Blood in the ice cream, rat infestations, a litter box behind the counter, and meat defrosting on the hood of a car…
It sounds like something out of a horror movie, but it’s not. These are just some of the utterly disgusting things happening behind the scenes at restaurants and shops… While we’d like to think that most places follow the health and safety rules, it seems there are plenty that clearly don’t. They’re ticking time bombs of bacteria, cross-contamination, and apparently even faeces.
We might never have even known about this stuff were it not for someone asking health inspectors to share the worst things they’ve ever seen on the job. Thousands of comments came pouring in, and many are so disturbing that they might have you rethinking ever eating out again.
Bored Panda has put together a list of the absolute worst for you to scroll through while you contemplate canceling your dinner plans. Whether you’re a die-hard foodie or someone who likes the occasional takeout, you may develop a newfound appreciation for the next “A-Grade” sign you see in a window after reading through these.
We also unpack the very real dangers of consuming food that is contaminated or has not been properly prepared. And we tell you how to stay safe when it comes to food. You’ll find that info between the images.
#1
Not a health inspector, but heard this story through a guy who services my soft serve machines.
As info for those not in the ice cream business, most soft serve machines need to be cleaned (meaning fully disassembled, scrubbed, and sanitized) at least weekly, some every 3 days…
He got a call from a woman complaining that the vanilla side of her machine was coming out with black specks in it. Was worried it might be grinding up an o-ring or worse. He took the head off the machine and claims he nearly lost his lunch, as the barrel was infested with cockroaches. Apparently, the woman had never cleaned the machine in the several months she had been open. Somehow the roaches got into it (at night, the barrel stops freezing, and just keeps the mix cool, so it returns to a liquid) and were being ground up and expelled as additional protein. How long has it been doing this? About a week! Ewwww.
Image source: sgrmm, matheus ferreira
#2
High-end Thai place in a popular tourist area. Go downstairs to the kitchen and open up their freezer. On the top shelf of the freezer, they are storing loose beef, pork, and chicken in three separate piles. The meats are not in any containers. They are all sitting on a large piece of cardboard the restaurant had placed on the bottom of the shelf.
We poke the cardboard and our finger goes right through it. The juices from the three meats had turned the cardboard into pulp. We then notice it dripping from the combined sludge of chicken, pork, and beef blood. From the looks of the cardboard, it had been dripping for a while.
We look to the shelf below to see the results of the drip. Underneath the meats, in the shelf second from the top, the restaurant was storing three buckets of ice cream. Without lids. Directly under the meat drip.
We look inside the ice cream containers and see congealed, partially frozen, cardboard-laced raw-meat drippings, pooled in the center of each tub of ice cream. None of the ice creams were more than halfway full.
We ask the kitchen manager how long they’ve been storing their items like this. He doesn’t remember. At least a few months.
My theory is, because the place was A) a “nice” restaurant and B) an “ethnic” restaurant, patrons were less likely to complain about odd flavors. For example, instead of complaining about blood in the ice cream, wondering out loud if that taste is star anise.
That’s one of the few inspections that made me feel physically sick. Place still got an A because the restaurant grade system in my city is about as effective as TSA.
Image source: FistsofFaith, Kyle Mackie
#3
So, a friend of mine is a health inspector.
She walks into a local convenience store and discovers a litter box behind the counter. Totally unacceptable. Tells the proprietor that he needs to get rid of the litter box. That’s kind of a health code violation.
He replies, “Well, it’s for the cat. We’ve been having mice/rat issues.”
To which she’s all, “Ohhhhh.”
Cat walks up. She tells him he can’t have a cat in a food establishment. He hands the cat to his wife and she takes it out of the store to their camper trailer nearby the store. Waits for her to leave.
Rinse and repeat.
