What are your restaurant red flags?

[CrystalRoserade]

Honestly the one thing I'm picky about at restaurants is the fries. If they're not fresh, it's usually not worth it.

 

[mindlessobserver]

• carpet in the dining area - There's a reason why houses generally don't have carpet in the dining room or kitchen; it's gross as hell.
• Spanish being spoken in anything other than a hispanic or Spanish restaurant - This is possibly the most prominent symptom of cheap, incompetent labor in the US.
• noggs or wiggers working the kitchen, no matter what kind of food the place serves - Your food will be dirty either on purpose or just because they don't give a fuck.
• disruptive children/kids' menu - Places that attract people with improperly cared for children generally have cheap, shitty food. I also don't need to be around screaming kids while trying to make the best of overpaying for shitty food that I was dragged along for.
• staff asking for personal info like my phone number, email, full name, etc - No, I don't want to be in your worthless rewards program just so you can sell all my info to Xhinny the Pooh and Pajeet before you start spamfucking my inbox.
• insane charges for extra toppings - I'm not paying $2 for a goddamn slice of Kraft Singles and $2 for two little pickle slices on my burger. Looking at you, Five Guys.
• they don't ask you how well done you want the burger patty cooked - All they serve is low-grade, possibly old beef that they have to overcook to shit just to avoid giving you food poisoning.
• coffee places that don't offer medium and light roasts - Their beans are trash and need to be burnt in order to keep you from tasting how trash they are. Most of the caffeine will be burned out as well.
• won't allow customers to reasonably omit components of a dish they order - I'm not asking anyone to pick all traces of onion from my French onion soup; I just don't want some wretched garlic butter sauce drowning my shrimp skewers. If it's cooked fresh to-order, omitting a topping or whatever isn't a problem.
• undercooked chicken or pork - Do not ask for a re-fire, just leave.
• labeling anything as "kosher" or "halaal" - Either trust me on this one or have fun going out to find out the hard way.
• woke propaganda - They care more about pushing an agenda and pandering than they do about the food. I'm also just not going to support that shit.
• limitless supply of food that takes hours to cook - If they don't have a very finite amount of pot roast or tonkotsu broth to serve each day, you're paying for leftovers or something not made in-house.
• tablets at the tables with overpriced mobile games to run your bill up - It's an underhanded way to make a buck off of parents and it also implies less focus on the quality of the food. It's worse when it's got some flashing, technicolored nonsense trying to get your attention throughout the entire sitting. Asking the waitstaff to remove it doesn't solve the issue of the rest of them flashing at you from every table.
• won't serve chicken grilled in stead of fried when they have a grill - They're not battering fresh chicken; they're frying or baking some Tyson's they found in the freezer.
• wilted greens - If they can't be bothered to update fresh stock of their cheapest components, what chance do the more expensive ones have?
• TVP used to bulk up the actual meat in a dish - If they're serving textured veggie protein, aka fake meat like Subway's "chicken", they give zero fucks about the food.

A lot of previous posts give really good advice that I don't need to repeat.

I must defend Five Guys honor here. All toppings, including the pickles, are free. You do pay extra for a cheese burger vs hamburger, but show me a place where this doesn't happen. If you want extra cheese though that is also free

 

[Airbrushed Van Art]

Someone who worked as a health inspector once told me succinctly that if the dining area of a restaurant is dirty (stains, crumbs, dirty cutlery, bits of food in water etc...) then stay the fuck away. Think about it: this is the area that the staff WANT you to see. If they can't keep it clean then imagine what the kitchen is like.

Food poisoning is fucking awful (worst experiences of my life). I won't take the risk, frankly.

 

[Nonconsentual Pronouns]

I must defend Five Guys honor here. All toppings, including the pickles, are free. You do pay extra for a cheese burger vs hamburger, but show me a place where this doesn't happen. If you want extra cheese though that is also free

Sounds like their policies might differ depending on location or corporate vs franchise, then. The one I visited had a menu board that listed each individual component (barring the bun) separately. The prices for the very few actual meals really weren't any better priced than ordering each tiny thing ala carte. Each component was overpriced out of this world, including $9 or something for their plain, fast food burger all on its lonesome.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Overly long menus (over a page of main courses is a classic).

 

[Psyduck]

Haven't been to a restaurant since I started cooking for myself, so.. since I was 20?

This *needed* to be posted in this specific thread

 

[Getwhatyou]

If there is more niggers than anything else frequently visiting thats a no from me dawg.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

Dirty bathrooms. If the bathroom ain't clean, the kitchen probably isn't either

 

[Freya]

Prices on the menus. If you have to tell me how much the food costs, it's probably a poor person restaurant.

Someone's never been to a country club

 

[Some Badger]

QR codes and/or digital menus. It seems like a performative attempt by the restaurant to seem environmentally conscious when what they're really doing is trying a little too hard to appeal to hipsters, socialites, yuppies, etc. And how the hell would I supposed to order food through a QR code if my phone was dead? It also just seems like a huge pain in the ass to keep menus on chunky tablets that require a constant charge on a busy day.

