Insider Secrets: What Restaurant And Bar Workers Won’t Tell You About How They Cut Costs Behind The Scenes
Let’s hop in the Tardis, and travel back to Korea, circa 1982.
I was in the Army, Military Police, and, of course, every Camp had a few bars, which were set up for servicemen. When I was at Camp Long, there was one such club which I frequented. The beer and wine they served there was absolutely awful. After a few weeks, I learned one of the reasons it was so awful.
Since I treated the ladies there with basic human dignity, (which was rare, in these types of bars), they let me play at being a DJ, some nights. The DJ booth was behind the bar, and folks wanting a particular song played would send me a bottle of beer, with a note. For a young Army private, it was a cheap way to get drunk.
So, where does the shady cost savings enter the picture?
I wasn’t exactly observant, back then, but eventually I noticed there were usually a few open beer bottles, behind the bar. This finally sunk in, stirring my curiosity, so I kept one eye out. One of the ladies had just cleared a table, and one of the beer bottles was not empty. She poured the remains into one of the bottles behind the bar, capped it with a manual capping thingy, and put it in the cooler, to sell to someone else.
Way back in the late 70’s my high school girlfriend worked at a movie theater in Studio City, CA. Each night at closing they would bag any leftover popcorn and put the hot dogs back into the fridge. The next day they would dump the popcorn back into the ‘Fresh Hot Popcorn!” machine and put the hot dogs back into that greasy display case.
The hot dog thing was gross enough, but recycling a few cents worth of popcorn is definitely the chintziest thing I’ve seen.
I used to work at Wendy’s and the “unsalted fries” were just old fries thrown back in the fryer for 30 seconds to “get the salt off”
I’ve never answered a question before, but I do have a shocking cost-saving story to share.
I worked in a handful of restaurants in my teens and twenties, and they’ve all done some stuff you wouldn’t want to hear about as a patron, but one place really takes the cake. It was a “fine dining” spot in Niagara Falls, Canada.
We once served either lobster or crab for dinner service, I can’t remember which. When we brought the dirty dishes back to the kitchen, the chef had us save the shells to make stock for soup the next day. Shells that had been on everyone’s plates – in their mouths. Eugh.
At the time I was young and was disgusted, but assumed this was some sort of common practice within restaurants. I now realize the chef was just cheap. Oh and morally repugnant.
Thinking back on it grosses me out entirely.
edit: doing a little digging into my profile I see I have answered two questions before! Baby brain. I’d totally forgotten.
For me, it’s some of the more rural areas of Belarus. I kid you not, in most street vendor places if you order a cup of coffee you get charged for the cup, the stir stick, the sugar (rather you asked for it or not) and the coffee. It’s quite comical really. The wife gets mad at me when I mess with the sellers and say, no I don’t need the cup thanks. The confused look on their face is priceless. Several times, to the missus embarrassment, I have actually had the waitress/waiter remove the charge for the sugar. The majority of the restaurants cut their napkins in half. The food is relatively cheap (at least for me, not as much for the locals) but the portions are small. I usually order two on some of the dishes I know won’t fill me up. I love Belarus, but man are some of the restaurants skimpy.
Depends on location but watch out for the liquid cheese. Some managers will make the crew pour boiling water from the coffee maker into it when it’s almost out to “make more”
When I was in high school I worked as a “busboy” in a high end restaurant. If people knew what went on in the kitchen they would have been appalled. All I can say is I’m glad the place is long gone.
When diners came in, we were to take rolls from a large bin and place them in a toaster then deliver them to the table. That’s all well and good. But if any rolls came back uneaten, they were to go back in the bin. Yup. Gross, shady cost-saving tactic for you.
But, the owners also had two BIG dobermans they kept in the kitchen. If we brought back any plates that had meat or bones, we were to give them to the dogs. How would you like knowing that where your food was being prepared, two dogs were running around, slobering over someone’s leftovers?
Each night after we closed, the owners, a husband and wife, would sit down to a lobster or steak that had been made in that very kitchen. Apparently, they must’ve saved a lot by recycling those rolls!
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