Image source: a4thpipeforsherlock, Andre Blanco
#4
Health inspector here! Here are my top 3:
•An old liquor store, which had once been the front unit of a housing duplex, had now coverted into full-service deli (sandwiches, fried chicken, etc.) without plan review, so they were severely lacking in all the proper space and equipment. Observed were:
-Rat infestation; droppings everywhere in the place
-Mountains of old cast-off equipment in the back (giving the rats a home)
-Meat defrosting on the hood of an inoperable car on the side alley
-Back unit of duplex (now converted to food storage) had unfinished wooden boards on the floor, which were now soft and rotting from soaking up years of meat juice and everything else.
•While inspecting a chinese buffet, I noted to the employees that there were tubs of frozen fried shrimp stacked on top of one a other without covers, so they needed to discard the top layers of the food and put on the tub lids. As they scrambled to do so, they knocked over the tower of shrimp, spilling it everywhere. As I was standing there, they hurridly started scooping the shrimp off the floor and back into the tubs. I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE YOU GUYS.
•A guy ordered commercial sausage-making equipment delivered to his private home. Manufacturer got suspicious and tipped off the health deparment. Turns out the guy would go hunting all sorts of exotic game meat without permits, process them into sausages in his rat-infested garage (droppings the size of jelly beans), and was selling them to the public.
Don’t buy food from “home cooks” folks!
Image source: jjrfs, Bailey Cloud
#5
They were refilling the Heinz bottles with Hunt’s.
Image source: stoogemcduck, Nik
#6
So this is from the other side but pretty unique. A long time ago while I was in college I used to maintain aquariums – quite a few were in restaurants. There was an old school seafood restaurant that had a ton of tanks – great customers, and a cool place. I would be out there at least once a week for half a day making everything spotless.
This was before cellphones you youngsters – I am in class and my pager (yes, pager) is blowing up from their number. I call and one of the Mexican staff picks up and all I could gather is “please mr fish man you come now very big prolem emegerncia”.
I head out there and there are health inspectors there. So, for all the tanks I take care of if a fish dies I ask the owner to put it in a bag and freeze it so I can take a look and see if I can figure out why it kicked the bucket.
Well, one of their very old and very large, and pretty beat up blue tangs (Dory) had died and they had froze it per instructions. The inspectors show up to this seafood restaurant and first thing they see is this decrepit old fish, that had been munched on by the other fish in the tank along side the catch of the day. It was before opening, and only the Mexican staff were there who had no idea how to explain it.
I got it sorted out, but kinda funny :)
Image source: confusedbossman, Natalia Blauth
#7
Was a health inspector long ago. Was at a Golden Corral, going through the kitchen area. As I was squatting down to check a dish washer, my foot broke through the tile floor and into a sewer pipe that ran underneath. Cockroaches come boiling out of the hole. Turns out the entire floor was rotten from a water leak in the sewer pipe. Best/worst part? The general manager tried to fight me when I told them they had to close down until they fixed the open hole into a pipe full of cockroaches and waste.
Image source: anon, derekmarkham
#8
Late to the party but I used to work on my own as a baker in a supermarket and the cleaners would come in at 10pm at night when the last worker left and he would be finished by 2am when I arrived. Well one day I was half an hour early and I walked up to my department and the cleaner was mopping the prep tables and the equipment with the same water he had used to clean the floor. I wish I was joking. To use the mop on the tables to begin with is stupid but using he same water as well? Insane. I told his boss when he came in because I simply had to and his face was a picture. He really didn’t believe me until I got him to have a look on CCTV.
Oh I forgot, he wasn’t supposed to even touch the machinery, that was my job. So he was dirtying my already clean equipment.
Image source: ThrowawayAdvice87, Pixabay
#9
Not an inspector, but my SO told me about what happened at at a popular seafood restaurant in my town. A guy working the fry station had a magnetic kitchen timer above the fryer stuck to the hood vent above. One day, the timer fell into the hot grease. They managed to fish out the main plastic part, but the batteries were nowhere to be found. It was determined that the batteries must have disintegrated into the grease. Being a seafood restaurant in the south, half the menu is fried. The owner is too much of a skinflint to stop serving fried food and change out the grease during dinner rush. So whoever ate catfish that night had it fried in a tangy alkaline grease.
