25 Of The Worst Things Health Inspectors Have Seen In The Field

Thinking about unsanitary routines in kitchens can make anyone uneasy, but these issues do occur, highlighting why health inspections are crucial. After wondering what truly happens behind closed restaurant kitchen doors, someone asked Reddit’s health inspectors to reveal what they’ve witnessed on the job. The professionals responded with some truly shocking stories from blood in the ice cream to a shard of glass in a taco. We’ve run through the list and compiled a few of the most eye-opening ones for you in the gallery below.

#1

Image source: FistsofFaith, Kyle Mackie

High-end Thai place in a popular tourist area. Go downstairs to the kitchen and open up their freezer. On the top shelf of the freezer, they are storing loose beef, pork, and chicken in three separate piles. The meats are not in any containers. They are all sitting on a large piece of cardboard the restaurant had placed on the bottom of the shelf.

We poke the cardboard and our finger goes right through it. The juices from the three meats had turned the cardboard into pulp. We then notice it dripping from the combined sludge of chicken, pork, and beef blood. From the looks of the cardboard, it had been dripping for a while.

We look to the shelf below to see the results of the drip. Underneath the meats, in the shelf second from the top, the restaurant was storing three buckets of ice cream. Without lids. Directly under the meat drip.

We look inside the ice cream containers and see congealed, partially frozen, cardboard-laced raw-meat drippings, pooled in the center of each tub of ice cream. None of the ice creams were more than halfway full.

We ask the kitchen manager how long they’ve been storing their items like this. He doesn’t remember. At least a few months.

My theory is, because the place was A) a “nice” restaurant and B) an “ethnic” restaurant, patrons were less likely to complain about odd flavors. For example, instead of complaining about blood in the ice cream, wondering out loud if that taste is star anise.

That’s one of the few inspections that made me feel physically sick. Place still got an A because the restaurant grade system in my city is about as effective as TSA.

#2

Image source: vdragzy, Shahbaz Ali

Worked in a Mc Donalds years ago and I had a co-worker that would lick her index finger every time she peeled a cheese slice off of the stack of cheese we would use to make cheese burgers. It was as if she was trying to sepperate a sheet of paper from a stack of papers. I would watch her do this all day… I never said anything and I sure as hell never ate the cheese burgers.

#3

Image source: Anilxe, Mike Mozart

Not a health inspector, but I did quit and report the Taco Bell in Lake Stevens, WA for this.

Under the food prep assembly area, the grout between the tiles on the floor had been worn away almost completely, and never replaced. Food would fall on the floor, and then get stomped in between the tiles by people working and walking around. You wouldn’t notice the smell of rotting food, unless someone actually swept and pulled the top layer off of the rot, and once you DID smell it it was F*****G HORRIBLE.

I went to go complain to the manager about it, and he said “don’t worry about it” and grabbed his cologne and started spritzing the *entire kitchen*, some of it landing on the food itself. So not only could you still smell food rot, but you could also smell cheap $2 cologne, and he sprayed chemicals all over the food. When I questioned him about it and told him we needed to replace the food, he told me to shut up or he would send me home.

I came in the next day, picked up my check, and left my work outfit with them. Called to report that afternoon.

#4

Image source: ratcnc, Alex Vámos

In the mid-80’s I managed a pizza delivery store and the health inspector came by kind of late and asked me to step outside. He started by apologizing but it was his job to follow up when they have a specific complaint concerning food safety but this one was odd. He proceeded to tell me a customer complained that while they were in the store two male workers had s*x on the counter and didn’t even wash their hands. I very dryly responded that couldn’t have happened as we ALWAYS wash our hands after having s*x on the cutting table. With a small grin he said that’s what he thought and he appreciated our efforts. He was our inspector for several years after that.

