I worked at Little Caesars in Sumner, WA. The “Cheese Pizza" cost $5.99 whilst the “Pepperoni Pizza" cost $5.99. The manager told me that it's that way because the customers are informed that more cheese is added onto the “Cheese Pizza”. This was a blatant lie as we put equal amounts of cheese on all the pizzas. The cheese is added before any other toppings.
DOUGH-->SAUCE-->CHEESE-->WHATEVER YOU WANT TO IMAGINE.
So you don't really know which ones are going to be baked as “Pepperoni”, “Vegetarian” , ”etc..”.

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Sans Serif

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Well, the pepperoni customers got a good deal then. Legit, except for the lie!

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I work at Culver's, and I'll still order most everything from the menu. In fact, my respect for them has grown and I consider them a top place to eat.

Just don't order the salads.

The ingredients are (for Cran Blue):

A shit ton of lettuce

3 tomatoes

3 cucumber slices

Handful of blue cheese

Handful of cranberries

Then the chicken is added. You're being seriously undercut on tomatoes and cucumbers, and the blue cheese and cranberries NEVER get changed out because no one ever orders them. So yeah, the cheese turns yellow-blue and the cranberries are rock-hard. Cool

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Sans Serif

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I loved Culver's - sorry they're only a memory now that I'm in New England!

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I worked at a starbucks where they allowed a full on roach infestation.

More on the DM and Managers then Corporate but it really got to a point where Seattle must have known.

They were everywhere.

The pastry case, in the storage, around the dry powders but the worst was a saw one (and just to make this clear, this 100% happened) crawl out of the espresso spout in the machines.

As employees, we were on the front line trying to defend our location even though a huge majority thought it was disturbing.

Eventually, one of our regulars put in a complaint at the health department.

It was about the time I put in my 2 weeks notice and my manager blamed me specifically for it.

I honestly didnt care.

Starbucks is a hilariously simple job with the hardest task consisting of lifting 10 lbs and the most complex task being holding a milk pitcher at an angle to create foam for milk.

TL;DR: Starbucks roach infestation, I got blamed for "whistleblowing" although i was innocent, I took the blame though because the job is a joke.

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waddles

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SO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS THAT MY CAKE POPS ARE ROACH-INFUSED

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I worked bbq in college. our meats were never frozen, but we did smoke them and reheat for service using a sous vide. unless you have someone smoking over night (which we occasionally did) it's almost impossible to guarantee not running out of things during dinner, and we found our customers were not satisfied when we ran out of things such as ribs for instance. it was a constant battle of trying to limit how much meat to smoke in advance vs cutting it close to have the freshest meats possible. but goddamn fresh off the pit ribs are heavenly.

we never used the stoke the fire just for the smell trick. probably because my boss would lose it if we wasted anything, including our hickory logs. miss the hell out of that place.

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Jason

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Also not surprising. Smoking a brisket right can take like 24 hours, how do you make more for that for customers? Ribs are like 3 to 4. I sous vide my leftover home made BBQ for myself to heat it up. Sounds like a solid place Though I do freeze my own meat and BBQ, it's not the end of the world but of course better fresh made

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so back in high school I worked at a FF joint. I'd been setting up the soft serve ice cream machine, scooping it with a plastic spatula. Put spatula on counter next to french fry machine.

Turned around with bucked, elbow hit counter. Plastic spatula fell into fryer. I ALMOST, ALMOST out of reflex, went to grab the spatula as it slowly melted/sunk into the oil.

Manager walked up and put a basked of french fries in the fryer. I just stood there and didn't know what to do.

TL;DR Ya'll ate some plastic coated french fries.

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waddles

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meh i’ve eaten worse

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I worked at a fried chicken joint during my teenage years. The owner refused to let us throw away chicken pieces that have gone bad to where you'd gagged if you smell them.

We battered them up, fried em and served them to unsuspecting customers.

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Charlotte

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That's a serious health code violation and will get you shut down asap over here.