Image source: Scoregasm666, pboyd04
#10
Not a good inspector, but once I ordered tacos from a high end vegan restaurant in LA. When I bit into the taco I felt immediately a hard chunk gently slice into the roof of my mouth. I pulled out a one inch shard of glass from my taco. Management said they “accidentally broke a glass near the tacos and they thought they got all of it” they offered a new plate of free tacos but I was like my mouth is bleeding why would I want another taco?
Image source: anon, Jarett Lopez
#11
I worked in the deli of a convenience store for nearly 15 years. It was a constant struggle to explain to my boss how I couldn’t save the leftover chicken and veggies and sell them the next morning. My customers were happy to pay more knowing the food was always fresh.
Six months ago, boss decided to lease out the kitchen and move me to the main store. Ex-customers keep coming to me to complain about the food tasting bad and making them sick, so I went back to check and counted about 6 violations that would get them shut down or fined. Clorox bleach stored on the floor next to chicken breading, defrosting meat stored above the vegetables (it drips down onto the veggies), and at the end of the day the cook takes all the food trays and puts them, uncovered, into the fridge to sell the next day without letting them at least cool down. It smells like rotting food back there since they never clean out the drains. I’ve also seen her cutting uncooked meat with a machete on the bare floor and she never ices down the raw chicken at the end of the day so it starts to stink by mid-week.
Boss has lost half his regular customer base.
Image source: 2312rhys, Kelly Sikkema
#12
Worked in a popular sandwich shop. Our floor drains were smelling rancid for weeks and we’re backing up with what was assumed to be sewage. My manager told our owners every single day for three weeks that this needed to be fixed and they did nothing. So in the middle of my shift one day, a health inspector came in and immediately shut us down. My manager told me right there that she anonymously called the health dept because that was the only way the owners were going to end up fixing the problem. Major lol.
Image source: 12truths, Polina Zimmerman
#13
Our local Health Inspector told us a funny conversation he had with a restaurant owner:
H.I.: *pulls bug out of already prepared food* “What’s this?”
Owner: “That’s a bean.”
H.I.: “Beans don’t have legs!!!”.
Image source: 1ofZuulsMinions, almc0404
#14
Worked in a Mc Donalds years ago and I had a co-worker that would lick her index finger every time she peeled a cheese slice off of the stack of cheese we would use to make cheese burgers. It was as if she was trying to sepperate a sheet of paper from a stack of papers. I would watch her do this all day… I never said anything and I sure as hell never ate the cheese burgers.
Image source: vdragzy, Shahbaz Ali
#15
I once worked in a restaurant where we pulled a half eaten chicken back out of the bin, rinsed it under the tap and gave it back to the complaining customer.
They demanded a new chicken as the order receipt fell in the dish and was served on top, no harm done just a minor mistake.
This chicken was our last of the day. The customer wanted it back so they had it back. A little different than before but back in front of them covered in gravy.
Image source: united5matt, Nathan Dumlao
#16
Actual health inspector.
The worst I’ve heard between my co-workers is a place that had mice floating in buckets in the basement with severe soiling of all surfaces. It was closed until they could clean it up.
The worst I’ve inspected, at least in terms of public health safety, was a place that let their sandwich making food sit out on a countertop without any cooling, and they were also using a residential dishwasher that couldn’t sanitize their dishes. Owner just didn’t manage any of their employees (owners make a huge difference; it’s super obvious if they’re consistently involved and care).
We know the back of the house gets warned and all chefs/staff throw on gloves real quick, but it’s easy to spot when something is a chronic issue. Sometimes we are limited in our actions, though – and it varies by departments. Some have more teeth than others.
Image source: The_Revisioner, Getty Images
#17
Not a health inspector, but I did quit and report the Taco Bell in Lake Stevens, WA for this.
