We all know fast food isn't really good food. It's more like fried something on top of fried something else with a touch of oil, butter, and salt for taste.
But what we don't see is the behind the scenes stuff. We don't see where those patties come from, or how those chicken nuggets are cooked. We don't get to see what the employees see. But they are trying to warn us about the perils of eating their products. We best listen.
u/sniffler420 asked:
Fast food workers of Reddit, what should we NOT order at your restaurant? And why?
Here were some of those cautionary answers.
We're Sorry, Your Order Is Extinct
GiphyCurrent Wendy's employee here.
Don't be the *ss that orders a T-Rex Burger (a 9, 4 oz patty burger). First of all, they are basically a one way ticket to the emergency room. Second, we can barely wrap that thing without it falling over since it's so tall. Lastly, go spend the $20 that the sandwich costs on food that's actually worth a damn.
Still amazes me when people order that sh*t.
Fresh As Fast Food Can Be
I work at Zaxbys and you shouldn't order anything with a fried filet instead of the fried fingers. The filets are way less popular so they sit in the pan for a long time. The fingers are much more popular and are getting made constantly so they are always more fresh.
This Ain't In-N-Out, Kids
Former starbucks worker here. Please don't order anything off the "Secret Menu". It doesn't exist.
If you want a snickerdoodle, nuttella, or captain crunch frappuchino (or whatever other overly sugery thing someone has since come out with), know the base drink and the modifications, and order that. If you just say the name, it's up to the barista to come up with what's in the drink, and it may not be what the last barista you ordered from put in there.
Clean Restaurant Or Clean Food?
I worked the night shift at McDonald's.
During the day, the restaurant is busy and the food is fine. At night, the poor guy left alone on the line is not only tasked with making all the food, but also cleaning up the huge mess from day shift. We're talking grease splatters on the sides of garbage cans, scraping semi-dried mayonnaise out of the dispensers, etc.
It's really annoying to be cleaning and have a random customer show up at the drive-up window and have to stop everything, wash your hands, change your gloves, make their food, then go back to cleaning. I've seen so many nasty-*ss people make your sandwich with literal trash grease or mop-wringer water on their gloves because they got annoyed that you interrupted them. I NEVER eat at a McD between 11pm and 5am.
Just Turn On The Faucet
Bdubs (Buffalo Wild Wings)- everything is frozen. Stay away from the burgers especially. I've seen so much raw chicken go out, so disgusting. If you come in at a non-peak hour your wings have probably been sitting in the warmer for an hour.
It's unbelievable to me that so many food workers don't wash their hands!!!
I've been a bartender for half a decade and I'm CONSTANTLY washing my hands- mostly for my own benefit. I don't want nasty customer germs on my hands anymore than they want my germs!!
Not Fresh But Yet Not Frozen
Panera- pasta; it's all microwaved, this includes Mac and cheese. Smoothies/frozen drinks- nasty base crap that smells and it's sticky. Cupcakes/coffee cakes- all come frozen. Best items are the real sandwhich/ salads. Real ingredients and usually fresh.
Read The Room
Used to work at Dairy Queen Grill and Chill aka ice cream and food. Not sure if it's all locations, but I followed the book in terms of throwing older food out and making it fresh as we go. So if it's a slow day I'm not going to give you a patty that's been sitting in the warmer for an hour. I'm throwing a frozen patty on the grill and you'll get it fresh. If you ask for fries with no salt because of dietary restrictions or if it's slow. I won't have a problem doing so. If it's busy and you do it AND then ask for salt on the side. You can wait for your fries.
The chili comes in a big can, nothing special.
The fruits for the ice cream aren't fresh. We did chop all our vegetables fresh though. Ice cream comes in big ol' (not old) boxes that are stored in the cooler and run through pipes to the machines out front.
The only thing that's really fresh and not frozen are the buns, veggies, and cheeses. It's also been over 5 years since I've worked there so things might have changed.
Beware The Teriyaki
Panda Express cook here Depending on the management, the kitchen and back are very well kept and clean. We prep veggies and meats everyday, but most of the sauces are prepackaged. Some stores will burn the sh*t out of the teriyaki chicken, because they don't scrape the grill after making a batch. But working there hasn't killed my love of panda Express so take that as you will.
Only The Coffee, Nothing Else
This isn't a fast food restaurant, but i work at 7-Eleven.
