What are your restaurant red flags?

[Narcoleptic Rowlet]

Off the top of my head:
Majority of customers are geriatrics.
Pizza at a place that doesn't specialize in pizza.
Dead on a weeknight.

 

[Red Hood]

Mexican food places that serve "queso" dip
Fried chicken places with only white customers
Japanese places that serve Chinese food

 

[Absolutego]

Food television has made me wary of any place that has a smorgasbord of entrees
Pizza places that don't have margherita, and most pies have 5+ ingredients
Mexican places that don't serve tongue

 

[The Gifted Kid]

Bits of food floating in my glass of water that was just served to me

 

[Haint]

If you drive across a city and you see more than two of the same restaurant.

 

[Jason Wynn]

“Ethnic” restaurants that have a “white people menu” for the autistics that go to such a restaurant and still expect to be served burgers and fries

OP saying seeing the customer base is almost nothing but zombified boomers is one of mine as well

Making tips mandatory. I almost always tip when eating out, but if you’re requiring patrons to tip instead of it being a gratuity for excellent service, something’s wrong

If you can see the cooks and the majority of them are nigs, leave and go somewhere else. Your stomach will thank you

 

[Xarpho]

Fried chicken places with only white customers

That's not a red flag, especially if your city (or the neighborhood) is predominantly white. Most (there are a few exceptions) fried chicken restaurants in the ghetto aren't very good (especially chains, even for their standards), much less clean.

Protip for any restaurant: when you get a meal, get water. Does the water (and ice) actually taste like water? If it's worse-tasting than just tap water, then there's probably some sort of mold or bacterial growth in their systems.

 

[Goyslop Muncher]

Most Chinese take out, avoid it. Find the one good place and don't deviate.
Most chains. Not terrible but generally unpleasant.
Sports bars, typically bad and overpriced.
Business casual joints. Overpriced and overflowing with wannabee business types.

 

[Mojo Thief]

In most places in America, a diner that serves only frozen meat with some variation of potato-based side dish would be the stereotypical "crappy" restaurant. Around here, it's "family-style" Italian restaurants.

Red flags include a long-ass menu that consists largely of variations on the same three pastas, high prices justified only by the excessively large portions, pasta that's always overcooked and mushy, covered in acidic tomato sauce or alfredo that tastes like cheesy mayonnaise.

On a related note, any restaurant that has a limit on BYOB. Like, just charge me the fucking corkage fee, I'm not going to buy your shitty, overpriced table wine. It's free money, I dunno why some places insist on trying to force you to buy their crap.

 

[Red Hood]

That's not a red flag, especially if your city (or the neighborhood) is predominantly white. Most (there are a few exceptions) fried chicken restaurants in the ghetto aren't very good (especially chains, even for their standards), much less clean.

Protip for any restaurant: when you get a meal, get water. Does the water (and ice) actually taste like water? If it's worse-tasting than just tap water, then there's probably some sort of mold or bacterial growth in their systems.

relax bro it's a joke

 

[OrionBalls]

This was a pretty big one. Or should I have been happy about the free extra protein?

 

[murph]

Any place that charges 30 bucks for a steak and serves canned green beans as a side. Panda Express has fresh grilled green beans, goddamnit.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Niggers. Either as customers or as staff.

 

[RichardMongler]

In no particular order:

• "Everything is good here." This is a very big one because that really means absolutely nothing is good here. If a server who's obviously not new can't name what the patrons enjoy, just order appetizers to be polite and then excuse yourself.
• Jack-of-all-trades menus. In addition to the aforementioned issue of servers being unable to identify quality items, restaurants that have vast menus tend not to be good at anything they prepare. A good restaurant will have a much smaller menu with dishes they'll prepare adequately.
• For Chinese joints, pictures of food on the wall. This almost always spells trouble.
• Places with ≤100 reviews AND/OR a Yelp score ≤3.5. I've been to absolutely awful places with great reviews but only a handful of ratings which means not enough people have tried it. A place needs at least 100 reviews to be worth your time, and the Yelp score needs to be preferably higher than 3.5 stars.
• Irish pubs that don't serve curry chips.
• Italian joints with kitschy menus.

 

[CHARizard]

A game my dad taught me was to play guess the race at any "Japanese" restaurant. It was never really a red flag, but generally the Korean owned places were better than the Chinese ones.

If its a BBQ place and you dont see a huge column of smoke coming out of it then always avoid.

Indian places that don't let you order it "Indian spicy"

Go to a crab place and the table isnt covered with brown paper, only seems to happen inland.

 

[JektheDumbass]

If it's a local place with all black people, it's a family joint run by hard-working blacks and is probably good. If it's a chain and all the employees are black then it's run by shifty niggers and you should avoid.

 

[GenericEdgelordSupreme]

1. Vegetarian/Vegan
2. No coffee
3. Melanin

 

[Some JERK]

 

[Megaroad 2012]

If I see a pride flag and a BLM sign in the window I avoid.

 

[Dream_Cooter]

If I see a pride flag and a BLM sign in the window I avoid.

There was a Nandos Chicken near me with a big rainbow Nandos flag in the window and underneath it was a big sign saying unvaccinated people couldn't eat there. I love our more tolerant society.