Under the food prep assembly area, the grout between the tiles on the floor had been worn away almost completely, and never replaced. Food would fall on the floor, and then get stomped in between the tiles by people working and walking around. You wouldn’t notice the smell of rotting food, unless someone actually swept and pulled the top layer off of the rot, and once you DID smell it it was F*****G HORRIBLE.
I went to go complain to the manager about it, and he said “don’t worry about it” and grabbed his cologne and started spritzing the *entire kitchen*, some of it landing on the food itself. So not only could you still smell food rot, but you could also smell cheap $2 cologne, and he sprayed chemicals all over the food. When I questioned him about it and told him we needed to replace the food, he told me to shut up or he would send me home.
I came in the next day, picked up my check, and left my work outfit with them. Called to report that afternoon.
Image source: Anilxe, Mike Mozart
#18
I can tell you what they didn’t find. When I worked at Denny’s when the health inspector came the cooks took all the expired food out of the fridge and stored it in their cars and by the *dumpster* until after the health inspector left and then they put it all back. I ended up quitting that job after I got written up for refusing to change the dates on the labels of all the expired food, which was one of the primary jobs of the graveyard server.
Image source: LegendOfDylan, Mike Mozart
#19
A tuna canning plant in Los Angeles was off of Terminal Island, the processing plant owned the entire Island a few miles off shore. Needless to say, had to take a boat to the plant to look at some machinery they needed repaired.
We get to the plant and there are dozens of cats, inside the plant, outside the plant, wharehouse, etc. CATS EVERYWHERE! Nobody said anything. They were even in the office building. After a few trips, I finally asked. One guy said in a joke, “It’s either rats or cats. We don’t have a rat problem here.”.
Image source: anon, Curated Lifestyle
#20
Worked in a restaurant and whenever a health inspector came I had to go to the kitchen to tell the cooks to put on gloves and hairnets, its not that they didnt wash their hands or anything, they were oldschool with cooking, but still it was a violation.
#21
In the mid-80’s I managed a pizza delivery store and the health inspector came by kind of late and asked me to step outside. He started by apologizing but it was his job to follow up when they have a specific complaint concerning food safety but this one was odd. He proceeded to tell me a customer complained that while they were in the store two male workers had s*x on the counter and didn’t even wash their hands. I very dryly responded that couldn’t have happened as we ALWAYS wash our hands after having s*x on the cutting table. With a small grin he said that’s what he thought and he appreciated our efforts. He was our inspector for several years after that.
Image source: ratcnc, Alex Vámos
#22
Not a health inspector but when I was in my late teens I worked at a “5 star” restaurant where they were using potatoes and other produce with maggots in them consistently. Restaurants like these easily charge people $285-350 a head for events like new years eve. They got shut down.
Image source: furrociousbambi, Robert Gunnarsson
#23
Not a health inspector, but I used to be a bus boy at a nice Italian restaurant in my home town. We had problems with the Chinese place across the street because we found out that they had been taking the lettuce that we throw in the dumpster at the end of the night. Our manager used to stand outside and guard the dumpster so they wouldn’t take our garbage.
Another experience working at a local cafe. I was cutting up cheese from a walk in fridge and I found a hole in the cardboard box that the cheese was kept in. Turned out it was from rats or mice, and they were eating the cheese. Told my manager about it and he told me to cut around the bite marks and still used the cheese. Left that job shortly after.
Image source: HalfEatenChalupa, Jef Wright
#24
14 inch border of mold/dirt scum all the way around the edge of the restaurant.
Boxes that had 5 year old shipping labels blocking the path to the mops/ mop buckets/ mop sink.
No sanitizer buckets.
No sanitizer cloths.
No sanitizer.
Mold in the fans blowing over open food in the cooler.
Didnt bother finishing the inspection. Just shut them down.
Image source: jordanleveledup
#25
Not a health inspector, but read public health inspection reviews.
_________
There was a Burger King near me that had black mold in the ice machine, and large holes in the kitchen where rats had eaten the walls and buried through.
There was also a KFC that was cited for having broken glass and “other debris” on the serving line????? I really don’t get that one.
