Going out to eat should be a fun and easygoing event, but that's not always the case. Some unlucky diners have gotten sick from sketchy food handling or unhygienic and careless workers. Then there's accidents no one could have seen coming. These people definitely had a hard time trusting another restaurant again.
When He Showed The Waiter What He Found, He Was Accused Of Putting It There Himself
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“My uncle found a wing-nut in his pasta at Olive Garden. He told the waiter, who then accused him of lying to get a free meal because ‘we have nothing like this in the kitchen.’ He eventually went back to the kitchen and a chef came out with a Rolodex that had a wing nut on one side and a bare screw on the other. They paid for our table and kept apologizing. Then at the end of the meal, instead of passing out one mint per person, they brought out the bulk box of Andes mints from their fridge and let everyone grab a handful.”
Good Thing He Saw What The Sushi Chef Did Before They Ate
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“I went to a sushi restaurant when I was a kid. I wanted to see how the chefs prepared the rolls. It was during down hours, so no one was at the bar where they made the sushi. I walked right up and started watching him make a salmon roll. In the middle of adding rice, the man had two huge, phlegm-filled coughs that weren’t covered. They were directed right at the sushi. The chef had no gloves on, took a tissue and wiped his nose, and continued to finish the roll. I told my mom and we left. I still remember this vividly to this day.”
She Found An Extra Ingredient In The Salad
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“I ate at a popular joint that serves sandwiches. I ordered a house salad, and after I took my first bite, I started bleeding out of my mouth. There were shards of glass in the salad. The waitress said someone broke a glass near the salad making station and did not dump it all out like they were supposed to. She freaked out and asked me not to tell management. I couldn’t even talk as I was too busy mopping up blood and spitting out glass. My husband screamed at her to get management. The manager came running over and profusely apologized. We had to go to the ER so they could clean out my mouth. I had so many cuts I had to be placed on antibiotics. The restaurant paid the ER bill and a settlement so we wouldn’t sue.”
It Took Him A Few Bites To Realize Something Was Off
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“I was served raw chicken once as a kid.
It was breaded and covered in some sauce. I remember I just started wolfing it down before I realized it didn’t quite taste right, then I looked closer and asked my dad.
He worked in food quality control, so he freaked out. He called the waiter over who said something like, ‘We’ll get you another one.’
My dad told him that wasn’t what he wanted, that they had ‘poisoned my son’ and that’s when I got scared and upset. Then the waiter argued with my dad that I shouldn’t have eaten it when I realized it was raw and my dad freaking out and almost kicking the guy’s butt.
The manager was slightly better at dealing with my parents, but my dad was right, they poisoned me. Not so I’d die like I’d thought, though I did get violently sick. I remember my parents even took me to the hospital just to make sure I’d be okay.
I don’t remember exactly how it all ended, but I know we never ate at that restaurant again and that every time I drive by the place (it’s been closed down for years, but the building is still there) I feel a bit ill.”
Everyone Thought The Crisis Was Outside, But They Should Have Been Worried About The Old Man
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“I went out to dinner with my parents and grandparents at Red Lobster. My grandpa was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
My grandma went out to the car to grab some Tylenol from her purse. After about ten minutes, we got a phone call from her that she had slipped on a round pebble and had fallen. She said she heard a cracking sound and couldn’t move. My parents and wife ran out to the parking lot to help her, but it was serious enough to need an ambulance. Meanwhile, I was alone with my grandpa, who could barely remember people at later hours in the day, and we were quickly approaching sundown. I was trying to keep him calm all while he was asking questions about where he was and getting agitated. That was while the wait staff was trying to figure out how to handle the awful situation outside along with the one inside.
So eventually my grandma was hauled off to the hospital with a broken hip, and I had six plates of food in front of me with a man who couldn’t remember my name. So I ask the lady for the check and to just bag it up, which left me with a $130 bill as a poor college student. So I just charged it and we were out.
