60 Restaurant Employees Warn Others About Things To Never Order

Most people don’t think twice before grabbing a quick bite or ordering meals at a restaurant. Reading these menu items alone makes your stomach jealous, and all you probably care about is getting some tasty food right away. But the truth is, a little healthy skepticism when it comes to the restaurant business is always a good thing. Because if there’s one thing that can turn appetizing food into an unappealing mess, it's knowing the secrets of the food industry.

Getting a peek behind the curtain and learning about the nooks and crannies of the trade inevitably tells you a little about how the sausage gets made — quite literally. So when Redditor Cynically_Absurd turned to the 'Kitchen Confidential' subreddit asking, "What's an item on a menu that you'll never order and why?" the post immediately became a hit. In fact, our team at Bored Panda discovered a few similar threads that have chefs and servers dishing on the meals they’d absolutely not order under any circumstances.

So we’ve wrapped up some of the most illuminating responses by people who know what they’re talking about, and plated them out in one place for you to devour. Continue scrolling, upvote the ones you didn’t know about, and let us know what you think in the comments! And if you’re keen on some more insider knowledge, check out our previous piece where restaurant workers spill shady cost-saving secrets right here.

#1

Appetizers, just out of spite. I love onion rings, but paying $13 for an order because they’re served as a tower is ridiculous. Apps are now the price as entrees at some places

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#2

When I worked at Subway (and this isn't true of every Subway, I hope), the ice machine was cleaned out about 3 times in my 5 years there. One time I had the luxury of cleaning it. It was filled with mold. Since then I never get ice in my drinks anywhere.

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#3

Unless the place is known for homemade, soups. They're mostly either canned or frozen. Just not where I want to spend my dining out dollars.

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#4

And in a similar vein..."I've heard that if you order a well-done steak you'll get an older cut of meat whose less-than-fresh qualities can be hidden by a longer cook time

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#5

Mine for years was ranch dressing because it was one of my first tasks at my first kitchen job. I took one look at the recipe(four gallons mayo, two gallons buttermilk, five packets ranch dressing seasoning) and said, well that looks awful.

Image credits: Appropriate_Past_893

#6

For me it's calamari and prawns, especially if it's listed as an appetizer. My first job as a prep cook was at a place that served this. We'd get bags of prawns and those frozen blocks of calamari. I would spend hours cleaning and breading. I got pretty good at shelling and deveining prawn with one run of my pairing knife, but I still hated doing it. And fingering the calamari hoods to pull out that plasticy spine and then making sure it was the spine and not just a bit of frozen ice because of course I'm having to process it while it's not completely thawed. It's the thing I've hated doing the most out of every task I've ever had to do in a kitchen (cooking or cleaning), and I refuse to order it when I see it because I remember how much it sucked.

Image credits: Cynically_Absurd

#7

DO NOT COME IN RIGHT BEFORE CLOSING AND ORDER SOMETHING LIKE A STEAK! If the restaurant closes at 11 and you walk in at 10:50 more than likely the grill has been cleaned already and everything is put away. I realize that they are still open but in most cases the cook has already been there for 12 hours and wants to get the f**k out of there. I can't tell you how many times I witnessed the cook just throwing your nice juicy sirloin in the microwave and nuking the ever living s**t out of it.

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#8

And while we're talking about sushi..."For spicy tuna sushi rolls, places often take old, less fresh tuna and add spices to cover up the bad flavor. Stick with regular tuna rolls

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#9

Lobster at a place not known for their seafood. Where the fuck are they gonna get lobster?

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#10

Nachos. I think spending money for cheese melted on chips is ridiculous for the what they charge.

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#11

Eggs Benedict. Who knows where that hollandaise sauce has been.

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#12

On the opposite side of things...I worked at the Olive Garden for three years in college. The soup, salad, and breadsticks all come pre-proccessed just add water s**t. However, the majority of menu items were prepared fresh and monitored for temperature and quality throughout the day.