Image source: romansapprentice, M. Rennim
#26
I do a lot of polishing and chrome plating. I am NOT a health inspector but I do a lot of work for restaurants.
I got a call to chrome plate some refrigerator racks. It’s common request. These are large 36 to 48″ long racks/grills that the food sits on. This one high end steak house that I used to go to calls me in. Their racks were literally falling apart, rusted joints, old food hanging off of them, just disgusting. I explained it can’t be repaired but they insisted that we just shine them up, do whatever is needed. I refused the job, left and wanted to throw up. Never went to that restaurant aver again.
Immediately called the health department on them. Don’t know what happened.
Image source: anon
#27
Not an inspector but I worked at sushi and hibachi restaurant for about a year as a server, host and deliver driver. This place had a ton of things that were certainly questionable but a few of them ended up causing me to leave the place. In the dry storage area, they had cleaning chemicals directly above all of the togo food packages and plastics ware. In that same room, which was really big, I’d randomly see a sleeping bag and pillow tucked away every once and a while. It always stuck out but I never really thought too much into until I went back to grab a bottle of wine and sure enough had stepped on a sleeping woman. She started yelling and I just ran out. My manager pulled me aside later, which I assume was going to be a conversation about keeping that hush hush but no. The dude offered me $25,000 to marry a Thai chick so she could get a green card. My response to him was my two weeks notice.
Image source: KrakenWarg
#28
A restaurateur was trying to reopen a failed one into a new one. It had been a Mexican joint, was going to be a deli. I was working for a pest control company, and they called us to take care of a “few bugs.” No big deal, they’re just pro-active. I get there, it’s clean, it smells okay, but I’m about one month into this new job and experience.
I go to get started and I’m mixing up the s**t we have to use in restaurants, and I’m using the water from one of their triple sinks. The water is coming out hot, it’s a Vegas summer, so I’m letting it run until it cools down some. I look over at the floor sink the triple sink drains into, and there’s a lot of German cockroaches coming out of it. F**k it, this water will do. I fill up the two gallons, put the pump/handle back in and shake it to mix it, pump it to pressurize and it and get to work. When you start with a full canister, there’s less air, so you have to stop and pause to repump it to keep the pressure up. As I’m going the hitting all the cracks and crevices, behind the sinks, the equipment, under every thing, the seam in the wipe down plastic walls, etc, roaches are just pouring out in to the open. It’s in the thousands stage, where now, when I stand still they are trying to hide under my boots. The last time I have to stop to pump up the canister, I’m standing on it’s stainless steel with the brass handle between my feet. F**k this.
I call on the radio for a coworker who I know is nearby because he has a fog unit and I don’t at this point (newly hired, wasn’t 100% kitted out). Tony swings by, I’m waiting out side, and we renegotiate the service. The new owner had been a little on the light side with the depth of his problem. He agrees, we get to fogging. Tony’s showing me how to do it, so I’m just walking behind him. At this point there’s tens of thousands of roaches every where; floor, walls, ceiling. We get to the walkin and above it where I think the compressor was, was a 4 foot (h) by 8 foot by 10 foot space. Tony directs the fog stream up in there, and the roaches start pouring out. Pouring out in such numbers that briefly, you can barely see the stainless steel of the walk in door.
The entire rest of the day, any little itch on my skin, you’re leaping to slap it and check it’s not a roach stuck on you.
Image source: anon
#29
Obligatory “not a health inspector” but I am a regional Health Department that employs health inspectors for my Food Protection Bureau. We’ve seen rotten animal carcasses, “processing meat on-site” (AKA butchering sheep in the parking lot), people serving meat from crazy types of animals… Sometimes when our inspectors arrive on site, an employee will yell to the back kitchen and there will be a frenzy to throw things out to the dumpster outside before we can catch it.
If the public areas of a restaurant are dirty, the kitchen probably isn’t any better. If staff members you interact with are poorly trained, those you don’t have contact with (such as the person making your food) are likely to be the same. In short: whatever you can’t see probably mirrors (or is even worse than) what you can.
