People Reveal Their Biggest Dealbreakers When Dining Out At Restaurants
Eating at restaurants is usually great: you get awesome tasty food that you didn't have to cook for yourself.
Not every restaurant is created equal, though, and everybody has those one or two things that are just total dealbreakers when it comes to dining out.
Redditor jobokar asked:
"What’s a dealbreaker for you at restaurants?"
Nobody Likes A Sticky Table
"If the table is sticky and it gets stickier after they wipe it."
- kissingdistopia
"Was so frustrating at one place I worked at. When the varnish starts to wear off, it gets sticky especially when humid. Losing tabels to it and them not fixing it really sucked."
- Bbols23
Bad Salsa
"if you go to a mexican/tex-mex spot and the chips and salsa are terrible just pack it up and leave, nothing will get better."
- thejamielee
"I just don't know how you mess up salsa. Like if you can't combine tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and lime juice with some peppers you should be out of business.."
- BaaBaaTurtle
"It’s a good metric for restaurants taking shortcuts and not putting a simple from-scratch component together."
- badlilbadlandabad
"There are plenty of good enough premade salsas you can buy. If they don't even do that, it means they don't care."
- -gggggggggg-
I Can't Even Hear Myself Think
"Loud music. I've been in restaurants before where I can't hear myself think, let alone hear people opposite me talk."
- Philcycles84
"On top of this, an over abundance of televisions."
"Sports bars are fine, but there should be some separation between them and restaurants.
- CarrieFisherStevens
Don't Invade My Personal Space
"Tables packed closely together to the point where you might as well just be sitting with the strangers next to you."
- jimcol
"I ate at a restaurant where it was like school cafeteria seating. Multiple parties sat at the same table. Haven’t been back."
- LittleRileyBao
"I got bad news for you. You're going to HATE eating out in Europe and Asia"
- CousinSkeeter89
"I got sat across from a stranger at a 2 seat table once at a busy restaurant in Japan. Definitely one of the more uncomfortable dining experiences I've had."
- SerbianSh*tStain
Pizza In Venice
"I sat at a table with a Japanese woman and her daughter in a pizza restaurant once during Carnevale in Venice. She spoke no English and I only spoke a few words of Japanese. It was one of the most delightfully memorable meals I have ever had and the pizza was to die for! Would I have wanted to share a table with strangers in a U.S. restaurant? Probably not. But it’s different in Italy. That wasn’t the only restaurant on that trip where I sat very close to and conversed with strangers, and it was a great experience."
- Catwoman1948
Odor Is Key
"The smell when you walk in. If you can smell sewage, mold or excessive bleach or ammonia when you walk in over the food, turn around."
- DarthGayAgenda
"Holy sh*t, there are places like this where you live?"
- icelandichorsey
"I've been to places like that in every US state I've eaten in except Utah (but only because I've only been to a single McDonald's there). The excessive bleach smell is especially telling because the only way that happens is if they dump the stuff by the bottle everywhere. The GM at my last job was like that. She believed the smell of bleach meant clean and used a lot on everything."
- DarthGayAgenda
"If a fish restaurant smells like fish, don’t eat there."
- BowwwwBallll
But How Much Does It Cost?!
"No prices on the menu. If I’m going to spend money, I want to know how much I’m going to spend. Just tell me the steak is $40 for f*ck sake."
- indigoassassin
"Yeah what’s up with that? I’m trying to find a nice (er) restaurant for me and my wife’s anniversary. Everything in the 'nice' category doesn’t include prices. I feel like if I call the restaurant to ask, they’ll say something like 'if you have to ask, don’t eat here.'"
"Even if I had a million in the bank, I’m not going to eat somewhere that’s a total wild card."
- mr_blanket
You Staff Are People Too
"Owners being rude to staff in front of guests"
- LittleBlackBird0191
"Though, you’re in for a treat if owners being rude to guests in front of staff"
- Chickenmilk_
"Only if the guests deserve it."
"Managers being rude to entitled a**holes to protect their staff makes me fall in love just a little. Owners being a-holes to guests who have reasonable questions or complaints, less so."
- moratnz
Am I Invisible?
"If they just ignore you for 10 minutes. Even if you are (too) busy at least acknowledge you've seen me and will get to me."
- domin8r
"Or when they take your drink order and then disappear for 35min."
- curmudge
"I once stood at the cash register of a Dennys in Redding for 20+ minutes. We were the only ones standing there. After trying to flag down a staff member I left 30 bucks and took off."
- OCSupertonesStrike
Can They Really Make All Of Those Things Well?
"I’m from UK so maybe not relevant but HUGE menu with loads of variety. If they can just master 5 or 6 dishes they will taste far better that the 50 different options that the kitchen has to offer."
- Stokehall
"Yep, Gordon Ramsay calls this out on his restaurant makeover shows. Except for Chinese, they prepare a few ingredients in a million ways."