Do's: 1.drink our coffee. we change it every 4 hours so it's pretty much always fresh.
Dont's:
- Drink our tea. Some stores are okay because they have a liner in the tea pot to make sure it stays clean, but old run down 7-Elevens don't. When i go to a store and remake the tea without a liner it smells like sewer water.
- Eat our "Tornados or Roller Dogs." We only clean the "grill" once a night. they have caked on grease and old food from way way back.
- Eat our "Bakery" anything. This includes our muffins, sausage rolls, or donuts. Workers come at night to restock the bakery items so they're only fresh at around 11:30pm. They will sit there until the next night. I've also seen a worker completely drop several trays of donuts and then just put them right into the display case. Customers also never use gloves or the papers to grab them. disgusting when they can't even use the bathrooms correctly.
Meatballs? Nah.
GiphyUsed to work in like 4 different Subways. Not a single one heated, stored, or reheated meatballs correctly or safely. They are only good for like 6 hours once heated. No one follows that. If you come in before lunch and order meatballs, those meatballs have been heated in the microwave twice (once the day before and again in the morning).
Seriously, you are better off buying your own bag of frozen meatballs, a can of spaghetti sauce, and a bag of hoagie buns.
Also the cold cut combo? It is literally just bologna. It comes prepackaged and smells like farts when you open the bag.
Not The Drink You're Looking For
Former Starbucks Barista
A caramel macchiato is just an upside down vanilla latte with a caramel drizzle on top. I promise you you cannot taste the difference. Save the money and calories. There is no caramel flavor in that macchiato. That drizzle just clumps to your cup and adds nothing to the drink.
Eat...Fresh?
Used to work at a Sonic several years ago back in high school. Although it won't make you sick or taste noticeably different, the soft serve and milkshake machines are actually fairly gross. They're a major pain in the ass to clean, and it takes upwards of an hour even if you're good at it, so most stores don't do it as often as they should, and you end up with hoses, fittings, and milk buckets gunked up with chunky solids.
No Scrub, No Nugs
GiphyWorked at a Hardee's. You're probably better off not ordering chicken. Like at all. Health code states you're supposed to thoroughly wash your hands before and after handling any raw product, especially chicken. A lot of employees, especially during rushes or when they're by themselves, won't wash at all or will run their hands under some hot water for a few seconds. And yeah they usually wear gloves but not always and if you start touching things with chicken juice on your hands, you've basically contaminated the entire line. So probably just don't get anything.
Celiacs Beware
Wendy's is pretty good overall, but we say we're gluten free. We are in a sense that we will give you lettuce instead of a bun but, if you're a celiac you're going to have a reaction from our food. Bread crumbs fall into the sauces, fries are cooked with breaded nuggets, the utensils and gloves touch the bread all day and then your burger. There's so much cross contamination it will make your stomach turn just thinking about it. If you're a celiac I advise not going to Wendy's.
Pizza Hut Two Three Four
Worked at Pizza Hut. Don't order a large cheese or pepperoni pizza before 6/7 on a Friday or Saturday. Often the first duty of the 4-10 shift those nights was to premake 10-20 of each of those to save time during the dinner rush. Same thing for big lunch orders that are placed in advance, those pizzas were probably made around closing the night before.
They really aren't gross for any sanitation reasons or whatever, but they're just not as good.
What Rots And What Doesn't Rot
Former McDonald's employee here. It's all so gross. I get that it tastes good, but that thing about how the meat, bread and fries don't rot is 100% true. I've seen burgers and fries left in some corner somewhere for months. Real food would stink bad enough that you would have to find it and clean it up. Also know this from experience. The McFood just gets hard as a rock, but looks basically the same. This you can't avoid at any McDonald's.
On the other side of the spectrum the milk products do rot. The shake and ice cream machine never works because no one cleans it properly. Same deal with the McCafe machine.
They would train one or two people how to do a thorough cleaning on these machines when we first got them. That training knowledge left with them when they quit. This may have been the franchise owner I worked for, but this woman gave absolutely z e r o fucks about health code regulations... or labor laws for that matter.
The only things I will still get from there are the regular coffee bottled water and oatmeal. The rest I don't trust to be conforming with health standards.
Do you ever wonder what it must've been like to experience major events throughout world history when reading about them in text books?
But if you take pause and actually think about it, we're living through many newsworthy current events that succeeding generations will be talking about long after we're gone.