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Short-rib flatbread pizza. We take leftover short rib from the previous night, shred it, put it on $0.05 worth of flatbread with a sprinkle of cheese and some diced red onion, and ship it out for $11.45. It's literally $10 profit.

And people love it. We sell easily 20-25 every night as hot apps.

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Don't eat the mayo!

Ask for it fresh!

A hair in your food is probably not from the head!

The hand washing signs displayed are to make the public feel safe, the workers don't actually wash their hands as much as they should.

If something other than the original ingredients falls into the food 99% will not notice, no reason to waste food ($) because somebody "Might" complain. A complaint only leads to half of the food wasted.

I still eat fast food. 🙃

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waddles

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…where is the hair from

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My husband used to work in a gastro-pub in a well-to-do area where it was the only option.

The baked Camembert. It was literally the Camembert from Aldi. £1 each. Baked and sold for £15 to share.

Everyone was convinced it was some really posh continental fine cheese with a special Camembert oven or some shit. Nope, they could do the exact same thing at home for a pittance of the price.

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Mitchell

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This is how restaurants work. They buy stuff, do something to it, and sell it at a higher price. If they sold it at the same price they bought it, how would they pay the rent? Pay the staff? If you want Camembert for the lower price, eat at home. Not sure about some of these posts, they seem to have been written by children.

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I used to cook at a seafood restaurant and without a doubt it was the lobster rolls. We used hardly any filler in them, basically all lobster and i still couldn't believe what we were selling them for.

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Sans Serif

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I see absolutely no problem here other than not knowing where I should be headed for lunch?!

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When we run out of cheesecake someone draws a straw to walk to the Publix across the street to buy more.

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This has been pretty much been explored to death on this list and, Publix does make a pretty decent cheesecake. Next?

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I worked for Edible Arrangements for 2 years and worked every position there. Delivery driver in a pinch, chocolate dipper, fruit skewer-er, arranging arrangements, dealing with costumers.. ofter all of those positions on the same day since there was only two people working at my store at one time (excluding driver) and my manager only trained me to do everything because he was too lazy most days to do it.

We often get mushy/moldy strawberries from our distributers. If it's just a little bloop of mold (strawberry still looks big and red otherwise) we'll dip it in chocolate and hide the mold. When they are starting to secrete red goo, that's actually when they're the sweetest. But most people think that since they aren't pretty that they taste bad. So we blot the liquid off and dip it in chocolate. Just short of a pure mold shapeless blob, it's used. Also, they're **never** washed. As in ever.

Pineapples are fresh and chopped every day but unfortunately not all pineapples are sweet because we all know that b******t can't be controlled. Even if it's sour/tart, we will use it and just hope no customer calls and complains. Same thing with honeydew and cantaloupe.

If you want a replacement, we will happily oblige as long as you have not eaten the entire damned thing. If there's not 98% of the fruit still there, you will not receive it because clearly it wasn't *that* bad. Call as soon as you find out. Not a week later. Not even a day later. The sooner, the more likely we can replace it. Same thing if you just want a refund for the sender. There must be a 98% remainder.

Apples are 98% fresh and good. But a lot of the time they're bruised and we hide it with chocolate.

Bananas are bought from the food market next door. They can be practically black (the inside) or peel completely green and we'll use them if we have no other option.

Grapes will often times be moldy. We just put it under a high pressure hose and knock it off.

The chocolate isn't gourmet. It's Hershey's. Yes, it's cheaper to make it yourself. You're paying for the pale and someone else to do it for you.

Yes, we fully understand that the prices are outrageous and can't believe people pay it. But I personally also find a weird pride/joy to see how high I could get someone to go. I could sell a condom to a nun. (Highest average sales for almost a year straight). Please understand that deliveries AREN'T TIMED. We have more than one costumer a day for deliveries and you're not special. If you want it by a certain time, *pick.it.up*. No. the driver will *not* sit there for 15 minutes waiting for you to come home. You knew we were coming today. So if you have to leave, put a cooler out and in the shade with a note of the door. The driver does NOT want to working at 7pm still because you think you're so special that we should be waiting for you specifically.

