Food Industry People Are Sharing The Big Red Flags You Should Look For While Eating At Restaurants

"If they can't be bothered to keep the restrooms clean...you think the kitchen is going to be any better?"

Earlier today, Reddit user Objective-Switch-823 asked the AskReddit community: "People who have worked in bad/unethical/unhygienic restaurants, what are some red flags customers should watch out for?"

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And the thread soon had hundreds of replies, by people who worked in the food industry (or knew someone who did). While their red flag suggestions aren't always 100% applicable in every situation, they're good ones to keep in mind. Here are some of the top-voted and best comments:

1. "If you notice your feet sticking to the floor, turn around and leave immediately."

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—Linux4ever_Leo

"Sticky floors or sticky tables. Tells me that the management gave up a long time ago."

—u/That_Smell_You_Know

2. "If it’s an open kitchen, look out for the kitchen staff wiping their sweat with their hands, on their phone, coughing, touching their faces, not washing hands. I saw kitchen guys grab raw chicken, wipe it on their aprons, and then make a salad and toss with the same hand. I stopped eating at that place after that."

—piink_clouds

3. "If the menu is too big that can be a red flag. A huge menu means a lot of food types aren't ordered regularly or kept around a lot. So that chicken patty or crab cake will be like the one left in the back of the freezer: all chunky and crunchy. They also likely won't have as much experience cooking it, and it will be bad."

—demonardvark

4. "A dirty dining room is a red flag. Same for washrooms.

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—CommandStunning7266

5. "Definitely the restrooms. If they can't be bothered to keep the restrooms clean...you think the kitchen is going to be any better?"

—m31td0wn

6. "Adult to teenager employee ratio. I've been around the block, and if you walk into a restaurant or coffee shop and the entire staff is 16–20 with one adult to supervise, it is a bad sign."

"I know most restaurants have a majority of young people working there — that's not what I'm talking about. If the establishment pays so little that no one with any actual bills to pay can afford to work there, it leads to high turn over and an immature staff that generally doesn't give a shit."

—agatvetheuil

7. "Any bars with incredibly large/deep ice tubs. If you're going to have ice in your drink, ask when it was last emptied and cleaned. Deep tubs aren't normally emptied in a busy bar; they'll just have more ice dumped on top."

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"Trouble is, if the tub isn't clean, then bacteria (most notably E. coli) can be present at the bottom. It looks like black or very dark green spots. It's pretty easy to spot against the white inner lining of the tub.

I worked in two large night clubs, and it was never cleaned during a normal shutdown at the end of the night, because they're so large. I assume that it would normally be done during a deep-clean, but that depends on the venue.

I don't have ice in my drinks for that exact reason."

—JamesLoker

8. "All the wait staff having a defeated look in their eyes. You can guarantee that the working conditions suck and that owners/managers are not cool, which means they are likely cutting corners back of house and making the wait staff serve things they know they shouldn't."

—GypsyJJJ

9. "If the easy stuff isn’t taken care of, the hard stuff has been sliding for days or worse. Stale bread? Old condiments? Hot cutlery or glasses? These are signs of a dysfunctional back of house."

—automoth

10. "An all-you-can-eat buffet that's held only once a week, usually on Sundays. In the restaurant where I work, that was how they got rid of the stuff that they couldn't sell on the regular menu."

—ALinLOSANGELES

11. "My sister worked in restaurants for about eight years while she was in college, and she said the biggest red flag is the hygiene of the staff. If the staff are gross, their standards are also likely gross."

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"She said that waitresses and waiters often had to make their own salads for customers, and they NEVER washed their hands after handling dirty dishes, pens, booklets, menus, etc. They'd just reach right into the salad line with their hands and grab away."

—sump___erson

12. "As a lifer in brewing and in bars and restaurants. If the draft beer tastes funky or off compared to the same beer in a can, the bar isn’t properly maintaining its draft system. That means yeast and bacteria are growing in the lines tainting the beer. Then ask yourself what else aren’t they cleaning. A decent bar should be cleaning its lines, keg couplers, and taps at least every two weeks."

—u/NoUserNamesLeft98

13. "Just check how clean the nozzles on the soda machine are...it'll tell you how detailed their cleaning routine is."

—u/FloTonix

14. "Worked in restaurants for seven years. Casual to mid-scale places. Most of them were very hygienic, but even the best places [have] problems. Just know that at some point every restaurant has cleaning failings, and you’ll never know."

—slifm

15. "When your family/friends who work[ed] there tell you not to eat there. Don’t fucking eat there. Don’t argue with them because you love the food. Don’t argue with them because their stories sound absurd. Don’t bring up a friend who worked there in the past and never told you anything like they do. Just don’t fucking eat there."

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—DoubleDThrowaway94

You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.