Empty Restaurant: Are you on a busy street where every place is packed? That empty restaurant may look tempting for your peace of mind. However, that’s usually a big red flag that the food probably isn’t all that good.
Staff Interaction: How do the waiters get along? If they all seem to enjoy being there and blend well, it’s because everything is running smoothly and they have a good system going on, which usually means they know what they’re doing, and you can expect the food to be good.
Buffets: I know that we all love a good buffet setup. But more often than not, they’re unsanitary. It is just not possible to run a sanitary buffet business.
42 thoughts on “20 Red Flags At Restaurants That Should Scare You”
Thank you for a very informative article. Getting food poisoning is not pleasant. I’ve been there twice. I would like to add one more thing. I always check salad dressing and anything with mayo, ie, tartar sauce. If it’s not cold, I won’t eat it.
Let’s see
My husband and I look at the entrance of a restaurant. If the front door glass is filthy, cigarette butts or overflowing garbage cans nearby are always clues, especially when you walk in and there is multiple employees just standing around at the hostess station. I am also turned off by a server wiping down tables, seating and sometimes the Condiments with the same old filthy rag. Who knows what germs lurk there. It is getting more difficult to find a clean, affordable, consistent place.
Great article thank you for all the Tips. And alot of Interesting points thst I will use in the future and sum that obviously no Brainer but Again very good points thank you again.
I KNEW ALL THIS. My family ran restaurants all my life.
ONE little thing you can tell and not even go in the restaurant; If their singage has lights out or missing, DON’T GO IN.
If they’re not taking care of the little things, they’re not taking care of the important things.
That’s an excellent suggestion. That goes for major restaurant chains with faded signs. I feel that they’re on the decline.
I spent ten years in Commercial Pest Management. Many customers were restaurants…both inexpensive and expensive, small and large. I use my sense of smell when I enter a restaurant. With experience, you can easily tell a clean business versus dirty; one with a roach problem or a rodent problem. All restaurants have a smell. If it isn’t a pleasant smell, move on!
There is ONE glaring warning!………….If the bathrooms are dirty,that says it all………..go else where, period!
This was great to have and use as a guide.
I don’t want to eat at a restaurant where letters are missing from their exterior sign.
If you don’t care about what the outside of your business looks like, what’s going on inside? I don’t want to know.
I wish I could obtain a copy of this article not inundated by advertising. Seems very important and detailed.
I was in Manila, Philippines and went to a restaurant. When I opened the menu, hoards of roaches flew out in all directions. I hurriedly threw the menu down and staff was trying to convince me to stay. I said “blank no”.
I went to a Chinese restaurant in Baltimore and was shocked that there was plexiglass between me and the cooking area, the cashier and food. The noodles tasted like boiled pasta with brown gravy slopped on top. NEVER AGAIN!
I ate at a restaurant on the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas and the menu stated four quesadillas. When the food arrived, it was actually ONE quesadilla cut into four pieces! What a rip off.
Noticing a bad grease or cooking oil smell. The frying oil is probably bad from overuse and fryer hasn’t been drained and cleaned in a long time. They need to put fresh oil into a clean fryer!
We dont eat out that often, But when we do, now I know what to look for. Thank you so much for this information. It was VERY helpful!
I ALWAYS LOOK FOR THESE THINGS EVERY TIME & RED LOBSTER STINKS I CANNOT EAT THERE. ACTUALLY I PREFER HOME!!!
Another red flag is cooks in the kitchen arguing with each other in a foreign language…….Big turn off!!
I am a trained military 🪖 chef who served in the US Air Force for twenty years. I totally agree with those red flag warnings ⚠️. At present I am living in Thailand. If this country were required to follow the strict food preparations and guidelines of the United States, they would fail overwhelmingly. I like living here for some reasons but I often find myself not wanting to eat at a lot of food establishments😕. This is my opinions. 😃
20 thoughts?
What happened to the other 10?
Good to know info!
I reviewed places on google, and I like your red flags; but sometime it is too late for the most important red flags to manifest: the foods’ quality.
When a restaurant is out of too many items on the menu. Or when a bar that has over 50 beers on tap is out of my first five choices (I actually walked out.) It’s a clue that someone is not properly managing the establishment or, worse, they’re not paying their bills.
Recently went to a Local “Ruby Tuesday” restaurant. The server was nice. Food tasted real good. The problem…soon as my friend and I got home..we had a race to the bathroom! Both had diarrhea ! Unclean cooking pans…unclean cook’s hands…I don’t know,but…no thank you!!