The whole thing was a complete disaster. I know management thought the problem was outside (because that’s where they all were), but the reality was the agitated gentlemen who couldn’t recognize his grandson, didn’t know where he was, who wanted to know who took his wife away and was just given a steak knife by a waitress after being told not to.”
This Is Why People Should Always Be Careful When Carrying A Steaming Hot Pizza
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“I was nine years old at a pizza place with my dad. The server walked up, balancing the pizza tray above her hand, did an elegant turn at the table, and the pizza slid off into my lap. Splat
‘Ouch!’ I exclaimed. It was fresh from the oven.
A commotion followed as the wait staff realized a little kid had gotten burned. The female servers escorted me to the ladies’ room and offered a greasy ointment while blisters welled up on my legs and arm.
As we headed to the ladies’ room, a busboy went to work on the mess with a mop. Most of the staff was in a panic afraid that my father would sue.
When I returned, the confusion was even worse. One of the servers was lying on her back on the floor. The busboy hadn’t put up a wet floor warning sign, so the next server who left the kitchen slid and fell hard. She was trying to stay still, which was the smart thing to do when there’s a chance of injury until the busboy returned, grabbed her by the arm, and tried to force her to her feet.
At that point, my dad nodded at the door and we left.
As to why he didn’t sue, attitudes were different in the ’70s. Ointment and cold water were enough to take care of the blisters, and my dad wasn’t the type to drag me to the ER as a pretext to lawyer up.”
The Worst Part Was What He Did With The Tongs After
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“We would occasionally go to this Asian buffet because they had surprisingly good sushi. I went to get some sushi and there was a cockroach chilling on the ice that’s surrounding the plates of sushi. I went to our table and told my husband what I saw, and he looked over at the sushi…right as the ‘chef’ took the tongs that customers used, picked up the ice cube with the roach on it, threw it away, and then PUT THE TONGS BACK FOR CUSTOMERS TO USE.
Now, part of the reason I went back to the table was to grab my phone and take a picture so there would be proof. They just threw the proof away. I saw the waitresses looking at us, then the sushi area and walking around nervously. What could we do? We’d already eaten other food, they’d demand we pay. So we apprehensively ate a little more and got a ticket that had the price whited out and lowered. Never went back.”
He Hadn’t Known Something Was Up Until The Manager Came Out And Apologized
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“I have Celiac disease. I went to a restaurant that has a reputation for their gluten-free menu. I ordered their most well-known gluten-free item that I’d had once before. As I was happily enjoying my meal, maybe ten minutes into being served, the manager came out, ghost white, and told me they’d mixed up my plate and it wasn’t the gluten-free version. They quickly comped our meal, drinks and sent me home with the gluten-free version. Not that I got to enjoy it since I was puking and sick for the next week. They did change their plating system afterward for gluten-free dishes versus regular menu to avoid mishaps.”
She Was Halfway Through When She Noticed Something Disgusting
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“There was a big group of us eating at The Jalapeño Tree. My sister ordered enchiladas, and about halfway through the meal, we heard a scream. My dad asked her why she was screaming. She replied that there was half a cockroach in her enchiladas. We couldn’t find the other half and she’d already eaten half the enchiladas, so we just assumed she’d already eaten the other half.
Also, it was the waitress’s first day on the job, and when she found out what happened, she started crying her eyes out and apologizing. We still left her a big tip cause it wasn’t her fault. But we’ve never eaten at another Jalapeño Tree.”
She Bit Down On Something Sharp And Hard
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“Do food trucks count? Not me, but a woman I work with. We typically get burritos for breakfast as a group from a Mexican food truck that comes on Wednesdays. This particular time, my coworker bit down into her burrito and felt something hard and sharp in her mouth. She pulls it out, and lo and behold, it’s a razor blade. Apparently, during food preparation, it had come loose and fallen into the food and ended up in her burrito. She went back down to confront them and they offered her free burritos. Obviously, she didn’t want that after the razor blade issue, but she didn’t want to take it any further. They were happy she didn’t want to make it a huge issue, and she was lucky she didn’t swallow it.”