#5

Image source: 12truths, Polina Zimmerman

Worked in a popular sandwich shop. Our floor drains were smelling rancid for weeks and we’re backing up with what was assumed to be sewage. My manager told our owners every single day for three weeks that this needed to be fixed and they did nothing. So in the middle of my shift one day, a health inspector came in and immediately shut us down. My manager told me right there that she anonymously called the health dept because that was the only way the owners were going to end up fixing the problem. Major lol.

#6

Image source: anon, Jarett Lopez

Not a good inspector, but once I ordered tacos from a high end vegan restaurant in LA. When I bit into the taco I felt immediately a hard chunk gently slice into the roof of my mouth. I pulled out a one inch shard of glass from my taco. Management said they “accidentally broke a glass near the tacos and they thought they got all of it” they offered a new plate of free tacos but I was like my mouth is bleeding why would I want another taco?

#7

Image source: sgrmm, matheus ferreira

Not a health inspector, but heard this story through a guy who services my soft serve machines.

As info for those not in the ice cream business, most soft serve machines need to be cleaned (meaning fully disassembled, scrubbed, and sanitized) at least weekly, some every 3 days…

He got a call from a woman complaining that the vanilla side of her machine was coming out with black specks in it. Was worried it might be grinding up an o-ring or worse. He took the head off the machine and claims he nearly lost his lunch, as the barrel was infested with cockroaches. Apparently, the woman had never cleaned the machine in the several months she had been open. Somehow the roaches got into it (at night, the barrel stops freezing, and just keeps the mix cool, so it returns to a liquid) and were being ground up and expelled as additional protein. How long has it been doing this? About a week! Ewwww.

#8

Image source: ThrowawayAdvice87, Pixabay

Late to the party but I used to work on my own as a baker in a supermarket and the cleaners would come in at 10pm at night when the last worker left and he would be finished by 2am when I arrived. Well one day I was half an hour early and I walked up to my department and the cleaner was mopping the prep tables and the equipment with the same water he had used to clean the floor. I wish I was joking. To use the mop on the tables to begin with is stupid but using he same water as well? Insane. I told his boss when he came in because I simply had to and his face was a picture. He really didn’t believe me until I got him to have a look on CCTV.

Oh I forgot, he wasn’t supposed to even touch the machinery, that was my job. So he was dirtying my already clean equipment.

#9

Image source: anon, derekmarkham

Was a health inspector long ago. Was at a Golden Corral, going through the kitchen area. As I was squatting down to check a dish washer, my foot broke through the tile floor and into a sewer pipe that ran underneath. Cockroaches come boiling out of the hole. Turns out the entire floor was rotten from a water leak in the sewer pipe. Best/worst part? The general manager tried to fight me when I told them they had to close down until they fixed the open hole into a pipe full of cockroaches and waste.

#10

Image source: a4thpipeforsherlock, Andre Blanco

So, a friend of mine is a health inspector.

She walks into a local convenience store and discovers a litter box behind the counter. Totally unacceptable. Tells the proprietor that he needs to get rid of the litter box. That’s kind of a health code violation.

He replies, “Well, it’s for the cat. We’ve been having mice/rat issues.”

To which she’s all, “Ohhhhh.”

Cat walks up. She tells him he can’t have a cat in a food establishment. He hands the cat to his wife and she takes it out of the store to their camper trailer nearby the store. Waits for her to leave.

Rinse and repeat.

#11

Image source: LegendOfDylan, Mike Mozart

I can tell you what they didn’t find. When I worked at Denny’s when the health inspector came the cooks took all the expired food out of the fridge and stored it in their cars and by the *dumpster* until after the health inspector left and then they put it all back. I ended up quitting that job after I got written up for refusing to change the dates on the labels of all the expired food, which was one of the primary jobs of the graveyard server.

#12

Image source: confusedbossman, Natalia Blauth

So this is from the other side but pretty unique. A long time ago while I was in college I used to maintain aquariums – quite a few were in restaurants. There was an old school seafood restaurant that had a ton of tanks – great customers, and a cool place. I would be out there at least once a week for half a day making everything spotless.