Please do not have your kid try and sign our clipboard or make an order in the store. I 100% understand that you want your kid to be better at stranger interaction/ordering. But I'm not the person to do that to. I get you think it's adorable to try and force your child to sign our clipboard, especially if the bouquet is for them, but it's not as cute as you think. And when it takes you 2+ minutes to wrestle your child into sort of making a signature; we don't think that's cute. We see it as a time eater. We have 15+ other deliveries in a 100mi radius of the store. Usually none of them near each other. So when each person thinks they're kid is special and is "only" going to take extra time, it adds up. Time I could be making to a toilet.

Lastly, we call the day before or morning of to tell you the delivery is going out. It *only* goes out if you, the receiver, OKs it. So you know it's coming between 12-5. PLEASE tell them if you live up a large hill that isn't plowed (a big problem in my area). Our truck CANNOT make it. Also, if it's for a time sensitive delivery; tell us. We will try but under no circumstances will we garuntee it. We will try our best and if we simply cannot, we will tell you. Please do not stomp your foot like a child. Sorry the world doesn't revolve around you.

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Mrs S

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Def TL;dr

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Where I used to work sold a pint of pepsi for £4. It made me sad. Thirsty family comes in and orders a pint of cola each for the parents and a half each for 3 kids? £14. That's 2 hours wage for me.

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Alice In Hell

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That is ridiculous considering its basically water with sugar but I'm noticing that here too with the prices.

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Friend of mine used to work at Subway, aparently the chicken comes in vacum packed from Thailand with a 2 year sell by date.

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Mrs S

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Noooo...not buyin it.

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Our manager is really stingy when it comes to throwing away food. He will keep leftover eggs from breakfast and use it the next day and if any of the food on the line looks dry or is starting to look thick he'll just poor a little water in it and there you go, "fresh" beans! Sometimes when we receive the truck full of veggies the tomatoes are really squishy and brown. I work at Taco Cabana and luckily for you guys there only located in Texas.

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Mrs S

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So which location should we avoid??

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Idk what you qualify as disgusting, but i worked at a quiznos. My boss told us to skim on everything. Take off at least an inch for each size breads, put less meat, put less veggies, less sauce. When we had coupons, she'd take off meat after they'd pay if she didnt see them in their hands beforehand. It was pretty horrible, but i never skimmed as much.

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John Barber

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Places like that give the managers bonuses for keeping food cost down. He isn't going to eat it and he doesn't care.

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Chick Fila is generally pretty good for freshness and quality. That said, the chicken fridges were horrible for the workers. Chicken came in frozen, and you loaded the frozen bags in metal pans and put in the fridge to thaw. As it thawed, chicken blood/juices/whatever would spill out and collect at the bottom of the fridge. Has to clean up like an inch of sticky gunk at the bottom. Sometimes it would then dry up hard. We'd clean it every day, but damn, chiseling dried chicken blood is really not fun. This was like 20 years ago. I hope it's different now.

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Jason

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I almost see this as a positive for customers. Instead of getting a bag of "meat" already cooked to warm up, you are getting actual meat to be cooked. (unfortunately for workers along with all the meat handling fun)

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When I was 17 I worked at a certain taco fast food restaurant for a whole 3 weeks. I cleaned things and often would stir the sloppy moist taco beef in the giant kettle. It was often close to overflowing and many times some would fall on the (filthy) floor. I was told directly to pick it up and out it back in, as the heat would burn off any bacteria it may have picked up on the floor.

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If the cooks replace all the oil in the fryers with fresh oil the food tastes like shit for a day or two.

The trick is to replace about 75% of the oil with fresh oil. You have to leave 25% of the old stuff in so that the "flavor" that people expect is there.

Also, only the oldest guys are usually the ones that change the oil because it's heavy, hot/dangerous, and back breaking work.

Therefore if that guy isn't on schedule for a while the oil isn't getting changed.

So even though it's supposed to get changed weekly it can go a month without being changed easy.