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#13

Cole Slaw at KFC

Both at the place I worked at, and another one that a friend of mine worked at, about 80% of the time, it was "mixed" with someone's bare hands. The plastic gloves often got too sticky and kinked up to use reliably in the giant tub that it was mixed in.

I love their cole slaw, but I would only eat what I made.

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#14

Risotto…annoying to cook on a busy night and too much butter

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#15

Not a specific item but I won't get sushi at an empty sushi place or on a sunday or Monday before dinner.

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#16

Every macaroni and cheese I’ve eaten out, from ChikFilA to “fine dining” restaurants with some exorbitant mac and cheese on the menu, they’re never good. Always under seasoned, always boring.

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#17

Grilled cheese, because I make it better at home.

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#18

Filet Mignon. Tasteless and overpriced (generally). Also almost any Wagyu cut over 6oz. Blows your palate out.

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#19

Mussels.We get em fresh from the fishery, and still throw out 5% while cleaning em.

Five minutes after rinsing, cleaning, draining and portioning, there's still around 2cm of nasty looking brown mussel piss in the container.

A day after, the container is 1/3 full of that same salty, nasty muddy-looking piss, so they have to be drained and rinsed again (and more dead ones thrown out).

Even when properly cleaned, rinsed and drained, while cooking they leak that same shit into the pan, so you gotta be extra careful seasoning the dish, cause that nasty juice is salty as all fuck.

Fuck. Mussels.

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#20

Anything off of a buffet or salad bar or whatever. It took covid to make me realize exactly how gross the general population is when there’s no consequences for being so gross. I’ve had multiple people genuinely not understand why it was a problem to take the spoon from a seafood dish and use it to get some Mac and cheese or whatever. I’ve seen people lick the utensils. I’ve seen people reach in with their bare hands to get a biscuit. I’ve seen kids getting their own food and all the perils that come with that. Fuck

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#21

Shellfish, I'm allergic

Salad that I didn't process and prepare myself, I simply don't trust anyone to wash the leafy greens as thoroughly as I want them to be washed

At this point I hardly order grilled proteins like steak, pork chops, lamb chops, etc. from a restaurant anymore, I simply have a better time enjoying those items when I cook them myself

But when I'm out with people I enjoy, and the menu is interesting, one of everything

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#22

Oh, and I just remembered, quesadillas. They're my super-cheap go-to when I'm broke. I don't eat meat, so paying someone else to basically melt some cheese into a tortilla, I'm just not gonna do it.

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#23

Beyond meat, smells like catfood and looks like it to

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#24

I don't have anything specific to divulge, but a little general info to look out for anytime you're in a bar or restaurant.

If you're in an upscale restaurant or a big chain restaurant, order anything you want. Standards are high!

If you're ordering food in a bar/lounge environment, be aware that the person making your food is not, by an large, a chef. I can't tell you how many places I've worked where customers have sent compliments to the chef that fell on the ears of a single 22 year old student running the entire kitchen himself who had never held a cooking job before. It's an assembly line most places.

If you're in a mid level bar/lounge/grill, stay away from menu items that seems out of place. If everything on the menu is burgers, pizzas, wings, pub grub, and there's one item on the menu that's like a Lemon Pesto Lobster Fettucini, stay away from that one. Chances are it rarely gets ordered, is over priced, is poorly made, and the guy making it doesn't really know or care about what he's doing. It also probably has a ton of ingredients in it that aren't used in anything else and that noone ever checks the levels or quality or day dots of until it's actually brown and smells, and which point they just say "f**k it" and make it anyway.

This isn't everywhere, but it happens more than people realize.

Image credits: randyboozer

#25

DO NOT ever get a lemon in your drink at a restaurant. Servers clean off food, touch the food screen, handle many used pens, and do a lot of other things with their hands. There isn't always time to wash your hands between taking a drink order and grabbing those lemons. It's a big source of cross-contamination

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#26

When i worked in a kitchen, the 'special' was actually a concoction of any leftovers we could make use of...

