“10 Alarming Red Flags That Reveal You’re Dining in a Restaurant Disaster!”
If they sell steak, but won’t cook it rare.
If they’re doing this, it’s most likely because they’re unsafe, because they’re selling frankensteak, meat assembled with meat glue to reassemble more expensive cuts.
You can eat rare steak because the fibers are dense enough to not allow bacteria to penetrate deeply, so a sear is enough to make a steak safe. This is the same reason you need to fully cook chicken, because the fibers are all fluffy, and let bacteria really get in there. But, if you’ve made frankensteak, you’re incorporating external surfaces into the interior of the cut, which can’t be properly cooked at anything short of medium well. So, if they refuse to cook a steak rare, I refuse to eat there, because it’s very strongly indicative of shady business practices.
It goes without saying, don’t order rare steak from someplace you suspect would do this and wouldn’t care of you got sick, but if they’re worried you might get sick from a rare steak, don’t order a steak there at all.
You’re literally the first people there after opening and there are food stains all over the table, only one napkin is provided for the table and the place is totally silent except for a smoke alarm chirping.
My husband and I joke that the food at Waffle House won’t be good if there isn’t a staff member outside smoking. 😂.
When you walk into a mexican restaurant and there’s a portrait of an indian chief stabbing a pregnant woman.
I can’t make this up. They microwaved the quesadillas we ordered. They fortunately are no longer in business.
Chef peeing at urinal with gloves on returns to kitchen without removing gloves or washing.
Advertising the ‘cheapest menu in town’.
Dirty bathroom, dirty silverware, and sticky floors. These all give me hesitation or fits depending on how bad they are.
At a new restaurant, I will order something simple that still requires cooking. I’ll order somthing like fries (with or without gravy) or a plate of rice. If they mess that up, then I have no reason to believe they can make anything more complex.
A buddy of mine uses the “nachos rule.” In this rule, you order something basic like nachos. Depending on the quality and quantity of toppings you can infer a lot about how well the place is run- like whether the owners are cheapskates or not just by whether there’s enough cheese, olives, and other toppings; which can roughly translate to how they may be cheapskates towards other meals, staff, and running the place in general.
When you pay too much for your Coke/Fanta/Pepsi/whatever and they open the can in front of you.
When you walk in and someone says, “Welcome to The Macaroni Grill.”.
No prices on menus. Do these guys want be to be financially irresponsible and buy a 100 dollar steak or some s**t?
If you hear a microwave, there isnt really a good reason for a microwave in a resturant where they serve cooked things like fish chicken steaks and burgers so if you notice a beep from a microwave run
Edit:this is with context that it is super overused and abused for menu items that should never see the microwave. Yes there are veggies etc that use it.
When ever a waitress, or any representative asks you, or insists, that you fill out a customer satisfaction survey. I will never return simply because I was pestered for submitting one.
As a Canadian Went to a bar/restaurant in USA where the waiters and bartender were exercising their right to “open carry” it didn’t exactly make me feel like I was in a safe place. Though some of my American friends would argue it was the safest place to be.
It doesn’t seem clean.
The servers do not appear to be neutral. I don’t expect them to be ecstatic but I hope they look like they are ok at least.
If the bottom of the tables have a lot of gum and c**p stuck to them. Also this is rare, but once I went to a restaurant where they only bothered to wash the tops of plates and when I picked my plate up my hand became covered in grease and rotten sludge
The server doesn’t seem new or like they are just filling in, but still seems to be winging it. Like they haven’t had an actual sit-down customer in so long that they don’t really remember how to do this part of their job.
There are no other customers, or the customers are all pensioners. If a lot of locals eat there, it’s usually good.
There’s a Babu Bhatt owned place in a small neighborhood strip center close to me. It’s billed as a pizza place, but they serve wings, sandwiches, burgers, pasta, gyros, fries, bulgogi, bi bim bop, ramen, swedish meatballs, and southern catfish. Owners are Korean. Super nice people. I’ve never seen it busy. Food is good, especially the Korean, but i’m gonna “Seinfeld” myself into telling him he should focus on that. It’s just a weird assortment of eclectic tastes. The place doesn’t know what it wants to be. I feel bad, but i try to eat there every few weeks cause i want him to succeed. And yea, i usually just get Korean as the pizza, gyros, and burgers are just mediocre and as, if not more, expensive than other better places in the area that cater to that specific food. He should just do Korean as it’s the best part of his menu, but the location isn’t terribly great either (seriously, in the middle of a single family neighborhood, no major roadways nearby, and mostly white and hispanic).
Edit: it’s not a “bad” restaurant exactly. It’s just one i see as being far too eclectic and will end up failing in a year for lack of personality, location, and market need.