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Samantha Mannion

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I agree new oil always tastes like s**t. I've worked at a few places with fries and specifically with Arby's it was the worst when we changed the oil. New oil makes French fries taste terrible! Same with Chinese food. Hate going in late and they have cleaned all the pans. The fried rice always taste flavorless and just not as good.

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Worked through lots of fast food jobs over my years before I had enough lets see what i can add.

McDonald's Coke is actually stored in its own co2 mixed tank unlike the rest of the fountain drinks which come as 5 gallon syrup boxes. In 2014 or so they changed the Sweet Tea from 1 bag of sugar on a 5 gallon bucket to the soda syrup style.

Always order off the grill or out of the oil if you visit after like midnight (if stores even stay open late night anymore for you) as the grill person typically will not put down new product all the time due to the amount of tasks they have to complete.

Wingstop garlic Parmesan is garlic sauce, and a bunch of butter with shake Parmesan on top. The bone in chicken is shipped in 40 pound boxes and kept in a standard refrigerator while the boneless is always froze. The floors behind the counter are death traps of grease regardless of how many times they clean it. After fry oil spills on it every week it just doesn't care about degreaser anymore. If you were to walk back there with regular shoes and a bit of water you could skate the length of the kitchen.

Always always make sure that if you are promised a raise or promotion that you check up on it immediately. I was screwed out of a whole dollar for 6 months before covid hit while i worked as an assistant manager at one Mexican place.

Late night delivery drivers only get upset about your last minute orders if you tip like shit. The fact that most of the crew is high school kids that have to leave by 11pm when the place closes at 2am leaves 4 hours of work for typically a manager and up to 3 drivers. 4 hours of stacking dishes with nobody to clean them and the mess of making pizza results in 2 to 3 hours of cleaning for the closing crew. As a late night driver i typically worked from 5pm to 4am 5 days a week, please tip y our drivers well. It gets brutal out there.

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Neb Skram

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if it took you 6 months for you to figure out your getting underpaid its your own fault

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The peanut butter topping at DQ just sits in a big metal container and hardly, if ever, gets used. And in my time there it never got switched out.

Sitting there the oil eventually separates and when someone actually wants something with peanut butter it's a b***h to pump out (actually it's impossible I just had to use a spoon) and needs to be stirred to mix it back in with the oil.

Idk if this is at shocking as some other nasty secrets but it grossed me out, and made me sad because I love PB.

Oh and the frothy s**t at Orange Julius is just salt and powdered egg and some mysterious dairy extract. Don't ever fool yourself into thinking anything there could ever be considered healthy.

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Jason

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Just because oil separates in peanut butter doesn't automatically make it bad

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Secret Menu's don't really exist, maybe sometimes you get lucky and get what you wanted but most of the time the cashier would tell you that we don't have it.

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KFC worker here. Our gravy base is made of the stuff we scrape off the inside of the deep fryer. Yum.

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Rachel w

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Bs. You're telling me y'all actually take the time to drain the oil frequently - which is crazy expensive if you do it that often. And you somehow have pans and a cook that takes the time to make gravy and it tastes the same all of the time. Basically not possible.

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not a chef, but if a takeaway in the UK serves multiple things, you can garauntee only one of those things is any good.

and it's never the pizza

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I worked at Sonic in high school. DO NOT, EVER, GET THE GRILLED CHICKEN.

Sure it's grilled. From a frozen chicken patty. After it was cooked, it was then thrown into a steam broiler to keep it warm. The rule book said replace them every 2 hours, but my manager would yell at me if I pulled them out earlier than 4 hours.

After 2 hours, the chicken becomes hard and rubbery and tastes like c**p.

Besides that, the worst thing about that place was the floors were greasy as f**k and even proper work shoes didn't help prevent slipping.

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Jason

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Only fast food place I was guaranteed to get sick at. Sonic is on my forever ban list

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When I was a pizza cook my boss at a Pizza Pro franchise told me that "explosive diarrhea" was not a good enough reason not to come in and put my hands in the ingredient bins and then place toppings on pizza dough that I had just kneaded.