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#27

I worked at an upscale, local Italian restaurant. The complimentary bread? If another table doesn't finish theirs, the 'untouched' bread goes into whatever new breadbaskets are being served. That 'freshly grated parmesan' sitting in a bowl at your table? It was probably sifted through by an unruly six-year-old. It comes from (and any leftovers go back to) a communal giant tub of grated cheese in the back.

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#28

Shameless plug: I work for Five Guys and everything is fresh. No freezer. TONS of hand washing and glove changing. We clean the soda machine every day and the ice chutes. Everything is FIFO'ed including the imperishables. We have a private audit once a quarter to make sure the restaurant is crazy clean. The mushrooms come in a bag... That's about it. They aren't gross though.

This is the nerdiest post of all time. Who is this amped about the cleanliness of their chain restaurant? Me, apparently.

Image credits: TheEmily

#29

Sushi from a Chinese restaurant.

#30

6 oz kids steaks, we don't season them and they come frozen. I work in a restaurant where we promise our steaks are never frozen. Thinking about it, can I sue them for false advertisement?

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#31

Oooohhh I have a great one. If you go into Brio Tucsan Grille, do not eat the lasagna. It's not bad, it's not great or amazing, it's average. But why would you tell us not to eat an average meal you say?


Because that f****r had 5200 calories in it. 2 days worth of calories. I would cringe when I took away empty plates from in front of guests.

Image credits: h_met

#32

Every Taco Bell employee I've ever hung out with has always said, "Don't get steak. NEVER get steak." When someone has asked what not to order.

#33

When I was 16 I worked at (INSERT LARGE SANDWICH CHAIN HERE... THANKS JARED). NEVER order the Tuna... I once found multiple flies in the tuna and my boss told me to just scoop them out. Granted each is restaurant is individually owned this may not happen but i never order tuna when going into that place anymore.

#34

When I was a teenager, I used to work at McDonald's -mostly nightshift. Because of that experience, I'm very wary of what I order when I go to fast food restaurants at night. Low paid workers, little supervision, and they have to put up with a lot of c**p from customers who treat the employees very badly. One thing I don't order late at night where I'm at- any drinks that sit out. Such as sweet tea. Usually it's supposed to be refilled every so often, but it doesn't happen. It gets old, sour, and nasty. Another thing- salads. Salads might be okay, but we had several incidents where the salad dressing went bad and was included with the salad anyway, because it was late, busy, and who orders a salad at McDonalds anyway sort of attitude gave way...

#35

Do not order the Brahmin Wellington from the Gourmand at the Ultra-Luxe. Just... just trust me on this one.

#36

This reminds me of a story my high school commercial art teacher once told the class.

If I recall, he was out with his wife at an IHOP and didn't feel like eating breakfast, so he ordered the shrimp. So everything goes okay for an hour or so and then the stomach cramps start. From the way he told it, not long after that he started his twelve hour camping trip to the bathroom and couldn't leave for fear of s******g himself.

He was a weird guy, but I digress. Don't order something completely out there at a place that specializes in something completely different.

#37

Soft serve ice cream machines are a b***h to clean if you go to a Chinese buffet just dont... im sorry

#38

I worked at a buffet (Shoney's) for a while. After witnessing first hand how nasty customers can be, and how little regard they have for spreading their germs, I will never, ever eat at any buffet.

#39

A well-done steak. Don't do it kids.

#40

Any carbonated sugar beverage, i.e. Coke, Pepsi, etc... The profit margin is ridiculous and you would be mad knowing that the six ounces of "pop" you "free refills" for cost little more then the water to make the ice. Not to mention the machines are disgusting, everywhere. Just don't drink pop.

#41

I work at McDonalds for a part time job. If it's past noon DO NOT order coffee. It will brunt and stale. Also, DO NOT order an a**s burger or quarter pounder after dinner time. It will be old.

#42

The oriental chicken salad at Applebee's has 1,390 calories and *98 grams of fat*!

#43

I worked at place with a similar name of p f wangs. If you want to eat healthy do not eat the lettuce wraps. They are full of fat and sodium. I would wait on middle age women who would say they were on a diet and order the lettuce wraps. I walked away shaking my head.

