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55 Restaurant Red Flags That Make People Change Their Mind About Eating Out Immediately
It's all fun and games watching Gordon Ramsay descend on a failing restaurant and lift the lid off a container of something that has been in the kitchen since a previous administration. It is theatre. It is cathartic. But Kitchen Nightmares is not always on. And restaurants, unfortunately, are. Which means that at some point, in some dining room, there will be red flags Gordon can't save you from.
The question is whether you can spot it yourself. Because not all dodgy restaurants announce themselves with a health code violation notice on the door. Some of them are considerably more subtle about it. These red flags were compiled from seasoned diners and people who learned the hard way, so that you do not have to. Consider this your crash course in dining with your eyes open.
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Remi (He/Him) 5 months ago
Chinese restaurants sometimes have huge menus, but if you look closely there are fairly limited number of different ingredients and they basically list all the possible combinations of them
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George Costanza 5 months ago
I would argue that if the restaurant has a CEO it won't be good in the first place. The best restaurants are local. Not national.
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Sam Trudeau 5 months ago
First step in that case is to look for TV cams. He hams it up for the cams
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For All Pedernity 5 months ago
Not necessarily, but if it's in a busy area and every other place is packed it might be something to worry about.
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Nicole Weymann 5 months ago
That, I think, depends on local culture/customs. Most places in Germany (and neighbouring countries as well) don't have seaters or dedicated hostesses. Sometimes (iespecially if the business is slow) a server may greet you and show you to a table, but generally you go in, find a place, sit and wait for a server. This may look like lax service (judging from US comments here), but I prefer to see it as discreet. I don't like my eating interrupted by anxious enquiries about needing anything, "is everythink all right? Is there something I can help you with?". And nobody rushes you because they need the next patron's tip.
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Barbara Liles 5 months ago
How do you get close enough to the cockroach to smell it? Is the odor under their tiny armpits?
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Ace 5 months ago
Varies by country, among other things. Some (e.g. France) are required to post a menu outside. Some places don't like to have the menu online because it may change, then customers will complain that they came specially for item X which is off today. I like to see a 'sample' menu online but wouldn't rely on it being accurate on the day.
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George Costanza 5 months ago
If you're already being seen by the waiter isn't that sort of his job? What do you mean by "pushing"?
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George Costanza 5 months ago
Disagree. Totally depends on what you ordered. A steak takes a set amount of time to cook no matter what. But pasta is usually par-cooked then finished when you ordered in a couple of minutes. Chinese food is usually stir-fried over super high heat and takes only a couple minutes. Many more examples.
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michael reid 5 months ago
Not a fan (haha) of hand driers myself, but the absence of towels wouldn't put me off. Why would it?
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Con O Cuinn 5 months ago
Every place I've worked that sell food has had these as default. Supermarkets, cafes, hotels.
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Jeremy James 5 months ago
Not every restaurant you see taking a Sysco delivery is selling premade food items. They also sell all of the basic ingredients you need to run a from-scratch kitchen.
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Roman Arendt 5 months ago (edited)
In the EU (since 2014), every restaurant (or similar establishments) has to have menus that declare which dish contains one or more of the 14 most common allergens/allergen groups. They can include them in their "main menus", but in my experience most offer a second set of menus for people with allergies (so the reading flow is not disturbed, I assume).
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UnclePanda 5 months ago
This is defensive drinking when traveling in countries where the water can harm you - the ice is made of the local water too. Source - the second time I had to fly home with 'travelers revenge.'
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For All Pedernity 5 months ago (edited)
This is probably the most ridiculous "red flag" of all here.
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George Costanza 5 months ago
Totally depends on the type of restaurant, though. Any casual place in the summer is going to be full of patrons in flip flops. Wouldn't upset me in the least.
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What do you think ?
marianne eliza 5 months ago
A lot of these need to consider the type of restaurant. Sandwich shop at the beach? Or a Michelin 3 star in Napa/Sonoma? For myself, I don't like to go to any restaurant that uses cutesy theme-inspired names for their dishes.
T'Mar of Vulcan 5 months ago
For me the red flag is, if I order a cappuccino with cream and the cream is sour (or has that sickly sweet taste that means it's about to go off). It's even worse if you point this out to the waiter and they argue or won't bring a new one. Don't expect me to come back.
Rick Murray 5 months ago
You can smell the toilets outside the building. Upon entering, you wait ages as the staff are too numerous and too busy. Vacated tables get left as the staff are too busy dealing with orders. The upholstery is beyond redemption. Dust falls from the lamp when you tap it. The cutlery has identifiable bits of food encrusted onto it. And when, despite all that, you stay because you really like the style of food they offer, you end up feeling pretty rotten for days afterwards. I'm looking right at *you*, Buffalo Grill! It's a French chain dealing with hybrid of Tex-Mex meets cowboy; it was great in 2002, getting bad by 2008, and after how my mom and I felt in 2016 (twice, 'cos we're dumb 😂) we vowed never to go back. I don't know if this is representative of how these places are run, or if the one we used to go to was a special type of sh!tshow, but that's not my problem. There are basic hygiene rules, you know?
Rick Murray 5 months ago
Hmmm, the reviews on Google Maps suggest it's still rather lamentable. Oh well, NMFP.
Load More Replies... marianne eliza 5 months ago
A lot of these need to consider the type of restaurant. Sandwich shop at the beach? Or a Michelin 3 star in Napa/Sonoma? For myself, I don't like to go to any restaurant that uses cutesy theme-inspired names for their dishes.
T'Mar of Vulcan 5 months ago
For me the red flag is, if I order a cappuccino with cream and the cream is sour (or has that sickly sweet taste that means it's about to go off). It's even worse if you point this out to the waiter and they argue or won't bring a new one. Don't expect me to come back.
Rick Murray 5 months ago
You can smell the toilets outside the building. Upon entering, you wait ages as the staff are too numerous and too busy. Vacated tables get left as the staff are too busy dealing with orders. The upholstery is beyond redemption. Dust falls from the lamp when you tap it. The cutlery has identifiable bits of food encrusted onto it. And when, despite all that, you stay because you really like the style of food they offer, you end up feeling pretty rotten for days afterwards. I'm looking right at *you*, Buffalo Grill! It's a French chain dealing with hybrid of Tex-Mex meets cowboy; it was great in 2002, getting bad by 2008, and after how my mom and I felt in 2016 (twice, 'cos we're dumb 😂) we vowed never to go back. I don't know if this is representative of how these places are run, or if the one we used to go to was a special type of sh!tshow, but that's not my problem. There are basic hygiene rules, you know?
Rick Murray 5 months ago
Hmmm, the reviews on Google Maps suggest it's still rather lamentable. Oh well, NMFP.
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