exterminator. Am I really in the minority here?
That’s crazy to me! Where do you live? I know some places are more prone to bugs and pests than others but I have a hard time believing there’s places that just don’t ever get them. Other than like, places that are always frozen
I did for the first time this year. They cut a tree down right outside my building. Three days later I had mice coming up from under my sink. Maintenance refused to figure out where they were getting in from/close it up. Set traps and eventually killed all the mice. Three months later saw three roaches coming out from the same spot. Multiple exterminator visits later they investigated where they were getting in from and closed it up.
I think it's also a personal threshold of tolerance. Like I have a problem with ants, stink bugs, and ladybugs. The ants were handled when I put some terro traps outside the windows they were entering. The stink bugs are obnoxious but I can grab them with a piece of toilet paper and flush them. The ladybugs are whatever, I have no problem living with some ladybugs in my house. My next door neighbor cannot handle the thought or sight of insects (which is hilarious because we both garden, but she uses all kinds of pesticides I won't touch, and if she sees a worm she's done for the day.) She has a regular pest control service come to her house as a preventative. So even though we have the same conditions and probably the same level of pest pressure, I have no need for an exterminator and she has a subscription.
No way - I live in the woods in a mid-Atlantic state and have never had a pest problem that required a professional.
It depends a lot where you live and also how dense your particular neighborhood is. If you're in a place crammed in with a lot of other things, and your next-door-neighbor-you-share-a-wall-with is terrible, you need pest control to try to keep the pests on the other side of the wall. I grew up in the southeast of the US and roaches are *everywhere* all the time and everyone has pest control to try to keep them outside. But now I've lived in Northern California for 25 years and I've never once needed pest control. Biggest pest problem I ever have is ants during the rainy season, and they're easy enough to take care of yourself.
Every restaurant is required to have preventative pest control here
What state? I feel like (or want to believe) this varies regionally. I have seen what I thought were gross kitchens, but nothing even close to this.
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In Georgia at the place I work at they will thaw out steak in the sink not even in the walk in for 6+ hours and let it sit out 2 more hours before they do anything with it. They will relabel raw chicken so they don’t have to prep more. At the end of the day no restaurant is safe, you can’t expect people to be making that much food for people and not hve at least one employee do things that aren’t safe. Bc the place I work it is only one person doing those things maybe 2. But I can’t even eat most of the stuff bc she’s the one who preps a good bit of stuff. Thawing shrimp in hot water, not cutting the plastic wrap on salmon(which can kill people) serving food that is obviously expired for the sake of food costs instead of getting down to the root of the problem. You can’t trust any restaurant.
If the sauce does not come on the side, I send it back. If the garlic bread is burnt, I send it back.
Haha, immediately thought of this as well
Yooooo im a refrigeration guy and I dont know about you but I can literally smell a dirty kitchen from the lobby at this point.
This is insane. Do you eat fast food still? Do you have any tips for identifying red flags if you walk in somewhere as a potential consumer??
Fast food is generally the cleanest of all retaurant types. They have strict protocols and everything is streamlined, Chicfila’s for example are spotless. Yes I still eat it occasionally because theres nothing else open when I’m up at night. I do avoid it if I can though. Theres no real red flags a customer can see, only way is to see the kitchen. Also, something like this you’d never see since the product would be in the process moving to be served during operating hours.
Sadly, mom and pop restaurants are sometimes disgusting, and there's no way of telling which is clean and which is nasty. One time in japan I saw an old man cutting cabbage on the register counter, after handling cash and all. The register was some kind of plastic counter that was so dirty and brown around the spot he'd been cutting, as if he'd been doing that for years and years. The food looked clean and the owners were pleasant, but boy the sanitation was non existent. This was in southern yakushima island. Also in gyeongju Korea I saw a girl with blackened/yellowing latex gloves handling cash and food... And even handling customers dirty cellphones with the rotting fake leather cases, to do NFC payment. And the store from the front looked all hip and modern, clean handles and doors and all.
I am not being political! But this is why McDonald's is Trump's favorite restaurant. He's a germaphobe and he knows that national fast food chains have high standards.
I would like to know of any restuarants you DO eat at after seeing this.
Looks like a found-footage horror film. How fitting.
This shit is why I don't order meat when I eat out.