#44

A friend of mine worked at a Mexican restaurant and he told me that the salsa that comes with the chips is reused if a table doesn't finish it. So pretty much, you are eating other peoples' salsa.

#45

I advise against the clam chowder.

#46

Basically it all boils down to "Specials". Most of the time it's what is going to go bad very soon.

Fish: don't order fish on Thursday or Friday. Most restaurants get deliveries Tuesdays and Saturdays.

#47

I have worked in every kind of restaurant in every kind of position from the dishwasher to the manager. Here's a few good tips.

When you sit down how clean is the place? Look at the floors, look at your table, look at your dishes, your glasses, take a trip to the bathroom. Is it clean? And the staff, are their uniforms clean and sharp? No? Then imagine how dirty other parts of the place you CAN'T see are. If a manager doesn't uphold cleanliness of the general areas they probably don't worry about it too much in the kitchen, pantry, or refrigerated walk in.

Second: don't be afraid to ask the server questions. Ask them about some of their sauces and dressings. Do they make them in house? If they don't you're getting lower quality food. this is fine if you are expecting a low tab. This includes dressings, pizza sauces, ect. As a good example Dominoes pizza sauce comes dehydrated out of a bag as a paste. You have to mix it with water to the right consistency. They say they make their sauce but I don't count rehydrating tomato paste as making it in house.

Third: if you are eating at a steak house ask your server about the cuts of meat. Do they know where the sirloin comes from? What cut has the best marbling? What's the difference between a ny strip and a ribeye? Do they refer to the warm red center of a medium rare steak as still bloody? If they can't give you an answer its probably because they haven't be trained. And if they don't know the "chef" might not know either. When it comes to steak its important the person at the grill knows the basics of steak. Also, never eat an Applebee's steak. You are getting nothing but a low quality sirloin with no marbling. The line cook probably knows very little about cooking them to temp, and I've seen the steaks at several Applebee's get partially grilled in the morning, then sit in a vat until ordered at unsafe temps.

As far as seafood is concerned if there is one seafood item on the menu you may want to avoid it. Seafood is not good if it isn't fresh. How often do you think that restaurant sells that one dish? Not often enough I'd be willing to bet. If the restaurant is a seafood restaurant does the place just reak of fish when you walk in? A salty seafood smell is fine but if you smell a super fishy and sweet smell, like a dirty vagina, chances are they are NOT handling their seafood at safe temps at all times.

If you are someone who is at high risk for food born illness (think elderly, chemo patients, small children, pregnant) make sure to check their food safety rating by the department of health. Not all states have these but some do. And if you want to be extra a**l you can bring your own digital thermometer with you (10 bucks) and temp your food. Anything hot should be 165 f or hotter. Cold food should be under 42 f. Also, salads are the most common food to make people sick in a restaurant. Chefs and servers often use dirty hands contaminated with other foods when building your salad. To combat this many restaurants who sell a lot of specialty salads will have their own salad station with a dedicated line cook. If they have a huge list of salads but no dedicated salad station I'd stay away.

Finally, many restaurants are starting to have what's called an open kitchen. That means you can see your cooks cooking you food from the dinning area. It takes away the restaurants ability to hide anything. So feel free to walk by the kitchen and have a look. Are the chefs wearing gloves? Hats or hairnets? Is there a ton of food sitting out in bins? Do you see chefs handling raw foods before touching cooked foods without changing gloves? Is the kitchen area dirty? I always like to see an open kitchen. It shows the restaurant has nothing to hide.

As far as food allergies are concerned I'd recommend staying away from larger chains. Those kinds of restaurants often sneak ingredients like gluten into many of their foods. If you ask a manager if certain items contain gluten they should know right away. If they don't, or are confused as to what gluten or celiac is don't eat there. If you have a soy allergy and the manager doesn't know what kind of oil they fry their foods in or use to sauté you probably don't want to eat there. A lack of knowledge about food allergies can show how little the staff has invested in their jobs, and how little training they receive about food allergies.

I could go on and on but ill stop here.