Image source: saltlakehealth
#30
We found a market that was raising and slaughtering live sheep in the back parking lot.
My supervisor has a picture of a sheep head that’s sitting on the prep table next to food that was ready-to-eat (meaning it’s not gonna be cooked any more).
Here’s a local news story about it
He says he’s ready to comply… But that market never re-opened. I think the news story really hurt his business.
Image source: StumbleKitty
#31
The current Kebab shop I work at, everything is clean, well kept, everything is well maintained, the owner has a twin who also decided to open a Kebab Shop. I went to visit a few weeks ago.
The cheesecakes are left in low temperature cupboards rater than freezers, which isn’t cold enough so they have bright green mould.
Every single egg there is expired – I checked with the egg in water test.
The pizza doughs have all gone bad – you can even tell from the smell.
There are milk cartons in the fridge that have been there for around 2 months.
He offered me to come work there for £9 an hour, which in England is a lot for someone my age.
I said no and I dont regret it, a health inspector is gonna come there soon and close it anyway hopefully.
Image source: anon
#32
Not a health inspector, but when I was working at Papa John’s in eastern Washington state, one of my co-workers would always come in with glittery, long, manicured and painted fingernails, and refused to wear gloves on the make line (where the pizzas were made before going into the oven).
She would regularly handle cash payments, then, without washing her hands, start prepping a pizza, without gloves on, getting loads of cheese, raw dough, and other chunks of food stuck under her fake nails. Our manager never corrected her on this (she was a airheaded high school senior, and the manager was a gross perv that kept her around until she was 18 only so he could legally ask her out…guy was married with two kids and in his 30s…he fired her when she turned him down after she was 2 minutes late to her shift), but one night when it was just me driving deliveries and her answering the phone and making pizzas, I got a complaint from a customer I delivered to earlier saying that they found a “melted Lego” in their pizza…
…sure enough, Miss Manicure looked at her nails, and one of her press on nails had come off and apparently melted when it went through the oven on top of my customer’s pizza.
She didn’t give a f**k about the angry customer at all, she just called her older sister to come over to the restaurant to bring her box of fake nails and nail glue, and replaced it (again, without washing her GODDAMNED HANDS after handling money and raw meat all night), and went about her merry way.
I put in my two weeks notice the next day, that place was a f*****g zoo.
Image source: TehPurpleMenace
#33
Not an inspector, but I worked for a fairly large steak house chain a few years ago. When the health inspector came, he checked the bar for health code violations first, leaving my manager enough time to rinse out a garbage can, and pull all of the outdated/unlabelled product out of the walk in and stack it IN THE CAN. He just covered it with a trash bag and set it to the side so it just looked like garbage waiting to be taken out. After the inspection he made me put everything back in the cooler. I didn’t work that job for very long.
Image source: MammaSquidd, Getty Images
#34
I worked as a chef in Sf for a couple of years. Every restaurant I worked in was clean but most of them still had a rat problem including rat droppings on food safe surfaces. At those places we plastic wrapped everything, including plates and silverware and surfaces we put food on, nightly.
Image source: Kelkymcdouble, Denitsa Kireva
#35
Not a health inspector but we had a chinese restaurant shut down after an undercover sting revealed they were going out back of the restaurant and catching and serving pigeon.
Image source: aheal2008, Levi Meir Clancy
#36
So this thread is now too old, but let me tell you one of the few good things about Italy: health inspectors.
Now, health inspectors in Italy are part of the Carabinieri, which are… well, they are a kind of police, but technically army. And, oh my god, they take that s**t so seriously.
