What are your restaurant red flags?

[No. 7 cat]

An obvious one is food coming too fast. They've re-heated in a microwave.

 

[Banana Hammock]

A brand new place that already has ten or more 5-star reviews. Those were almost definitely left by friends and family, and you should wait a month or two to get some genuine reviews (unless you don't mind the risk of getting shitty food).

A place near a college with a bunch of high reviews. Especially if it's open late at night. Odds are the food is mediocre at best.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

An obvious one is food coming too fast. They've re-heated in a microwave.

Came to write this. If something else than soup is coming out super fast its almost always going to be shit. There is exceptions as here we have restaurants called "Esnaf Lokantası" which have everything cooked & ready in front of you and you just choose the things you want to eat, they taste amazing 95% of the time (as opposed to a buffet, people dont finger around the food and everything runs out by a few hours so it doesnt get replaced, you always have fresh food and not leftovers from the other day)

I think other 'red flags' I can think of are when you have uninterested waiters, its almost guaranteed that the restaurant isnt doing good unless they have something personal going on.

 

[Xarpho]

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.

I think Sysco has a bad reputation just from that they're not too expensive (not everyone can go to the farmer's market every morning) but it's all about the preparation more than anything else. You can take the same ground beef, keep it fresh, throw it on a hot grill, and make a GREAT burger...or just flatten it in a clamshell grill as the texture and taste deteriorates, then keep in a warming bin for lunch hour.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

More about the bars/bars in restaurants red flags, but I have a few as an amateur bartender.
1. If they don’t put anything that isn’t hard liquor in a fridge, like vermouth, be wary of ordering anything but beer.
2. If they shake anything that doesn’t have something that needs to be aerated like citrus juice, eggs, or cream you’re in for crap. Just get a beer.
3. If they’re freepouring anything be careful, or figure out which shifts have people that know how to count I guess. One time a friend wanted me try to replicate something that an Asian place had on their menu, but of course they didn’t have the ingredients, so I just ordered a martini…

That’s actually another red flag now that I’m replaying this in my head. If the bar doesn’t have the shit on hand to service their set menu, that’s a problem.

Anyway, I procede to see this lunatic freepour what was probably 5 ounces of 47.5 percent alcohol by volume gin into a shaker, see point 2, at noon. 10-ish bucks is crazy for that amount of booze at a bar but I’d rather not be most of the way to fucked up after one drink.

 

[Polyboros2]

I'm not super experienced at eating out, but from my personal experience I have to side on team "If Old People Like it, its bad."

I've been drug out of my way to some of these most underwhelming Mexican food by old people. In a predominately Hispanic area. They seem to think that if it looks like a dirty hole in the wall, it's "authentic" Mexican, but the are all the fucking same. Browned rice with canned corn mixed in, warmed up paste "refried beans", a crispy taco that is largely potato. The fajitas can be decent but your paying 20 bucks for something mediocre.

Tangent to the Mexican restaurants, but specific to breakfast tacos. If the scrambled eggs are mixed in with the meat(bacon, sausage, ham), your getting warmed over slop. They make a giant tin of it and serve it with an ice cream scoop, it'll be bland. You're probably gonna get it precooked anyways if your not sitting down for it, but the ones that premix it seem to be the worst. (as an opposite to this, a BBQ joint that serves breakfast tacos has the best sausage and egg. I know I'm getting yesterdays sausage, but either the reheating it after dicing it up, the slower longer cook it gets in the warmers, or just the fact that it's actually linked sausage and not just extra fatty ground pork makes it BETTER)

 

[BootlegPopeye]

I've been drug out of my way to some of these most underwhelming Mexican food by old people. In a predominately Hispanic area. They seem to think that if it looks like a dirty hole in the wall, it's "authentic" Mexican, but the are all the fucking same. Browned rice with canned corn mixed in, warmed up paste "refried beans", a crispy taco that is largely potato. The fajitas can be decent but your paying 20 bucks for something mediocre.

Speaking as someone who is of Mexican descent, actual 'authentic' Mexican is the taco cart/truck on the corner. These are all over in Mexico, and the food given out is basically slop. Obsessing over what is or isn't 'authentic' foreign food is a total foodie thing, and this reminds me - we could really use a foodie thread in the community watch forum.

 

[Fialovy]

If it is a diner, with one exception in my life, if the diner looks too nice and modern, it usually sucks compared to the ones that are more homey and haven't been updated in a while

 

[Nonconsentual Pronouns]

If it is a diner, with one exception in my life, if the diner looks too nice and modern, it usually sucks compared to the ones that are more homey and haven't been updated in a while

Places that are concerned with coming off as 'trendy' always serve sub-par or worse food and beverages, IME.