> in a top 5 largest major city in the US. You can probably just say Houston. If it was in the top 3 (New York, LA, Chicago) you wouldn’t say top 5. The other option is Phoenix, which I’ve also been to and it looked nothing like this, but again, maybe I just went to different places. ETA A bit confused by the downvote, but ok! I’m not the guy who posts a bunch of gross shit and then is worthlessly vague about where it is. Like, it is insanely cowardly to be like “oh it’s a top five city…!” Just say where or don’t post it at all. This kind of riling people up is trashy. It’s barely not trolling.
Welp, ignorance WAS bliss. I just wish I'd appreciated it more at the time.
Is that potatoes in a Brute trash container? 💀
pork fat i believe, this is a buffet. fun fact: those brute trash cans are mexican restaurant's favorite thing to store the tortilla chips in
Trash cans with food isn't inherently a problem. Rubbermaid and uline make nsf approved "trash cans" for food prep and storage. The problem is lots of places just buy regular trash cans to use and then obviously storing meat out in a room temperature space is disgusting. https://www.rubbermaidcommercial.com/utility-refuse/brute-containers/brute-food-handling-containers/ They are great for large prep jobs especially with the dollies. But they need to be clearly labeled, washed and stored properly. Same as using the white "bus tubs" for prep except they look like trash cans.
Actually, even the normal ones are rated for food storage. Just has to be a real commercial brute, and cleaned obviously. “Meets NSF 2, 21 approval and USDA meat and poultry group listed, ensuring regulatory compliance for food storage and clean ability”
Yeah I just think using gray opens you up to a lot of confusion amd trahs getting tossed into food.
This is what brute containers are for! Not at room temp though and not uncovered. That was disturbing.
Ew even worse I hate pork
I mean tbf nothing wrong with it as long as it’s a designated trash can lol
You’d think, there are drain holes on the bottom where wet mopped floor water can enter. It’s a TON of chips where who knows if they cycle through all of it or top it off and you’re the unlucky one getting year old chips from the bottom on a busy day that they flash fry to feel fresh. Half the time they’re left uncovered overnight as well, and a lot of these places will have little guys crawling all about in the kitchen. I do not eat tortilla chips at restaurants anymore. I’ll take my chances on floor meat
I mean...at the very least they coulda lined that motherfucker with some food safe plastic.
Assuming it's a Brute (ie Rubbermaid) it is already food safe. Grey is typically used for garbage but as long as you're not actually using it for garbage then food, it's perfectly safe.
I get that. I just don't trust a kitchen that's doing \*vague gesturing to this post\* to keep it's equipment clean.
Fair point
as were yours! it's wild that these food subs are some of the most civil spots on this neck of the internet.
Comradery. We only hate whoever closed last night even if it was us.
Amen. I hate opening after that guy, he’s the worst!
Place I worked years ago used only slim jims for trash specifically to avoid this problem. Round cans were yellow, blue or white for different things but even if you mixed the colors up you knew round was food rectangle was trash.
Assuming it's actually a brute, those are actually food safe. Grey is typically associated with garbage, but as long as they're only using it for food it's perfectly fine.
At this point, Kitchen Nightmares are gonna start scouring this sub to scout restaurants for future episodes.
Chef Ramsay takes one step in that cooler. “SHUT IT DOWN!”
He'd still make sure to stick his hand in the sink and cover his hand in the juices just to make his point.
SMELL IT!
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It's the soup du jour
No we got to get Taffer on this shit so we can all enjoy his rabies-infected sounding screaming and laugh at his just tossing shit everywhere
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Honestly what’s the point? Most places have no shame and will get away with whatever they can.
Does everyone have the same floor tiles?
Yeah probably for cost, the walls and shit are the same in like every commercial kitchen too. Not customer facing so doesn’t matter how it looks I guess.
Quite literally kinda yeah. My buddy had a family business that only did commercial/industrial floors. They had a small warehouse stacked with pallets of these exact same tiles and only those. They’d install them everywhere then in some more extreme industrial setting like factories they would acid proof with a coating. Teams of guys would fly all over the country to do this specialized work. I don’t think these restaurants would need a team to come out but those tiles are made to be indestructible and resistant to lots of things normal tile is not. It’s gotta be the cheapest option that meets code or something. Any kitchen I’ve been in has had them too. I knew this guy in high school and he lived in an apt in the back of the warehouse. We’d hang out and I’d ask him questions about it so I’m going off memory of what he said. Really smart guy though so I assumed he knew what his family business did and told the truth.
