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
GiphyWhen 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
GiphyBig 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
GiphyI'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!
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.