Health inspectors have a tough job. While the majority of days may pass by without a hitch, there are always outliers. And in the food and beverage industry, the outliers are not always pretty. Improper food handling, lazy or incomplete cleanings, and pest problems are all, unfortunately, common issues in restaurant kitchens.
It’s up to health inspectors to identify and correct these issues or shut down businesses if they are non-compliant or deemed unsafe to the public. Thinking back to all of the less-than-appetizing things I saw working in restaurants over the years, I figured these professionals must have some extraordinarily bleak days on the job. With this in mind, I scoured the internet for some of the worst cases health inspectors have found in restaurant kitchens.
Poor (Or Nonexistent) Hand Washing
While it may seem like an obvious step in food safety, a lack of hand washing is an extremely common issue in many kitchens. One health inspector posted to a Reddit forum that a lack of proper hand washing is one of the most common issues they see. “People don't wash their hands in front of me while I am inspecting," they shared. "They are so use[d] to not washing their hands that even when they are being inspected they don't do it, even to make things look good.”
In a different thread, an inspector noted, “I can’t tell you how many times I've seen cooks walk out of the bathroom with their gloves and apron still on. That makes my blood boil.”
Often, the issue is larger than just a lack of handwashing. Think: The misuse—or missing altogether of—a dedicated hand washing sink. Kitchens are required to have a dedicated hand washing station that is for one purpose and one purpose only. “Hand washing sinks are only for hand washing,” one inspector noted. “This means do not dump food in the hand washing sink or put dishes and utensils in it.”
Working in restaurants, both in front- and back-of-house roles, I have seen this issue firsthand. During a tenure I spent as a baker in Brooklyn, there was only one sink in the kitchen, which was reserved for washing dishes. The only other option for washing hands was the single restroom shared between customers and employees. At another NYC restaurant, servers and bussers routinely dumped food and drinks down the hand washing sink, causing the sink to don a near-constant grimy coating.
Pests
Unfortunately, pests are a problem nearly every restaurant deals with—some better than others. In one well-reviewed restaurant that I served in, I dressed each day in a vest and bowtie, only to frequently watch mice dart across the dining room floor. One service a mouse ran across my foot while I was taking a table’s order—suffice to say, they received a hefty discount. On another night, a bartender snuck out from behind the bar with a quart container hidden beneath a rag in order to block the customers’ view of the mouse he had caught inside.
Mice, of course, aren't the only unwelcome visitors. Like something out of an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, one inspector said their foot once broke through the tiled floor of a kitchen. “Cockroaches come boiling out of the hole,” they said. “Turns out the entire floor was rotten from a water leak in the sewer pipe.”
Flies and maggots are another big problem in restaurants—and a problem that is difficult to remedy. One inspector said, “[I] can't tell you how many time[s] I've pulled the cap off the soda gun to see maggots crawling around in the buildup.” Oft neglected, damp, dark areas like soda machines, ice machines, soft serve machines, and beneath kitchen equipment can serve as great spawning grounds for all types of creepy crawlies.
Improper Cleaning
Proper cleaning and food storage can help prevent all of the issues listed so far, but not all restaurants are up to the task. One inspector said that over their five years on the job, they witnessed many cleaning issues, including an employee “using a rag and bucket to clean the floor and then immediately using the same rag to clean the prep station (literally right in front of me).”
I’ve worked with bartenders who left bars sticky and lids off of drinks, as well as servers and bussers who “cleaned” tables using the same sanitizer bucket and rag for an entire day, and cooks who failed to wipe down surfaces or properly empty the grease traps. At the end of a long shift, not every restaurant employee prioritizes cleaning.
Food Safety & Improper Storage
Proper food storage is essential for maintaining food safety. There are clear guidelines outlining the temperatures at which various foods must be stored, as well as specific requirements for how cold walk-ins, coolers, and freezers should be kept. According to the USDA, the food danger zone—the temperature zone in which food is most susceptible to dangerous levels of bacteria growth—falls between 40° and 140°F. In other words, hot foods should be kept hot, at or above 140°, and cold foods should be kept cold, at or below 40°.
This does not always happen, whether due to improper thawing techniques, coolers in need of service, or a failure to transfer cooked foods into proper cooling situations. And in all of these cases, chances of avoidable food-borne illnesses are heightened.
Another issue is improper storage techniques. In one case, an inspector entered a kitchen freezer only to find “loose beef, pork, and chicken in three separate piles,” sitting on the top shelf of the freezer, atop a piece of cardboard that had turned into a sort of pulp due to the combination of blood and juices from the three meats. And it gets worse.
“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,” they said. “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.”
Sickness
Some restaurants employees really don’t want to miss work and would rather show up to a shift sick than call out. While the idea of missing a day's paycheck is unappealing, what’s worse is working in the kitchen while sick. Scrolling through Reddit forums, I found several health inspectors and kitchen workers recounting watching cooks cough or sneeze into food or into their hands without washing them after.
One inspector had a particularly harrowing experience. “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***ing puke all over the grass. Then he took another drag and went back inside.”
How To Tell If A Restaurant Is Clean
A health rating in the window goes a long way to letting you know what the state of a restaurant kitchen may be. However, employers often stall health inspectors when they arrive for surprise inspections while employees scramble to clean, properly label and store products, and get their stations looking nice, so ratings are not always a reflection of the everyday experience.
One great way to tell the cleanliness of a kitchen is through the restrooms. It may sound silly, but if a restaurant doesn’t care to keep their bathrooms clean, they more than likely don’t care to keep their kitchens clean. So, next time you’re trying a new spot in your neighborhood, get familiar with the restroom before you eat so you don't have to after you eat.
