Whatever your reasoning for going out to eat, a restaurant should provide a sense of comfort, like a "home away from kitchen." A good meal and welcome staff should be par for the course when you walk in the doors. We tend to remember an eating establishment for all the wrong reasons when it doesn't meet those standards, especially the food.
Reddit user, erdaca, wanted to hear the worst of the worst when they asked:
What's the worst food you've ever been served at a restaurant (let's think Kitchen Nightmares)?
That Eatery Was Never Going To Last Long
Went to a pizza place that had just opened near my work. We were the only ones there, which should have been a red flag. I ordered a calzone, and my wife ordered a salad.
Waited about 45 minutes for the food, with no waiter or other employee in sight. I walked into the kitchen to ask about our food, and they said it would be out in a minute. About 15 minute later, they bring my calzone, no salad. I cut it open, and it is very undercooked - raw dough, cold, unmelted cheese, and the sausage is still frozen. Go back to the kitchen again, they say the chef will be right out.
He comes out and asks what is wrong - I show him the calzone and ask about the salad. He says "we don't sell salad." At that point, we got up and left.
Long story short - it's a 5 guys now.
Pick Your Battles
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When I was around 10, a McDonald's hamburger with a large chunk of splintery, soggy wood in the patty. My mom took it back to the counter and got a replacement, but I wouldn't eat it.
The manager later came over and gave me an apple pie.
That, I ate.
A Point Of Pride With Your Buddies
Taco Bell Nacho Bell Grande, wasn't me but my mom. She got about 2/3 of the way through the thing and found a whole molar sitting in cheese, a human molar. It was so big with the root and all, about made me puke.
We called them they asked us to bring it back, my dad refused and stuck it in the freezer for the GM to stop by and look at it. Not sure if he ever did, I was already grown but I remember it being in the freezer for awhile and showing my friends when we stopped by.
At Least They Were Evenly Distributed? Right?
I got a frozen margarita in Venice Beach a few years ago. There were small pieces of hair evenly distributed through the drink where the hair had clearly been chopped and mixed throughout in a blender. We tell the waitress about it and she responds that the bartender is bald.
We look back by the bar and there is a bald man with a ZZ Top sized beard working.
A Fly Trap Bowl
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Big Bowl.
My lettuce wraps had about a dozen dead insects in them. The meat was also undercooked.
Never been back.
At Least He Tried? Right?
A chef once tried to improvise something vegetarian for me - he proceeded to defrost some wok-vegetables in a microwave, add it to a slice of dry bread and charge me 10$ for it.
Hard To Argue With Evidence
My uncle got a wingnut in his pasta and the restaurant staff blamed him and our table for planting it to try to get comped (because it wasn't noticed right away). Of course their story didn't work out when a chef came out with a rolodex that was missing a wingnut.
It's Another Bad Pizza Story
I love pizza. All pizza. Delisio to delivery. I've never had pizza I absolutely hated. Even if it wasn't the best pizza, it was still good enough to eat.
Well, last weekend I made my boyfriend pull into this little mom and pop pizza shop and grab us some slices. He comes back in the car and hands me our slices to hold. I peek in the bag and I'm like "oh no...this pizza is gunna suck I can tell".
I take a bite and am immediately repulsed. It's disgusting. I'm kind of chewing it up slowly and he's like give me my slice! No way it's that bad. He takes a bite and is like holy sh-t that is foul. I literally can't continue to eat the rest of this pizza and spit it out the window.
I am not exaggerating when I say I've never in my life had pizza I couldn't tolerate...this pizza was something else entirely.
It tasted rotten, the dough was like a weirdly flaky pastry dough. The cheese was so sparse and stale. Too much sauce. I'm sure it had been sitting for a bit and was reheated but I've had reheated pizza before and it wasn't even close to as bad as that f-cking pizza was.
He Misheard Us Say "Salt and Pepper"
It wasn't at a restaurant specifically. But at a gathering.