Bartenders Have A Dangerous Job
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“I worked at restaurants for several years. I think the one that stands out to me the most took place about a year ago. I was a bartender at a sports grill, and one of my coworkers was cutting the fruit we used as garnishes. He was only wearing vinyl gloves, which don’t offer any protection from blades.
So, as luck would have it, he cut himself between the fleshy part of his hand that separated his thumb from his index finger, which happened to be an artery. There was blood spurting out of the guy’s hand. When he turned around, all the blood gushed out of him and onto everyone’s food that was sitting at the bar. This was a U shaped bar, so we were surrounded on all sides by guests. One unfortunate guy even had some on his shirt. We had to remake every bar guest’s food and drinks, and the manager even offered to buy the guy a new shirt.
Surprisingly, no one was even remotely angry. They were more worried about the bartender. He ended up having to go to the hospital when he couldn’t get the blood to stop.
We also had another bartender get hit by a car on the job. That place was cursed for bartenders, I swear.”
The First Slice Went Down Fine, But He Couldn’t Help But Notice Something Was Off
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“I ordered a buffalo chicken pizza from a joint in my town. Nothing fancy or huge, close to a medium chain place, like Pizza Hut. I bit into the first slice and something was off, but the buffalo sauce was strong, so I couldn’t figure out what it was. Everything just tasted like spiciness. Then I dove into the second slice and realized I’ve just bitten into goo. I set the slice down and spit out the piece I had been chewing to realize that I was eating uncooked pizza. Well, partially cooked pizza. The sauce was hot, the cheese was melted, the chicken was cooked, but the pizza dough itself was raw.
I started pawing at the rest of the pizza, ripping it apart with my hands, and it was uncooked dough. Like, ‘stringy in my hands, sticking to my fingers’ raw dough. I was ticked, and fearful that since I had already eaten a slice that I was going to get sick from eating raw, uncooked dough. So I slammed the box shut and drove back to the store. I stormed in, slapped the box on the counter and asked for a manager, who proceeded to tell me that I had done something to the pizza and was lying to him.
I dropped a, ‘Are you kidding me right now?’ when he said it. The few people in the store were all alternating between staring at me, the raw pizza and the manager. He continued to argue with me that I had messed with the pizza, refusing to believe that the pizza was uncooked and refusing to give me either a refund or a cooked pizza. Fed up ,I dumped the raw pizza on the floor, which made a nice splat sound and while I felt bad about it after the fact because some underpaid worker had to clean it up, I did it because I knew the raw, mushy, dough would stick to the linoleum tile like glue and maybe prove to someone that hey, this dough was raw.”
There Were So Many Red Flags
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“My boss and I decided to go to a little Greek family restaurant by us. We sat down and there were only about a dozen items on the menu.
The waitress came up and she was apparently the cook, too. I asked for a Philly gyro, but she didn’t know how to make it. I asked for a few other things. She either didn’t know how to make it, was out of stuff to make it or told me that no one had ordered that before.
It was all good, ended up getting the same thing as my boss. I went to the bathroom though, there was a big hole in the floor right by the toilet. I looked through it and it was their storage below it. Where they keep the food and everything.
Still wanted to give it a shot. But the next day, I ended up having bad food poisoning. That’s what I get for trying out new places.”
He Thought He’d Be Safe By Sticking To The Salad Bar
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“I went for lunch with some buddies from work to a Chinese buffet I hadn’t been to before. My companions had been and warned me beforehand that the best thing about the place was that it was cheap. Okay, how bad could it be?
The water glasses and utensils were greasy, like someone had messily eaten a whole bag of kettle chips before setting the table. Yuck, but I got some reasonably clean ones and soldiered on. I went up to the buffet and there was the source of the grease: each tray of different hot foods was like a grease bucket with some food-like items floating around.