Gordon Ramsay is great and all that, but I hate a lot of the remodel jobs in Kitchen Nightmares that the crew quickly came up with and slapped together out of Ikea or whatever cafeteria supply store was in town. They usually ended up looking cold, uncomfortable and hipster-y.
Seriously, what were they high on when they did this? (Yes, those are a bunch of random doors all over the wall on the left.)

 

[POWER IN MISERY]

if there is a homeless man right outside talking to the colonel on his invisible walkie talkie you're going to have a bad experience. normally that would go without saying but i've encountered this more than once.

 

[RichardMongler]

i've encountered this more than once.

Now I'm curious. What happened?

 

[Vietnam Ron]

Any Mexican restaurant serving hard shell ground beef tacos. I had to go out to eat at a Mexican place relatively far away because my older family asked me and the entire experience was a farce. All of the food was bland, lacking in meat, heat and flavor as well as costing twice as much as authentic street tacos I can get packed to the brim with tripe or carnita. This spot wanted 20+ dollars for a disgusting pepper fried in a revolting batter, 2 cheese filled tortillas and a tiny bit of shredded chicken. The salsa was basically tomato juice and the only other customers were 80 year olds who said things such as "I wonder what that TEEKWEELAH tastes like". Needless to say I will be needing a sufficient palate cleanser of corn tortillas and freshly fried tripa. First thing I ate after coming home was a home made lengua burrito and prayed to the latinx Gods for forgiveness.

 

[Seventh Star]

Check the furniture and the vibe it gives off. I went to eat at this restaurant where the style of the furniture didnt match and the beverage fridges were spread out across the dining area. Another thing that tipped me off were the paintings of celebrities on the walls, with nothing actually tying them together, just chosen at random. When I saw the high prices, I knew inmediately to order the cheapest thing to eat. The fries were predictably oily, bland, and tasted like nothing.

 

[Bloitzhole]

Asian restaurants that don't lean heavily into Asian aesthetics, decor or furniture BUT with lots of upper-middle-class looking Asian patrons inside are usually the best.
The most striking example of this: In one major European city, I once entered what, judging from the menu appeared to be a Korean place and found myself in a sort of Bavarian beer-hall looking space, absolutely packed - about 70% business dressed Koreans and 30% random native locals. I later read in an article that the Korean lady that had taken over the previous restaurant when it went bankrupt simply couldn't be bothered to redecorate, as that was simply not a priority for her.
The food was absolute top notch. Great Kimchi, very nice bibimbap and bulgogi.

In general I become suspicious the moment I see a very diverse and long menu.
The only places that had long menus that also made decent food were those where there's long lists of the same 5 basic dishes with lots of slight variations.
When I visit a city, I tend to look for a restaurant that is connected in some manner to a brewery and has a very short menu - because those places will focus on a handful of dishes that go great with (their) beer. And most things that go great with beer will also warm the soul of any traveler far from home.

 

[JamusActimus]

Also when things are not available on the menu it's sometimes a good sign. It doesn't mean they are disorganised it's just that they don't have X anymore and have to wait to receive it.

When a restaurant has everything on the menu it could be a bad sign.

 

[Akashic Retard]

Any Mexican restaurant serving hard shell ground beef tacos. I had to go out to eat at a Mexican place relatively far away because my older family asked me and the entire experience was a farce. All of the food was bland, lacking in meat, heat and flavor as well as costing twice as much as authentic street tacos I can get packed to the brim with tripe or carnita. This spot wanted 20+ dollars for a disgusting pepper fried in a revolting batter, 2 cheese filled tortillas and a tiny bit of shredded chicken. The salsa was basically tomato juice and the only other customers were 80 year olds who said things such as "I wonder what that TEEKWEELAH tastes like". Needless to say I will be needing a sufficient palate cleanser of corn tortillas and freshly fried tripa. First thing I ate after coming home was a home made lengua burrito and prayed to the latinx Gods for forgiveness.

That's how 99% of Mexican restaurants are outside of the southwest and west coast. Another one I've found is whether or not they serve tacos with limes on the side. They're ubiquitous in the west but not so much everywhere else.

 

[snailslime]

sushi places where none of the chefs are asian

 

[Archeops]

Really? Nobody’s gonna speak up? I’m the one that‘s gonna have to say it?

Alright…

NO FREE REFILLS!

 

[Wormy]

sushi places where none of the chefs are asian

Found a sushi joint where the sushi chefs were Mexican. Haaaard nope out of that right out of the gate.

 

[Some Badger]

Less of a red flag and more of an open question to the thread:

Is it a sign that a restaurant is going under if they advertise a ton of special deals on social media? Limited time free fries with your order, special lunch combos on certain days, limited time deserts, etc. There’s a burger place two counties over from me whose fried chicken sandwiches I really, really like and I follow them on Instagram, but I worry that all the posting about these deals is a desperate attempt to stay afloat and the business is hemmhoraging money.

I don’t wanna lose my burger place bros. It’s clean, homely and the owner runs the counter and she seems like a nice lady.