Edit: I see a lot of people complaining about ice machines. If you are at a restaurant where you can get your own soda all you have to do is take a look to tell if its safe. Does the ice machine have a lid? If not stay away. If you can open the lid have a look. Is it clean? Does the soda machine have all its parts and nozzles? Is it cracked or dented? Is it clean and the metal polished? If the machine is in good condition and clean chances are the vendor comes out and does a thorough cleaning on a regular basis and the servers clean it often. But if the machines are not up to standards stay away. Also, many newer ice machines will let the ice melt at the end of the night and completely drain which helps combat mold. So if the machine looks ancient maybe avoid it. Also if you drink the iced tee open the lid of the container and look inside. If you see dark colored bits hanging off the sides or around the nozzles they don't clean then out well enough. If you can't access the machine because you go to a full service restaurant just look around you. If the rest of the restaurant is not in good repair chances are they are unwilling to spend the extra money to keep their soda and ice machines clean. And if you can see the serve prepare your beverages watch to see if they use your glass to scope the ice out of the bin. It's a big no no.

2nd edit: I'm getting a lot of people who are telling me its annoying to ask servers about ingredients of the food they serve. I don't get this. If you have an allergy concern you have every right to ask. And if your server has a problem with it that is their problem not yours. Of course if you're like my sister and allergic to half the world and have a million questions you should absolutely tip better for the trouble. But if you eat at a steak house your server should know about steak. If you are eating at a high end restaurant where you pay a huge tab your server should know about everything on the menu or have a way to obtain that information. If you are a server and think answering questions about the food people put in their bodies is a waste of time you need to find a better job. Yes, I know some customers are difficult. But I also know the two minutes it takes you to find an answer to your question won't suck as much as the hours and days your guest will spend in the bathroom or even the hospital because they felt you would be too annoyed to answer questions about the food.

#48

Never get soup from Subway. If there is enough left at the end of the day they will wrap it up and chill it for the morning. Also, do you really know how much mayo goes into a thing of tuna?

#49

Caesar salad. They make 1 huge batch of the dressing and store it for days in the little mini fridge. They use it to refill the squeeze bottles that're just left out on the counter for hours on end. It's got raw egg & anchovy paste in it. Health hazard, but none of the kitchen staff listens.

#50

My mates dad owns a pub and has owned a few in his time. Never order off the specials board. I've told my parents this, but they don't listen. One time my mum paid $7 more for a steak on the specials board than I did for one off of the menu. Mine was a lot better

#51

I'm a cook at a "build your own" burger place. I recently found out that our signature 1/3 pound patty on a bun with a little bit of avocado spread is 2600 calories.

Yes. 2600 calories for a 1/3 burger. The bread and avocado are practically nothing contributing to that number. What's even more disgusting is the fact that people continue to order 2/3 and even full pound patties along with other s**t glopped on.

Cheese, chili, fries, bacon, f**k all. These people have to be consuming at least 6,000 - 8,000 calories in a sitting. Watching our customers slowly become more and more obese everyday is really heartbreaking. Especially watching these fat f*****g kids waddling out and coming back the next day.

I wish people would consider to know what they are actually eating before they order.

#52

i am not a worker but my good friend owns an indian restaurant, dont ever order the "mixed vegetarian curry" in an indian restuarant, its jus a load of recycled waste vegetables frm other dishes. often these waste dishes are quite old.

#53

Hot tea. If I'm busy, hot tea sucks. We do a whole set up on a plate with a cup of hot water, a kettle of water, lemon and honey, spoon and a variety. I just hate it much more than throwing your cup under the auto-fill soda dispenser.

#54

I'm a dishwasher at one of my local restaurants and I guess unlike other peoples' experiences my kitchen is a lot different. I myself have to clean the kitchen floor every night and I take pride in cleaning your dishes, whenever I think of half assing a job I think to myself would I want to eat off a s**t plate. The answer is no. Your silverware, I f*****g make sure that s**t is clean. Your cups I wash that s**t. The pans your food is cooked off of I make sure they are to the standards that I would want my food to be cooked off of. I don't get paid an awful lot of money even though the other dishwasher gets paid 15/hr I get paid 9/hr and I really do care about how clean everything is.