This was before cellphones you youngsters – I am in class and my pager (yes, pager) is blowing up from their number. I call and one of the Mexican staff picks up and all I could gather is “please mr fish man you come now very big prolem emegerncia”.

I head out there and there are health inspectors there. So, for all the tanks I take care of if a fish dies I ask the owner to put it in a bag and freeze it so I can take a look and see if I can figure out why it kicked the bucket.

Well, one of their very old and very large, and pretty beat up blue tangs (Dory) had died and they had froze it per instructions. The inspectors show up to this seafood restaurant and first thing they see is this decrepit old fish, that had been munched on by the other fish in the tank along side the catch of the day. It was before opening, and only the Mexican staff were there who had no idea how to explain it.

I got it sorted out, but kinda funny :)

#13

Image source: HalfEatenChalupa, Jef Wright

Not a health inspector, but I used to be a bus boy at a nice Italian restaurant in my home town. We had problems with the Chinese place across the street because we found out that they had been taking the lettuce that we throw in the dumpster at the end of the night. Our manager used to stand outside and guard the dumpster so they wouldn’t take our garbage.

Another experience working at a local cafe. I was cutting up cheese from a walk in fridge and I found a hole in the cardboard box that the cheese was kept in. Turned out it was from rats or mice, and they were eating the cheese. Told my manager about it and he told me to cut around the bite marks and still used the cheese. Left that job shortly after.

#14

Image source: jjrfs, Bailey Cloud

Health inspector here! Here are my top 3:

•An old liquor store, which had once been the front unit of a housing duplex, had now coverted into full-service deli (sandwiches, fried chicken, etc.) without plan review, so they were severely lacking in all the proper space and equipment. Observed were:

-Rat infestation; droppings everywhere in the place
-Mountains of old cast-off equipment in the back (giving the rats a home)
-Meat defrosting on the hood of an inoperable car on the side alley
-Back unit of duplex (now converted to food storage) had unfinished wooden boards on the floor, which were now soft and rotting from soaking up years of meat juice and everything else.

•While inspecting a chinese buffet, I noted to the employees that there were tubs of frozen fried shrimp stacked on top of one a other without covers, so they needed to discard the top layers of the food and put on the tub lids. As they scrambled to do so, they knocked over the tower of shrimp, spilling it everywhere. As I was standing there, they hurridly started scooping the shrimp off the floor and back into the tubs. I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE YOU GUYS.

•A guy ordered commercial sausage-making equipment delivered to his private home. Manufacturer got suspicious and tipped off the health deparment. Turns out the guy would go hunting all sorts of exotic game meat without permits, process them into sausages in his rat-infested garage (droppings the size of jelly beans), and was selling them to the public.

Don’t buy food from “home cooks” folks!

#15

A restaurateur was trying to reopen a failed one into a new one. It had been a Mexican joint, was going to be a deli. I was working for a pest control company, and they called us to take care of a “few bugs.” No big deal, they’re just pro-active. I get there, it’s clean, it smells okay, but I’m about one month into this new job and experience.

I go to get started and I’m mixing up the s**t we have to use in restaurants, and I’m using the water from one of their triple sinks. The water is coming out hot, it’s a Vegas summer, so I’m letting it run until it cools down some. I look over at the floor sink the triple sink drains into, and there’s a lot of German cockroaches coming out of it. F**k it, this water will do. I fill up the two gallons, put the pump/handle back in and shake it to mix it, pump it to pressurize and it and get to work. When you start with a full canister, there’s less air, so you have to stop and pause to repump it to keep the pressure up. As I’m going the hitting all the cracks and crevices, behind the sinks, the equipment, under every thing, the seam in the wipe down plastic walls, etc, roaches are just pouring out in to the open. It’s in the thousands stage, where now, when I stand still they are trying to hide under my boots. The last time I have to stop to pump up the canister, I’m standing on it’s stainless steel with the brass handle between my feet. F**k this.