Reading about them online or in newspapers is one thing. But seeing them happen unfold before our eyes is another.
Curious to hear from those who'll have anecdotes to tell in the future, Redditor "What is the most historically significant event you witnessed IN PERSON?"
People recall the natural disaster events they've witnessed.
Tremors
"1964 Good Friday Earthquake 9.2 Richter. Was a boy in Cordova, Alaska at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
"My father was skipper of the USCG cutter stationed there. He was inport, and when the quake struck shortly before 5:30pm, he and my mom gathered me and my three siblings on the front porch. At first, it felt like the house was crumbling at the foundation, but on the porch we could plainly see our whole world was shaking. I remember watching telephone poles swaying, and the wires snapping and crackling in the street. The quake lasted about five minutes initially. My dad got his ship underway to avoid the tidal wave which was sure to come. We had several aftershocks in the coming weeks, some of which were quite strong, though nowhere near as strong or as long as the quake itself. I was seven at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
Collapsing Freeway
"October 17th, 1989. I watched the 880 Nimitz freeway collapse during the San Francisco earthquake. The Honda in front of me had the upper deck crush her front-end engine compartment. The mother and her daughter were shaken up but completely fine."
"I was driving a convertible Triumph Spitfire, which was scratched up slightly from debris. However, I walked away unscathed. Aside from the fact I pissed my pants, which I didn't notice until much later."
– CatDaddyWhisper
Thar She Blows
"I sat on the roof of our house and watched Mt. St. Helens erupt less than 100 miles away."
– stinkykitty71
"This must have been fascinating and terryfing in equal measure. What a thing to witness."
– runrossyrun
"It was amazing! The ash that covered everything like snow was interesting to kid me, but less so to my parents."
– stinkykitty71
People recall seeing major catastrophes as a result of malfunctions or judgement errors.
Bomber Crash
"The b-52 crash that led to changing what large military aircraft are allowed to do for airshows."
"I didn't see the plane, but immediately saw the fireball. It was just a perfect, bright red turning to black mushroom cloud."
"Fairchild is a nuclear air base and there were a few minutes there where I was sure the world was about to end."
"A few years before a KC-135 doing the same thing crashed near the school while we were in class."
– goffstock
Tragic Takeoff
"I was standing on my front porch watching the launch of the Challenger."
– StarChaser_Tyger
"Was riding in my parents car to a basketball game in the next town over in north texas when we saw a shooting star and thought that was neat."
"It was the Columbia..."
– Misdirected_Colors
Demolition Gone Wrong
"The failed implosion of the Zip feed mill in Sioux Falls, SD in 2005."
"They hyped it up, sold tickets to it, had a big 'BOOM' marketing thing, and broadcast it live on TV."
"The explosives took out the main supports on the first floor, and the rest of the building above it just plopped down 10ft or so and came to a rest. It was a massive failure, and was a funny little blurb on news stations around the world that day. Definitely not major news, just the rest of the world taking 20 seconds to laugh at us."
"The building sat like that (the leaning tower of SuFu) for quite a while until they figured out how to safely demolish it."
"Here's a clip of the failed demolition."
– KitchenBandicoots
These well-known historical events were seen by very few who are alive today.
Historical Remnant
"The tumbling of the Wall in Germany… along with people selling bits and pieces of it on tables in lobby in front of commissary and px in the following weeks and months. I had picked up a chunk about the size of an oreo and kept it… has blue spray paint on the flat side. Wonder if anyone is buying them now?"
– SingedPenguin13
Major Upheaval
"I would have to say the LA riots. I lived about two blocks from where it started. I was on my way home from school and saw someone throw a brick through a window. I didn’t even wait. I just started running the whole way home."
– Scarlaymama0721
Day Of Infamy
"9/11, I could SMELL the collapse of the towers."
– go4tli
"A friend of mine was there. One day in the warehouse we worked in together there was an odd electrical burning smell. He stopped in his tracks and went 'this is what 9/11 smelled like.'"
– mantistoboggan287
I didn't physically witness the fall of the World Trade Center but I was living in New York City at the time.
However, I did see the smoke.
I was living up north in Washington Heights at the time and knowing what happened, uncertain of what was to come, and seeing the plumes of smoke from the attack site was the most ominous sight I've ever seen in my life to date.
Have you ever lived through a historic moment or witnessed something sure to be noted in history books? Let us know in the comments below.