My mother worked in various restaurants and hotels, and one was in the mountains. It was a place for mountain people going hiking, so it was f*****g hard to reach. Impossible to get to with trucks, the only way to reach it was go hiking for five hours and enjoy it. Did that stop the health inspectors from going? F**k no. They got a *m***********g chopper* and did their *m***********g inspection.*
There’s even a show about them, kinda like Cops, and oh my god. One time they were complaining because the shopkeeper hadn’t put a complete list of ingredients for the sauces they were putting in their sandwiches. Whenever i watch the Italian Hell’s Kitchens, our version of “this restaurant is a f*****g disaster” is “jesus christ, guys, you didn’t clean the stove properly! COME OVER AND CLEAN IT!”
With that said, there’s always something that slips the cracks. For example, my mother remembers the owner of a restaurant (edit: not the previously mentioned helicopter one, to be clear) who would clean his feet in the kitchen sink, and there was news of a fancy Sushi place in Milan treating their fish with ammonia. But *man* does it feel nice to know people with kalashnikovs are looking after that.
Image source: Throwawaaawa
#37
I once finished up a foodborne illness investigation, not finding much that could have caused the illness, and left. I parked my car on the other side of the street in full view of the restaurant I was just at. I watched the dishwasher come out the back door, light a cigarette, smoke for a minute, then hunch over and f*****g puke all over the grass. Then he took another drag and went back inside. I have mild emetophobia so I got a bit of a cold sweat, then ran across the street and basically dragged his a*s outside.
I’ve got a lot of stories, but that was the worst for me.
Image source: TheYellowRose
#38
Obligatory not a health inspector, but a place I loved got shut down by one. I actually caught her on the way out and asked what was up and if she’d think they’d re-open. The lady let out a long laugh and just went, “Oh. No. No, no, no.” and then went on her way. So I don’t know what she found, but apparently it was bad enough that she found the idea of them re-opening to be a joke.
Image source: UnwantedUngulate
#39
I work next to a Chinese restaurant. One of my co-workers has seen one of the Chinese restaurant owners clipping their toenails right behind the counter! They also don’t have proper ventilation.
Image source: tcsey
#40
I helped my dad run his restaurant for a good 5 years, and my dad was (and still is to this day) a big fan of “people seeing the fresh food as it was made” so we never had doors to the kitchen from either customer entry point, despite my insistence on it.
Sure enough, it was the only thing the health inspector ever docked us for, and my dad solved the problem by just putting “doors” in, but never closing them.
Image source: vainbetrayal
#41
Obligatory “Not a health inspector” but i work for a Local Council in the UK and was asked by our Environmental Health officer (EHO) to assist with a Rat infestation. They wanted me to arrange for the tunnels that the Rat’s had burrowed to be filled with concrete. we followed the tunnels along the foot way and into the kitchen of a “World Bar and grill” (One of those buffet places that do food from all around the world as an all you can eat deal) these tunnels were only small, but once we got into the kitchen, there was over 200 rats, they were in and on everything, droppings everywhere nests everywhere, the place was disgusting. I should point out these Rats had been there for up to 6 months and the restaurant was still open up until the day of the inspection. The guy who owned the place offered to pay extra if we could do it quickly so he could re-open. The EHO laughed and said the place was going to be condemned until, he was happy to eat food off the floor.
Image source: cooperboss
#42
Lifeguard here. One time the gmm of chlorine in the baby pool was around 45. The optimal amount is 1-3. The health inspector was not happy about it.
Image source: Larry057
#43
Not a health inspector, I worked at a dining hall in college. During a health inspector visit, the health inspector knocked over a bunch of the papers we wrapped burritos in on the nasty floor. He proceeded to place all the contaminated papers back on the counter to be served to customers. Even healthy inspectors have given up on college dining services.
Image source: SophisticatedNanna
#44
Not a health inspector, but I worked as a janitor/prep cook/busser at a restaurant outside of D.C. There was this dishwasher there named Santana who was a great guy, older gentleman who didn’t speak much English and came from Latin America somewhere. Anyways, I guess growing up he didn’t have the luxury of wasting food, so whenever a dish would come back with food on it, Santana would scarf it down as he worked. If that wasn’t gross enough, he once chopped off like the first joint of his finger while working prep and literally just threw it out and kept working. Eventually the head chef noticed his glove was full of blood, so he dug the finger out of the trash and drove him to the hospital.