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Alice In Hell

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Wow ☹

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I worked at Subway for 2 years. Every meet we have (besides Roast Beef) is turkey based. Even ham. You never get what you think you're getting. Also, if anyone wants to know the inner workings of Subway, feel free to ask!

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JoJo Anisko

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I refuse to believe the tuna is turkey based.

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I don't know if anyone will be able to shed light on the quality of a chain vs the quality of local management. I used to work at chick fil a and most employees were just dumb teenagers so things weren't always done by the book, mostly in regards to hold times or whatever.

Like the hold time is 20 minutes and it might stay out 30 minutes before going in to the bin to be made into chicken salad. But I justified it to myself by thinking if you cooked at home, set out food for dinner, ate with your family, and then refrigerated it, the leftovers you make the next day world have gone through worse conditions and that's without a heat lamp.

Also we had a lot of paper and food waste

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Rachel w

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You have 4 hours not in proper temp before food is considered unsafe. You're completely fine

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If you were a dick in the drive-thru, your food 100% got spat on or "accidentally" dropped on the floor. Managers partook, too.

I didn't, personally, but maybe that's 'cos I was too busy shoveling fries into boxes.

I guess it ain't a secret 'cos everyone suspects, but I thought it was a myth TBH. Was kinda stunned.

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Sarah Pierce

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....I'm sorry you're either lying or worked somewhere incredibly disgusting. You don't screw with people's food. Worst I've ever seen done on purpose working hospitality across the board is either a weak drink when you're being an a*s, less chips/whatever on your meal or maybe a decaf when you were rude to your barista.

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Back then, around decades ago. Rats, roaches , people not washing their hand are a thing, wether it has changed,I do not know.

I can’t believe I worked like a horse for such misery pay.

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I used to work at Wendy's, and the chilli is the worst. It's saved for up to two days, made with ground up patties, microwaved for 7 minutes, and sometimes the patties used are the ones left over from the day before. Which then get ground up and microwaved. I want to vomit just thinking about it.

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Zedrapazia

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A few posts above it was seen as something good that they don't waste food. And seriously people, if it's properly refrigerated, meat doesn't go bad in one single day (not including fish of course). Stop the food waste!

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I worked at McDonald’s for like two months and when someone dropped fries on the floor they didn’t care and put it in the box anyway

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Sasy

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In Australia all fries stations for Macca's and Burger King and KFC are in front of customer. Not possible to do, and we would be terminated.

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Secret recipes aren’t nearly as secret as you think they are. Most of what I’ve seen can be found with a name brand at your local market. Worked at a pizza place in high school and the place received a lot of buzz over something done with the pizza crust that people liked and having really good hot wings and cake. The pizza crust was glazed with store bought garlic butter. The wings that people raves over were “Great a value” wings, and the cake was Pillsbury cake mix.

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We serve "hot fresh baked pretzels" for $8.95.

We get em by the case frozen. Roughly $75 per box. 100 per box. We get 33 orders per box and one to eat while figuring out math.

33 orders X $8.95 = 295.35.

So profit is 220.35 (minus the cost).

So with that 220.35 we pay the electric, gas, rent, taxes, staff, equipment, etc. And thats assuming we sell all 33 orders of pretzels. Stan my line cook eats an order. Boom, down to 32. Jose burned an order. Down to 31. Barb sneaks one home in her purse. 30 orders. 3 pretzels are broken in the box. Down to 29. So our 220.35 just went down to 184.55 pretty quickly...and very easily.

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Luna Crow

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What? You got "one to eat while figuring out the math," and no one else can have one?

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Arbys roast beef is actually made out of a gelatinous paste, collected and excreted by an exotic sea mollusk that is farmed en masse upon the shelf of the mariana trench.

It's best not to eat too much of it.

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Jennifer Lynn

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Incorrect. Why? They'd have to put a seafood warming on it for allergies and they can't call it beef if it contains none at all

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I worked at Taco Bell. The cinnamon twists are fried pasta, when we say we are out of something we really are, and finally we don’t give two shits about how your good is made if you claim it’s wrong we’ll give you the exact same thing you gave us to fix it just in a new bag because you were probably an asshole

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