 

[I am vomit]

Dirtiness of dishware
filthy bathrooms
any strange smells

I've straight up walked out without eating more than once.

 

[dilettante]

Anything thats been shared around social media (especially TikTok) or has gone "viral" or is popular with teenagers is a hard pass. Not just because when you get there, every diner will spend 3 hours instagramming and 0 hours actually eating, which will make the staff pissed and assume everyone is an influenza and thus treat you poorly, but also teenagers have dogshit taste. The virality will make owners think the food and service are good and get on a high horse, leading to price hikes.

Anywhere that does not have a host, or where you are not greeted as soon as you step in the door, means you will be forgotten for the rest of the night. Even then, the host must be friendly and not fake. Hosts are very overlooked but they are incredibly important. Nothing is worse than waiting at a host desk to enter a restaurant.

Reusable menus. Especially those shitty laminated ones where the plastic is peeling off. If you are going to reuse the menu, at least make sure its clean before service. Any menu with food bits on it makes me genuinely sick.

I personally love seeing a manager just float around the dining room. Its incredibly reassuring, especially when they mingle and ask how your meal is, etc.

A lot of places will just serve dried or frozen food that you can make yourself at home for cheaper and without risking food poisoning. If you can, just save up and eat once a year at an expensive restaurant with real service and kitchens that make fresh food daily instead of once a month at restaurants that simply reheat frozen food.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

• labeling anything as "kosher" or "halaal" - Either trust me on this one or have fun going out to find out the hard way

Nothing more haram than overcooked beef with bacteria so strong it gives you food poisoning anyway.

 

[quaawaa]

I'll add the label 'women owned' to the list. Yes, it's a tag on google maps, and some restaurants also put a sticker of it on their door, often next to pride flags and BLM shit.
As soon as you have to virtue signal to me, I'm assuming your food is shit.

Nearly all of the "women-owned" restaurants are actually owned by a couple and they just add the label because they are technically owned by a woman. If it is an actual Girl Power restaurant, you can tell in Street View because there will 100% be a BLM sign and a rainbow flag in the window.

I love the LGBT-friendly Black Woman Veteran owned restaurants because you know that it's actually owned by a homophobic White male who has never served and just checked every single possible box that Google let him.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Kind of the opposite of a warning sign, if you ask me. - I would be fairly confident of enjoying whatever deep-fried garbage they served me.

 

[Buck Mullet]

I have a tendency to work restaurants as a passing job, and finally, someone gets it. Honestly, it does depend on the establishment, but anyone who doesn't find the rush after a busy day with a wad of bills and a sense of making a lot of people's nights a great time are dead inside.

This. I know it sounds corny, but every restaurant job I've ever had I tried my best to stay in the mindset after I clocked in that my goal is to make this the best experience the customer can have and the best restaurant it can be. Staying focused on doing a good job and keeping the place running as smoothly as possible frankly kept me from losing my shit and stabbing some lazy ass complaining fucks. I've told more than a few guys that if they don't like working here, fucking leave.

 

[The Cunting Death]

Pizza at a place that doesn't specialize in pizza.

IMO it goes both ways too. Like when I go to a Shakey's (yes they still exist, just barely) I go there for Pizza. It specializes in Pizza I get Pizza. I don't care about their other shit

 

[Xarpho]

The "old people at restaurants" problem is not really a red flag, I don't think. The food's probably not super-spicy but it means that the restaurant is at least competent enough to not fuck around with management and cutting expenses, and more often than not, is out of another era. It's not necessarily a good or bad thing (it's hit or miss), and usually these things will die off with their customer base.

I think I've brought up Luby's before, a restaurant chain based out of Texas (and yes, usually their older restaurants are carpeted). It died off partially because their customer base was aged, but it also seems to have ALWAYS had a following by old people. Case in point, the Luby's massacre, which until Virginia Tech, was the highest kill count of any mass shooting, half of the victims were over 55 (oldest in the early 70s), and this was 30 years ago.

Also, and I'm surprised this wasn't brought up to begin with...as extremely suspect as Chinese buffets can go, do NOT go to one that was previously a Chinese buffet, especially if the old one was shut down on health concerns.

 

[RichardMongler]

A lot of places will just serve dried or frozen food that you can make yourself at home for cheaper and without risking food poisoning. If you can, just save up and eat once a year at an expensive restaurant with real service and kitchens that make fresh food daily instead of once a month at restaurants that simply reheat frozen food.

Big agree on this one.

An instant dealbreaker for me is seeing a foodservice truck making deliveries to a particular place, especially if it's a Sysco, Aramark or Thomsen truck. You just know the food is going to be warmed over crap the storeowner ordered from one of those wholesalers. To call any storeowner who does this a "restaurateur" would be an insult to both restaurateurs and their establishments.

 

[ObviousMelon]

Seeing a "halal" sign on the windows or the menu