Beyond the menu: Diners Share Unsettling Discoveries they’ve made while Dining Out

The owner was snacking out of the garnish tray for the bartenders. Just snacking on the lemon wedges and sugar sticks meant for the drinks. She was putting her fingers in her mouth and then diving back in for another cherry or orange wedge right there at the bar in front of me and a friend. I looked at her and said, "What you're doing is f*****g disgusting, those go in people's drinks and you're putting your gross fingers in there". She scoffed and walked away. The bartender came over and thanked me for saying something and explained the staff tells her that all the time, but she doesn't listen because she's the owner.

In my pest control days. I watched a cook start up a flat top with mouse dropping all over it. He cooked chicken in the s**t and served it up to an unsuspecting customer. I called the dept of health on them. It was appalling.

Not in a restaurant, butva food court.I was having lunch with a friend and I thought I had stepped on her foot, so I playfully pressed harder but she didn't respond.A woman sitting on a table next to us screamed that there was a rat squirming under my shoe.

Was hired on at a place. My first shift I saw the dessert and shake station was a mess... I started to clean up, I opened lowboy and saw what I thought was someone had dumped like a 5lb bag of oreo crumbles.Was not oreos.. Was a mound of mold. I think I was the first person to open the lowboy in a minute.I walked up to owner who was in the dining room and threw my apron at him and said loudly " you don't pay me enough to kill kids.. your being reported, this place needs shut down." And told a Lady with a milkshake to not drink it. And left. Yea that was f****n horrific.

I used to work at an Italian restaurant where there was a used tampon sitting around in the back of the kitchen. Of course, no one wanted to touch it so it sat there for the entire time I worked there. They never cleaned the back of the kitchen

I used to make deliveries to a bunch of places in downtown urban locations...several Jamaican bakeries. All but one were immaculately clean. The other one...oh my gods, so gross. There was always a guy in back chopping chicken into pieces and throwing them into a 5-gal home depot bucket that always had flies buzzing around and landing. Sometimes pieces would fall on the floor and they'd just pick them up and throw them in the bucket. Blood and viscera on almost all surfaces. A REALLY scary basement with goats hanging on hooks, also with flies on them. I would throw up in my mouth almost every time. Needless to say, I'd never eat the free food they'd offer.

I guess Starbucks counts as a restaurant, so a couple Christmases ago, I stopped in for some coffee after getting a couple gifts. I immediately see multiple baristas petting a dog I assumed to be their manager's, but they went back to handling the food and drink without washing their hands, so I walked back out.

Former Souz chef in university for a seafood and Chophouse. We butchered, but not live animals (so technically cut meat and entrails). We were a really upscale and on the level place. However, our owners also owned a local brewery and restaurant.Our old fish went to them. Our old everything went for them. They made sausages from old meat and used beer barley and hops. People loved them. Couldn't get enough, watching those people lick their fingers clean was an event.However the worst part was shoveling entrails and carcasses into bags for trash. Not on garbage night. In bear season. Next morning about 100lbs of pig, chicken, fish heads and scales, along with a copious amount of blood and s**t was all over the driveway, the roadside, and had been dragged up and down the road, to the neighbours, our back of house.....We all, including our $75/hr chef are all in dishwasher black rubber boots and aprons and gloves, masks on, goggles and bandanas, scrubbing the walkway. We looked like a biohazard team cleaning a mass murder scene. So yes, the cops were called and we had a great time explaining everything (they knew it was animal, not human. No one else did tho). This was dead-end of summer, around 95° out. I still smell it sometimes when passing chicken farms and PTSD is real.

I worked a single night as a dish rat in a $60 plate restaurant back in the 90s. It was Halloween, so the waitstaff was wearing costumes. This one really thin girl, dressed up in a Playboy bunny costume, finished nearly all the food off the plates coming back. She ate everything with her hands, including chocolate mousse. I was shocked and she noticed me staring. Burned into my mind is her turning to me, with a fingerfull of mousse and saying "You want to try?"Not really that gross compared to some of these other ones, but it was my first and only time seeing behind the scenes in a restaurant so it made an impression. Poor waitress was probably starving.

I helped a friend re tile a kitchen in a restaurant on Granville Island in Vancouver. A pretty nice place. When we were up to the top of the wall and looked into the ceiling space there was about half an inch of rat feces. This was about ten years ago.

We had a guy that would come into our aunts cafe and he would empty his colostomy bag under the booth he was at instead of using the restroom. After a few times of doing this she finally told him to not come back.

Party of 10. White table cloth restaurant. Party leaves. When we approached to clear the table, they had used the corner of one table cloth to wipe their babies s****y a*s.

Cutting raw and cooked chicken on the same cutting board at the same time. The kitchen is open and you can see what's going on from the dining area. Everything comes pre packaged, they don't have anything fresh. Haven't eaten there ever since

Watched a kid take a spoonful of cookie dough and eat it then put the spoon back in the container. This was one of those build your own frozen yogurt places with 100 different toppings.

A napkin run across a floor. It was really a rat that somehow had a napkin draped over it but it was surreal and super funny to watch. We'd joke about eating at the place that held napkin races any time no one could come up with a place to eat then usually someone would be like "Naww, let's just hit up _________".

Truly amazing food in Nola. Cockroaches running on the wall (it’s the French quarter, everyone has roaches). I need to go the bathroom, it’s a closet in the outdoor courtyard. Where apparently the kitchen is as well.

As a waiter: watching the "chef"/owner scooping spaghetti out of the steam table with bare hands and plopping it on a plate. We didn't call the resort "Shithole" (Chateau) [name redacted] for nothing.Edit: Same place. Fermented ketchup exploding onto guests (refillable glass bottles stored in a hot kitchen that were topped off and not emptied, washed, and refilled fresh). Oh, the 80s were a magical time for food health and safety...

Actual human s**t roll out of someone's pants leg. They didn't seem to notice or mind.

Worms in a fish. Worst part, it was my father's restaurant. The guy who was in charge of grilling fishes only worked there for a month and he actually cooked fishes that were too old and badly refrigerated... he saw the worms and still cooked them. He was promptly fired XD

Steakhouse I was a server at had the tall tray holders you could put several trays of food on. This one happened to be all steaks. As it was being rolled by a kitchen employee from fridge to grill area it toppled over spilling steaks out all over the floor. Said employee pulled the steaks from the ground and proceeded to put them back on the tray to cook. Looked at me and said “the grill will kill whatever is on them anyway.”Godspeed Logan’s Roadhouse. Your brief stay in my town humbled us all.

I was working as a server at a steakhouse. Think something like... about as nice as an Outback. Not that nice, but the servers are wearing ties. Big party comes in, maybe 8-12 people. They sat down and we're taking drink orders. One lady asked for 2 to-go boxes full of ice. Strange request, but okay. We bring them drinks and her 2 to-go boxes full of ice. Come back to the table a few minutes later and the boxes were nowhere to be seen. Until my coworker pointed them out. She had taken her shoes and socks off and had her bare feet in the boxes of ice. At the table. In the middle of a full dining room.