#55

Many years ago I used to work at Mr. Gattis pizza buffet. We made the pizza on wire racks and the toppings/cheese would fall through. Every couple of hours or so, a dipshit manager would come by and ask us to make a "manager special". For this, we scoop up all the toppings that fell through the rack and put them on a pizza. This would delight the manager because food cost was saved.

He called it "Pizza S**t" [Piece-of-S**t]. (Say this with a mexican accent for full effect).

If you see a pizza with literally EVERYTHING thrown randomly on it, don't eat it.

#56

Disney World. Casual dining restaurant at EPCOT.

Don't order the macaroni and cheese. It comes precooked in a bag. God knows who made it or when. We stuck the bag in a boiling pot of water, then poured it in another container to serve "fresh" on the line. It was the same at every Disney restaurant.

#57

I've worked at some pretty low end places over the years.....but never have I seen prepared food, bread, chips, etc that's been on a table get re-used for other tables. It's a health code violation where I live. The few exceptions to that I have seen are ketchup bottles, don't use em. They're seldom cleaned and generally just re-filled. Pretty gross. Or anything that's individually packaged - coffee creamers, crackers, sugar packets and so on.
The ice thing is definitely accurate in my experience. The ice machines are very rarely cleaned and always terribly gross by the time it gets done. Most tea is sketchy as well......and if you've ever seen the speed at which a few lemons will start to grow mold, you should probably try to avoid those as well.
I worked for Perkins for a while and you generally wanna try to avoid ALL of their seafood. Also their shakes, if it's busy there's no telling what the server might do to it, especially if you've been a particularly dickish customer. One last thing, if you've sent an item back for whatever reason at a low end chain more than once, it's best to cut your losses.....it's pretty much a 50/50 chance your food is going to be intentionally "soiled" in some way, and this is especially true later at night.

#58

I'm not going to make a post about the one time I worked in some s**t hole place and some piece of s**t cook did something unsanitary or when I found a fly in the ice machine.

As a line cook of over 10 years, I will tell you if eating anywhere that is not high end. Don't order appetizers. 99% of corporate and local restaurants appetizers are frozen and made by big corporations or some off brand never heard of company.

Nearly every place you eat that has "spinach artichoke dip" it frozen in a bag and made by Nestle. Those "beer battered onion" rings you love so much, they're more than likely the cheapest pre-breaded, pre-fried, brand the restaurant can get a hold of. Love the soup at "Insert corporate place here" it's frozen in a bag and heated via steam table."

Apps are insanely overpriced and most often they are the worst thing on the menu for you health wise. However, restaurants love for you to order them because of the high profit margin.

The only real appetizers I would really suggest ordering that are made on site are normally nachos, the chips are fried when you order, and the meat is cooked right away if it's a grilled or fried meat. If it's ground beef or a braised meat then it came frozen in a bag. Whole bloom'n onions at a place like Outback, those are cut and made to order from what I understand. Also stay away from things that are out of place. If you got to a steak house and they have a chicken fettuccine Alfredo dish. More than likely it's going to be frozen and out of a bag. It may taste alright but you can buy frozen in bag fettuccine Alfredo of your own for $4 at a local grocery store.

My point to all of this is that frozen in bag foods are not much different than what you can find at your local grocer and make yourself at home. Those products are not of bad quality but they're more than likely microwaved and just a huge waste of your money. If you enjoy them, then more power to you. Keep on enjoying them, nothing wrong with that.

***TL:DR, stay away from apps, and out of place menu items.***

#59

ICE - NEVER GET ICE. I worked at mcdonald's and f**k was our ice gross. This is all assuming you don't like frozen bugs in your drinks.

#60

Steak & Shake employee here. Never order a Frisco melt. It's almost six bucks. Order a double and cheese on sourdough with Swiss, add 1000 island. It's the same thing and over a dollar cheaper.

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