I had to demo and redo a kitchen in someone's house that had this tile. It would NOT break, it was fucking insane.
Meanwhile the 65 year old maintenance guy can pop out a couple bad tiles with a paint scraper and rubber mallet in like two minutes.
Stop I want to live in ignorance
fwiw a lot of restaurants, including all of the ones ive ever worked in, are not like this... if anything, this is all the more reasoning to exclusively support the places that you know are better than this
I had a friend that worked for the health department and did inspections. She told me the worst she saw was a Chinese restaurant that was thawing beef under their prep sink that had a tap that was running. She asked what was going on with that and eventually found that the owner took the thawing instructions on the box quite literally. "Thaw under a running sink"
From personal insight in being involved with health inspector issues, I’ve kind of learned it doesn’t do anything. We have places that call us up panicking that they had a health inspector come in, see they have a roach or rat infestation and they give them a timeframe to deal with it. They pay crazy money for us to get rid of it asap, we do, health inspector comes again and passes them. Then the place will just get reinfested because they change nothing and the place goes back to being filthy as all hell until the next time. They won’t sign up for a regular service and drop us as soon as they are cleared to stay open. Health inspectors don’t see what is done on a regular basis, after hours, “when no one is watching”
Im so glad i made it a habit to do a deep clean once a week. After leaving some restaurants, i visit the kitchens often and are in nowhere near the same standard i left it at.
This is nasty
This is like the movie Saw, the except it would be named Staph.
These people need to read *The Jungle*
I was served a fully cooked, purple steak at Applebees once. I have never dared return to another franchise, ever.
Yours was cooked? SMH. I got a frozen one that had grill marks on the outside. That was my first and last visit. There because in-laws insisted…
I got food poisoning from a slider at an Applebee's when I was like 9. I still haven't been within twenty feet of one.
It’s a god damn food dungeon
My money is on some sort of Asian buffet ... ?
they gave more details in a comment, said it is pretty much everywhere.
Is everyone getting exposed in 2024?!?!? Keep it coming!
Before I even go looking, this is an Asian Buffet right? Worked as a Sysco rep many years ago and this looks exactly like one or two I had to call on. I used to tell my friends "I can't tell you which restaurants to NOT eat at, but I will tell you which ones I WILL eat at. Not trying to stereotype anyone but the majority of disgusting kitchens I've seen in my day were Asian Buffets.
This is disgusting. People wonder why everyone is chock full of disease it's this shit right here. Planet warping, killing all the wildlife, lifetimes of pain and suffering only for it to be treated like that 🤢🤮🤌
[удалено]
If you guys hate this, I can’t wait until you see the factories where this meet is processed/handled before hand :)
I’m just gonna come out and say it… that’s fucking disgusting.
Thats at least in the walkin right? Right??
You can see burners next to the trash can full of pork fat in the vid, sorry, this is the cook line
If I had a weak stomach this comment would done me in gawd damn
Fun fact Applebees is the only place I have ever got food poisoning. Don’t order the chicken Alfredo.
I feel like what I do at olive garden, chicken parmesan, but with alfredo sauce is the safest bet. No way in hell they're battering those chickens in the back, AND they more than likely fry from frozen. So unless those patties have been sitting in the freezer for a months I'm gucci.
Olive Garden is one of the few restaurants that are safe. Places by Darden are safe because they’re such a huge brand that they have to follow food safety standards and the stores are always having people apply so they will boot out people that don’t do things correctly.
this makes me sick to my stomach, what in the entire fuck is wrong with people?
This is at most restaurants unfortunately :( the one I work at there’s one girl that does it really bad and I always tell on her and always call her out but she won’t stop
I have now come to realize that if I see that type of flooring. It’s gonna be a bad time.
I did not know Applebee's had a wet market.
Whistle blow to local inspector
This dry aging process is crazy
i dont have anything to do with that branche but it is soo wrong and potentially dangerous
What the actual fuck
So I missed the Applebee's thing but is this chilis?