I look at the parking lot for many cars and tidy … if a glass front door looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in a month of Sundays, I won’t even enter…I have had the experience of food poisoning a couple times and I’m probably overly cautious now.
If your waiter or waitress trying to yank a wedgie from a big-ass but crack… ANSWER : GOT TO GO NOW
My college major was bacteriology. I am amazed that more people do not get sick because of their own poor food handling. One of the first things taught in my pre-med course was to designate your clean hand and your dirty hand. Since I am right-handed, I designated my right hand as my working (dirty) hand and my left hand as my clean hand. If utensils are not available, eat out of your clean left hand after you touch anything with you right hand! In the shown restaurant dining photo, the water glasses should be upside down and not upright. The upright glasses are continually collecting air borne bacteria and possible viruses. Common sense, anyone? Dr. Pete
Nothing new here. This is just good ol’ common sense.
I just wanted to add a couple of things I dislike in restaurants. First, if the condiment containers feel greasy, it grosses me out. Obviously someone handled their greasy burger or fries and then picked up the ketchup bottle. So now I have to deal with their grease, along with whatever else was on their hands. Makes me want to ask the server, “Don’t you guys ever wash off the outside of the ketchup bottles so I don’t have to wash someone else’s grease and germs off my hands?” Same goes for those plastic menu jackets that some diners use. Major turn off if it’s greasy.
There can be fresh salmon, in cities where Alaska Airlines has freight runs from Alaska.
This article was very helpful in choosing a place to have dinner or any other meal, i have been at some I never went back to and then I have some that are my favorite places to eat.
I worked restaurants as a second job for 29 years and some is legit and some are far fetched, When I became prediabetic I quit going out to eat period, because my mother had a stroke from diabetes, so no more salt, MSG, or seeing a cook drop my steak and put it back on the grill, too many nasty situations to mention.
My son and I went to a Boston Pizza place where the surly young server was trying to intimidate me into thinking what an English dessert looks and tastes like. (She’s Canadian. Both my son and I are from English backgrounds.) I showed her a Google image of what it was supposed to look like with a description. She took off in a huff.
I later emailed the manager about the incident. A $9 refund and an apology were sent. It’s not what I had in mind to resolve the issue, but the gift card went to our local pizza delivery person as a tip. I hope they had better service and food.
Is a small-scale self-service deli bar in a good quality grocery store as much of a sanitary problem as is a large-scale buffet restaurant set up? Food usually tastes better to me at the grocery deli. Really not sure though if one is safer than the other. Is there data that will this question?
You say click next below well There is no next below That continues this Article
Thanks, I worked in many restaurants while in college, and agree with your red flags, especially how servers pick up glasses. I also pay close attention to server’s hands and fingernails.
When the grounds leading up to the entrance are littered with trash or hundreds of cigarette butts, that is a HUGE red flag.😳☹️🤢
Thanks for the comments, mostly common sense info.
Worst thing is for your hot meal arriving on a cold plate
We hosted the board of directors of our organization at a local restaurant. I managed to discreetly pick not one, but two cock roaches off of the table. I simply wrapped them in a napkin and turned them in to the hostess who said, “Thanks. It isn’t possible to keep bugs out of any restaurant.”
I will not eat in a restaurant that has misspelled words on their signage or typos in their menu. Not the cutesy “krab” but things like “breafast”. It says that they do not pay attention to detail and if they don’t care about their sign or menu, they probably don’t care about the food either.
This is wonderful article indeed. Well, if it was up to me, I would only go to the high end places to eat and then that gets a little scary. I don’t even open a door without a wipe. If I see crumbs on the table that we are seated , I ask for another table that is cleaned. Now I do understand that the crew has not progressed to that specific table yet but man is that ever a turn off. I do stay away from the places that the carpet is grimy and the waiters aprons are dirty. Don’t they see this? If management does not see this then there is something really wrong.
My first hourly paying job with taxed wages was at a local outdoor theatre in 1962. It was run by an old Jewish restaurant owner who gave us an orientation seminar before summer opening with the emphasis on a concession stands protocol. In a nutshell…long hair = short on clean / dirty fingernails = dirty food / dirty bathroom = dirty kitchen / unshaven = uncaring and these were rules…not suggestions. Finally, I was the “grill-man” and was instructed to put a handful of raw onions in the corner of the grill without burning them…”Just the smell will makes’em hungry”, they’ll buy more food, he’d say.
Very helpful and authentic information
Many of the tips are warnings made by family members who were / are in the restaurant and hospitality business
A big red flag for me are restaurants with excessive decor on walls, shelves, or even hanging from the ceiling. Although it may seem homey, etc., they usually become huge dust and cobweb collectors.