An old man was grilling some beefs outside and these beefs were full of hairs...black and white ones.
I've had one and didn't want to eat anymore when I looked at my beef and so my colleagues had hairs too. Everyone was eating no matter what 😃
It Clucked Its Last Cluck
I ordered a fried chicken sandwich. It was actually a "handshake" sandwich. Picture a piece of fried chicken with a chicken foot still intact and deep fried.
I have never been so mortified in my life. Look it up if you want to see!
When You Know What You're In For, But You Still Go
There used to be this place called The Hurricane in Seattle. They were infamous and people went there on purpose because of how bad it was. The crowd was grungy as f-ck and awesome. Usually it was an eclectic mix of people from all over the city after a night out drinking.
But to give an example of the food, I got an omelette there once, and it was pretty clear they'd just cooked egg into a large pancake and then wrapped it around all the uncooked fillings after the fact. Center was completely cold. The Kraft singles used for the cheese sat unmelted on raw veggies and mushrooms. The meat was ham so hey! It was pre-cooked! Also cold. And the eggs were a rubbery mess. I ate it anyway.
I miss that place. It was a really entertaining sh-tshow.
Use For Cleanup Later
My mom once got nachos that had a rubber glove hidden under the chips. It was clearly placed there by a disgruntled employee.
Wet Burrito. Just. Ugh.
I got a breakfast burrito from some 24-hour diner and it came on a plate that had a good centimeter of dish water still on it...like, the burrito was sitting in a puddle on the plate. It arrived completely soggy.
I can't even fathom how they managed this unless it was intentional, someone had to have just plopped said burrito on a wet dish that was sitting in the sink or something. Needless to say, the group I was with was disgusted and we all got up and left our food without paying.
Least The Dishes Were Clean
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I've received noodles with pieces of steel wool sponge in them. I guess at least the pots and pans were clean?
That's A Stinger
Never really had bad food at a restaurant but I once ordered french fries and there was a fried bee in them. To be fair there were bees everywhere in that island we were at so it wasn't too surprising.
That's The Color Of Chicken, Yeah?
When I was around 10 or so my family and I went to an Applebee's after a basketball game and I bit into my chicken tender and it was rock hard. Pulled the breading off and it was green on the inside...
Who Can Tell The Difference?
"Donut" that was a bagel with icing on it.
"Chicken Foccacia" that was a folded pizza base with fried chicken inside.
And They STILL Go Back
I got horrific food poisoning at Taco Time when I was pretty young, but I don't remember what I ate. The one I remember was biscuits and gravy from a restaurant I'm a regular at, and the biscuits were about the texture of the plate. It was pretty shocking because I'm a regular for a reason.
The owner was horrified when I pointed it out to him. Apparently they'd hired a new cook and the newbie forgot the baking powder in the biscuits that day. He comped me some pancakes instead.
I'm still a regular.
And On This Day, We Were Cursed To Find...
One time I got a pizza from a local place my family has been frequenting since forever. But on this one day, as I bit into my second slice of pizza, I noticed a mystery ingredient in the crust. Some b-tch baked a legit f-cking hairball into the dough of my pizza.
Not a single hair, not a small cluster.
A f-cking hairball
There will be hair toupee!
At Least The Kids Had Fun? Right?
On a school trip (quite a while back), the class went to a restaurant all together. Forgot all the choices, but I remember the one that matters, the chicken. Each serving was half a chicken, all right, nice big portion, no problem so far. It was really dry, not good, but we can muster through. This is where the fun starts. Two guys found spider carcasses in their chicken pretty soon into the dinner. Acutely, the majority of us either shove the plate away from them, while others explore their chicken. One classmate, who hasn't yet taken a single bite, and shoved their plate away went hysteric... As a still alive spider crawled out from under his chicken.
Not recommended, but a fun experience altogether
What's the worst meal you've ever had? Share it with us!