- RoboKat70
"I’m with you on this. There’s a little place near me who has at least 50 different things on the menu, maybe more. The food is always overpriced sh*t, most of it tastes like it came from the freezer section of the grocery store because a lot of it probably does at that point."
- mamasamsquanch
"I'm a chef and I can tell you, it definitely is mostly frozen. Depending on how many staff there are, usually Any menu over 20 or so items is a red flag. Ain't nobody got time for all that prep. 15 or less is a good sign."
- CautiousCollection5
Maybe Don't Lie To Your Customers
"We had a chucks roadhouse open up and they sent out “too good to be true” coupons in the mail (4 surf and turf meals for $25). It was just to get people to their tables and ordering, then they say “those aren’t valid, we sent out a retraction” (they didn’t). On top of all that they have an “honest to goodness fee” of 4% on every bill lmao"
- funghi2
"That sounds like a great way for people to never go back there again. After getting swindled like that I would never go back, tell all my friends to never go there and leave a terrible review on google."
- donscron91
While tasty food you don't have to cook is definitely awesome, maybe be careful where you're getting it from.
Much of human history must have been an olfactory challenge. For one thing, people are smelly, and the commonality of bathing before the 20th century in some cultures was questionable.
For another, there are recorded periods of history that are full of things like open trenches where people would flush their waste.
These things are mercifully no longer a part of our daily lives.
But that doesn't mean bad smells have been eradicated. Much to the contrary, because of how uncommon they are, we notice them even more.
Redditor JA-darkside asked:
"What smell have you experienced that you will never forget?"
Here were some of those answers.
Dark Days On The Ward
"Hospitals. Both of my parents died two months apart and I was in them every day. I'll never forget that weird, sanitized smell."-PREClOUS_R0Y
"That probably explains my aversion to Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds and most flowers. Grandpa died when I was 3, and we had many other deaths in the family before I even turned 10."-tacobelmont
Sense Memory
"Literally all of them. I'm that person who will smell a rosewater lotion and be like 'Wow this smells like the bathrooms at the Foxwoods casino!!'"
"I haven't been to Foxwoods since I was 8, though I was there semi-frequently due to my parents working there. But for real, almost any damn smell I can connect to SOME point in my life."-AriIsMySavior
It Buuuuuuuurns
"Ammonia. I did some work at a fertilizer plant, they had a urea tower where they used a lot of ammonia and every once in a while you would find yourself downwind and get a blast of it."
"Not only does it smell bad it burns your mucous membranes. You can feel the 3D shape of your sinuses inside your head when they get irritated all at once."-OhAces
These smells are sure to (figuratively or literally) burn their way into your memory.
A Little Creepy Dude
"There was this girl I liked that is friends with my buddy in college."
"When my other friends and I were visiting them one weekend, I slept on the floor of her dorm and she had this air freshener plug-in that smelled very sweet like vanilla and flowers or something similar."
"When I got back home from visiting, my pillow smelt like that for the next couple nights and it reminded me of her every time I went to bed. It was some of the best sleep I've had in my life."-Round_Rectangles
The Past In A Room
"My Grandpa's study in his very old house. His study was full of books, the smell of cigars smoked long ago, old carpet, aging furniture, scotch, etc."
"I was at a wedding recently where the venue was a 'club' for management/corporate type people. It was old, probably hadn't been updated since the 80's."
"I walked into one of the lounges and was hit with the same smell and thrown back into my childhood at his house."-ialo00130
There Was Going To Be One About Diarrhea.
"Diarrhea, once I believe I consumed food that was poisoned and I had horrible diarrhea that was dark brown, it came out like pee."
"It lasted for about a week and the stench wasn’t the worst part, it hurt like hell. I lost around 10 pounds over the span of a week because I wouldn’t eat and if I did I would either throw it up or just poo it out."-LennyGaming69
Wow, I'm On Fire!
"The smell of my hair burning when i lit myself on fire. I was trying to take a bong rip and my hair got in the way and immediately lit on fire."
"I fell out of my chair smacking my head to try and put the fire out. I could hear my hair burning and it started burning my head and my face."
"I finally put the fire out and was just laying on the floor in my room with smoke coming off of my head. The smell of my burning hair was so disgusting."
"But the worst part...I dropped the bong and my entire bowl went all over the carpet. I cried. 😭😌"-_gloomysunday_
Senses, as the most powerful tools people have, really play a part in shaping a person's experience of the world.
Why Did People Have Carpets
"The 3rd floor of my school. I had really bad anxiety and the school didn’t have proper ventilation. Like the windows were sealed shut and it was horrible during the pandemic."
"The smell mostly came from the carpet because of how old it is. It hit you when you entered that floor and my stomach would start gurgling from the anxiety."
"Strawberry kiwi kool aid tastes like how the carpet smells."-waitwhat2604
The WORST Possible Smell In The 21st Century
"Near where I live, there's a decent amount of sewerage, garbage, algae, etc, around natural water spots and mud, that you never want to go into if you can help it."