Santana was a good guy and a good worker, but some of the stuff he did was just downright nasty.
Image source: Zkennedy100
#45
Okay so this is my friend’s story. He was doing a ride along in medical school with a health inspector, and they stopped at a gas station that sold pizza that was made at the station. It didn’t have a sink. NO sink. They had one restroom sink that was broken. But they were making pizza to sell to customers. The health inspector immediately called the cops and shut the whole place down within an hour. I still shudder thinking about the people who ate that pizza.
Image source: anon
#46
Frozen coyotes in the freezer.
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#47
Mexican restaurant in Washington state. Showed up and they we’re cooking in ankle deep sludge from a backed up drain. There undercounter refrigeration was going out so they loaded up hotel pans with ice to keep things cold. Everytime they pulled there doors open nasty melted ice an meat juices would slosh out. Had to go out and tell everyone to stop eating the food It was so bad.
Image source: CarsoniousMonk
#48
Not a health inspector, but used to work in a place where I don’t know HOW we passed any inspections. Best bet he was paying him off.
– Chef NEVER cleaned his hands. Was n italien, made AMAZING pizza and I used to get a free one every friday. Stopped accepting after I saw him wipe his nose on his hand and keep kneading.
– Saw the worlds biggest rat in the bar. Now I LOVE rats/Snakes/Mice, you name it, but I screamed and ran to the other end of the bar. He told me to shut up and go back, else the clients would realize it was there. (He knew about it.)
– Asked me to go do dishes. I walked into the kitchen – Grime on the walls, floor, counters and dishes piled on the sides and the floor. Spend 4 hours trying to bleach the ever loving f**k of it, hose attached to the hot pipe, the whole shebang. Quit that evening, after staining my work clothes and getting badly burned by the water. STILL didn’t get it fully cleaned but it made me sick.
Image source: _Potato_Cat_
#49
My mom is a health inspector, and she always told me how Chinatown was always the worst. So many decapitated animals, so much blood.
Actually though, health inspectors also inspect other facilities, like apartment buildings, food transport trucks, and pools. I think for my mom, the global worst must have been an apartment complex in a particularly poor area with cockroach nests in the ceilings. Apparently, when there are that many cockroaches, they get very feisty and are known to bite humans.
Image source: Qzply76
#50
Here’s another “what they didn’t find” entry:
At the doughnut shop I worked for just out of high school, we had a wonder tool called “The Scraper”.
The bakers would use it to cut dough and make various products like cinnamon rolls and bear claws.
Those on janitorial duty would use it to scrape walls and floors (including in the bathroom).
We didn’t have separate scrapers for each use, though.
That fried cinnamon with caramel icing you’re enjoying was cut into shape by literally the exact same tool used to scrape the dried pee off the wall behind the toilet.
No health inspector ever caught on. We’d get a D rating at every review and warned to make changes. Everything would continue like we always did until two or three days before the scheduled follow-up inspection (the health department always told us when they were coming back) when we’d have an o**y of cleaning until everything in the place was spotless, which usually resulted in an A rating.
Until the next year when they’d give us a D rating and we’d start the whole cycle over again.
Image source: evilkumquat
#51
Not a health inspector but I work in different restaurants daily installing data lines. I have seen so many disgusting things. Recently I have been working at Hardees in the mid west, just an fyi every surface is greasy, nobody mops and there is garbage everywhere. I was at one just the other night in Sikeston Missouri that had at least ten different kinds of bugs. I have been to Arby’s that it was clear nobody moped in weeks. At almost every Red Robbins the floors are so greasy you can skate. Not to mention just about every chain has rat droppings in the ceilings.
Image source: KrackerJoe
#52
My first job working at a restaurant, first day the head of the floor tells me about the time the manager comes into the kitchen screaming ‘Right, the health inspector’s coming TOMORROW, WE NEED TO GET THE ANT’S NESTS OUT!’.
Image source: lolzing35
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