Okay, I’m not eating that. Even as a young and gastric tolerant man, no. But I didn’t want to make a scene with my friends, so I went over to the small American-style salad bar to get lunch. The lettuce bin was squirming with cockroaches! Like 15 or 20 milling around in there.
Went back to the table and said, ‘No way,’ and I was out the door on a magic carpet of queasy. The place closed a few weeks later.”
He Told The Staff Again And Again About His Allergy
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“I was on holiday with my family in St. Tropez, and we decided to go for a meal out. Now since I have a fatal nut allergy, I made sure to ask if the dish I was ordering had any nuts. The answer was no, so happily reassured, I was one forkful in when my sister questioned what the pile of crumbled golden pieces were on the side of my plate. We asked and the answer, of course, was nuts. Again we stressed that I had a fatal allergy to them, but the only explanation we received was that they were ‘for decoration.’ I had a fairly bad attack that night and had I had any more, I could have died, all because of the restaurant’s ignorance.”
Right Away, She Spotted Something In Her Lemonade
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“I ordered a lemonade at a Vietnamese restaurant. The drink came out with a spoon for mixing it. I pulled out the spoon to find (what seemed to be) a baby roach melted to the back of the spoon, probably from getting steamed in the dishwasher. I told the server what I saw, he said, ‘Oh,’ and took it back. When he brought me another one, I checked the spoon again. It was the same spoon and he just scraped off HALF the roach. Complained to the manager, and they offered a free soda.”
The Pain The Restaurant’s Mistake Brought On Was More Intense Than Anything In The World
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“I have Celiac disease, which is a gluten intolerance, but it’s extremely bad, so it’s classed as an autoimmune disease. I suffered from it undiagnosed for a few years before cutting out the gluten.
I went to this restaurant I’d been to before that had gluten-free options. I checked their online menu before I went just to be sure everything I wanted was still gluten-free, and it was. So I ordered, got my food, went home, and started eating. It only took me one bite to notice the texture of the batter was different, but I assumed they’d just updated and improved their recipe. After a few more bites, less than two minutes later, my stomach started making these noises that only ever happens when I’ve eaten gluten. I told my mum what happened, so she went and called them to make sure. But I was sure. I went upstairs to my room and cried my eyes out because the pain that I have to go through is enough to make me want to kill myself at times.
They never updated their menus to show that certain products were no longer gluten-free. They tried to blame us, but my mom took a screenshot of the menu to prove that they hadn’t updated it. So they gave us a $100 gift voucher, but I’ve never been back since.”
The First Spill Was Her Fault, But She Had Some Help The Second Time
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“I once saw a waitress spill a cup of coffee on a baby – and then do it again to a different baby a few minutes later.
The first time, she was clearing the table and was trying to carry too much. The cup was cold and nearly empty but still must’ve hurt when it fell and the baby had to wear some cold coffee. The second one wasn’t entirely her fault. One of the parents didn’t see her as she was putting the hot cup on the table and bumped her arm. The cup of hot coffee went all over the baby, though luckily it was on clothes and not bare skin. Parents took the screaming baby and ran out and the waitress went inside and started crying.
She didn’t have a good day.”
Why Would Anyone Design A Food Stand That Way
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“I was at a fast food stand at a Danish theme park about four years ago. They made me so mad that I refused to ever visit them again.
Basically, for some reason, they had a speaker on top of the roof and they had it playing bird sounds, which naturally attracted birds, seagulls to be exact. The WORST possible place to do something like this.
It was impossible to eat anything because the seagulls were constantly near you and wouldn’t hesitate to try and steal your food. Even worse for my mom, as she has a phobia for birds due to a traumatic event involving them in her childhood. As such, we had to eat as quickly as possible, which ruined the mood.
Whichever genius thought of this design decision, I hope they got fired. Birds are the LAST thing you want at a place that serves food and whoever thinks otherwise must lack common sense.”