"Especially never ingest it or let it touch an open cut or wound. You can for the most part avoid the awful smell and sight, as most of these areas are hidden and not easily gotten to."
"One summer, a few years back, I didn't have much to do, so I would just walk around looking for these places(There's this pond that at I found that was covered in some pink kind of algae)."
"So because I was around these kinds of places on a consistent basis, I of course got my foot in some undesired places."
"The muddy and wet shoes would carry the smell of the place, and I don't think everyone will get the way I'm about to describe it, but it's the most accurate way I can."
"It smelled like some one cooked tortellini, pooped on it, and left it out in the sun for a year."-Jyona-San
Mmm...Rotting Produce
"Rotting potatoes and liquified bell peppers that had been donated i encountered while I did an internship-esque thing at a food bank sorting the donated food."
"Also while working at a landscaping company this older guy asked us to clean up this sorta enclosed outdoor space that he had used as his dogs toilet for months while he was recovering from some kind of accident."
"It was in the middle of summer pushing 40°c for weeks, the space was fully sealed so no way for anything to be washed into the ground, the dog had clearly been suffering from diareha for a while and on that day we had some warm summer rain."
"With all that said rotting potatoes and bell peppers are still 1#."-Karlmarx95
Miss you...
"My grandmother passed away 20 years ago. I still know what her home smelled like." ~ Down_Low_Too_Slow
mammals...
"Pig slaughterhouse. Still love me some bacon though." ~ Meat-walker
"It’s livestock, so a bit like a barn, but like industrial grade levels of unmaintained filth caused by the literal pools of shit filled pig urine that sloshes out of every truck that drives through. Then there’s this smell of rancid rotting bile under it. It’s mild, but very obvious." ~ CounterSanity
The Strangest 'Wrong Number' Stories | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Before we all had caller ID, wrong numbers phone calls were commonplace. But now that almost everyone screens their calls, it's wrong number texts that have ...HER
"The perfume that this one girlfriend wore, way back in high school." ~ bigredcar
"Oh man do I feel this. The perfume thing is so visual, I can still see her eyes, smile, hair, and clothing style. Kathy B. was her name. I asked her what it was once, and she told me, but I totally forgot. It was many years ago." ~ chriscaulder
The Burn
"Burning plastic in barrels at an industrial park in Istanbul. You knew it was shortening your life with every breathe and you couldn’t escape it." ~ real_schematix
Parchment
"Paper mill." ~ Positive-Source8205
"Yes! There’s none near me where I live, but I can still remember the smell from only driving past them one time! One was in Maine and one was In Oregon." ~ furnacemike
Spam...
"When I was in high school I got to go to the National FFA convention in Indianapolis and they had all these booths set up. One of the booths was for Spam. It's not a horrific odor, but it is one that I wish I had never smelled." ~ happyhumorist
Garlic Bad
"My cattle dog tangled with a skunk and got sprayed and made it into the house before I could stop her. Omg that sulfur garlic rank smell... so bad. I managed at least then to grab her by the collar and chuck her back outside to clean her off." ~ MadCraftyFox
Expressed...
"Bad smell- one night my dog expressed her anal glands on my bed while i was sleeping. It took forever to get the smell out of my mattress. It was horrific. Good smell- my grandmother's cooking." ~ amahler03
"popper"
"She parked on a north facing hillside dirt road in the middle of the Southern California desert in the summer, rolled up the car windows and locked the doors, and ingested about 100 assorted pills, We found her a week later (we call her a 'popper.' because the body is so bloated that they typically will 'pop'). That was in 1979, and I still remember the smell. 😢." ~ Maxsdad53
The End
"The smell of death. when my aunt was dying in the hospital that was all i could smell in her room. When my grandpa was dying in hospice that’s all i could smell. The smell stayed in my nose for days, and I’m still catching whiffs sometimes weeks later." ~ Life_Calligrapher779
Chocolate & Wax
"A college near me that my grandma used to work at when i was very little, we would visit everyday to bring her lunch and i remember the weird, almost chocolate smelling floor wax smell. they renovated the building and the smell is gone, but i still get scents of it when i walk in there now as an adult." ~ rainruins
Choking...
"Fumes of gas from a mixture of oxalic acid and chlorine. These chemicals must not be mixed, as it creates a toxic gas that will cause death. I accidentally mixed small portions of it when i was doing laundry. Both are effective at removing stains. It smells minty at first, but when inhaled it feels like it choked you to death, as if you cannot breathe oxygen. It nearly caused me to death, and i coughed many times in order to breathe." ~ alistairjumanji
Smells can create both positive and negative memories, just as sounds, taste, touch and sight can.
But since smell is so directly linked to our digestive system and our in-the-moment stability, those smells that aren't as pleasant can really leave quite an impression.
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