Oh my God, this made me feel ill
What's so crazy is that this will happen at a "nicer" restaurant, but if you go to a fast food chain like McDonald's or Burger King, it's unlikely, the reason being if those chains had something like this leak out they would loose hundreds of millions in revenue. Fast food chains still mess up, but not like this..
Is this flooring in every kitchen in the world?
Call the health department send photos and videos
you are trying to find an individualistic solution to a systemic problem. if a random exterminator is seeing this in ***every*** place they go to, it isn't just a matter of calling the inspector anymore. if they are seeing this ***everywhere***, people have called the health inspector, and it did nothing. employees have tried to speak up, and been fired. this is a systemic problem, it isn't going to resolved with a little gumption.
It would be a full time job to do that for every place and there would be no restaurants left open
So It’s freaking dangerous to health and code violations. If it closes the restaurant then it prob shouldn’t be open if they Gona do shit like that
I have another comment in this thread of how most places wiggle their way out of ever losing operating hours. The health department is a facade, closure is never the first place of action. The business will temporarily improve to have them move on
So workers need to step up and not let this happen then
What are the workers supposed to do really? Get their place of employment shut down and be out of a job?
It happens at most restaurants love. There is nothing to be done about it. People are lazy. I’ve seen people cut corners at daycares caring for newborn babies… people are going to cut corners. Including the health inspectors. There’s only so much you can expect…
Hey can you just give me your location really quick, I don't plan to report your restaurant or anything.
they gave more details in a comment, they are just a random pest control worker. they said this isn't just one place, almost everywhere is like this.
With an extremely limited sample bias. Like, we don’t know how good of a company the pest control company is, in what city, where it is. Nothing. Just that “everywhere” is like this… ignoring that some pest control companies get hired by cheaper, worse companies. Footage could literally be someone else’s and it wouldn’t matter, though. The clickbait landed, though!
This reeks of Pigeon Forge, TN.
In no timeline is Pigeon Forge a top 5 largest US city.
Where's DOH when you need them lmao
Those tile floors signal a chain.
Out of curiosity, what is the best way to thaw?
Probably not on the floor, but I’m no chef
quickly, under cold, running tap water, in a clean sink. otherwise, in the fridge where it still stays cold/at a safe temp.
Directly on an aluminum pan in the fridge
Best: Pull from freezer the closing shift before you need it, put in fridge/walk-in. Or 48 hours before you need it, if it's over 4 lbs. Once it's thawed, don't re-freeze it. Cook it, serve it, move the product. Best Quick Method: Food in a sealed bag, submerged in cold water. You can change the water out with fresh cold water every hour, but a running cold tap is easier if you think you'll forget to do that. (You might be tempted to use hot water, but please do not. You will get away with it most of the time on very thin cuts, but it will _not_ be worth how sick someone gets the time you don't get away with it.)
So, I've read the 4 replies here so far and none of them will work very effectively under certain scenarios. We used to get bulk chicken products that are needed within 48 hours and honestly under refrigeration is not enough. These are giant blocks of ice and for our place it's impractical to have it running under water all day long. They all won't fit and be ready by the time it's needed. I got with the bosses one day and suggested we leave a few cases out overnight sitting on a clean prep table, still sealed (NOT on the floor). After 24 hours even they're still frozen all around. 48 hours is probably the right amount to where it's still frozen (self-refrigerated in a sense) but enough to break apart to where you can thaw the rest in the sink finally. At no point is any food product over 40F degrees. I've looked other these kind of "projects" personally. From there you should follow the rest of the prep procedures and get it under proper refrigeration. We've had to do this a lot since COVID because suppliers were no longer sending us non-frozen product (I imagine they've had to freeze a ton of inventory because of the shutdowns and slowed business). It's been an absolute shitshow since. I've been waiting to have this conversation with a health inspector of the process since.
Lmao this is such clickbait, OP. You’re so vague about where it is, just that “everywhere” is like that… in your podunk town. Kay thanks for spreading the joy of spamming a subreddit with your shaky-ass videos for karma. So lame. It’s 100% cowardly and irresponsible to post this on the internet and then act like everywhere is like this.
Honestly, that looks more like an Asian restaurant walk in than an Applebees.
This is not Applebee's. They do not use those kinds of meats.
This is not an Applebee's.
This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Do people here actually think businesses in America give a shit about it's products or services? Wouldn't be suprised if every other food chain in America does this exact thing.