I call on the radio for a coworker who I know is nearby because he has a fog unit and I don’t at this point (newly hired, wasn’t 100% kitted out). Tony swings by, I’m waiting out side, and we renegotiate the service. The new owner had been a little on the light side with the depth of his problem. He agrees, we get to fogging. Tony’s showing me how to do it, so I’m just walking behind him. At this point there’s tens of thousands of roaches every where; floor, walls, ceiling. We get to the walkin and above it where I think the compressor was, was a 4 foot (h) by 8 foot by 10 foot space. Tony directs the fog stream up in there, and the roaches start pouring out. Pouring out in such numbers that briefly, you can barely see the stainless steel of the walk in door.

The entire rest of the day, any little itch on my skin, you’re leaping to slap it and check it’s not a roach stuck on you.

Image source: anon

#16

Not a health inspector, but when I was working at Papa John’s in eastern Washington state, one of my co-workers would always come in with glittery, long, manicured and painted fingernails, and refused to wear gloves on the make line (where the pizzas were made before going into the oven).

She would regularly handle cash payments, then, without washing her hands, start prepping a pizza, without gloves on, getting loads of cheese, raw dough, and other chunks of food stuck under her fake nails. Our manager never corrected her on this (she was a airheaded high school senior, and the manager was a gross perv that kept her around until she was 18 only so he could legally ask her out…guy was married with two kids and in his 30s…he fired her when she turned him down after she was 2 minutes late to her shift), but one night when it was just me driving deliveries and her answering the phone and making pizzas, I got a complaint from a customer I delivered to earlier saying that they found a “melted Lego” in their pizza…

…sure enough, Miss Manicure looked at her nails, and one of her press on nails had come off and apparently melted when it went through the oven on top of my customer’s pizza.

She didn’t give a f**k about the angry customer at all, she just called her older sister to come over to the restaurant to bring her box of fake nails and nail glue, and replaced it (again, without washing her GODDAMNED HANDS after handling money and raw meat all night), and went about her merry way.

I put in my two weeks notice the next day, that place was a f*****g zoo.

Image source: TehPurpleMenace

#17

Image source: 2312rhys, Kelly Sikkema

I worked in the deli of a convenience store for nearly 15 years. It was a constant struggle to explain to my boss how I couldn’t save the leftover chicken and veggies and sell them the next morning. My customers were happy to pay more knowing the food was always fresh.

Six months ago, boss decided to lease out the kitchen and move me to the main store. Ex-customers keep coming to me to complain about the food tasting bad and making them sick, so I went back to check and counted about 6 violations that would get them shut down or fined. Clorox bleach stored on the floor next to chicken breading, defrosting meat stored above the vegetables (it drips down onto the veggies), and at the end of the day the cook takes all the food trays and puts them, uncovered, into the fridge to sell the next day without letting them at least cool down. It smells like rotting food back there since they never clean out the drains. I’ve also seen her cutting uncooked meat with a machete on the bare floor and she never ices down the raw chicken at the end of the day so it starts to stink by mid-week.

Boss has lost half his regular customer base.

#18

Obligatory “not a health inspector” but I am a regional Health Department that employs health inspectors for my Food Protection Bureau. We’ve seen rotten animal carcasses, “processing meat on-site” (AKA butchering sheep in the parking lot), people serving meat from crazy types of animals… Sometimes when our inspectors arrive on site, an employee will yell to the back kitchen and there will be a frenzy to throw things out to the dumpster outside before we can catch it.

If the public areas of a restaurant are dirty, the kitchen probably isn’t any better. If staff members you interact with are poorly trained, those you don’t have contact with (such as the person making your food) are likely to be the same. In short: whatever you can’t see probably mirrors (or is even worse than) what you can.

Image source: saltlakehealth

#19

Image source: romansapprentice, M. Rennim

Not a health inspector, but read public health inspection reviews.

_________

There was a Burger King near me that had black mold in the ice machine, and large holes in the kitchen where rats had eaten the walls and buried through.

There was also a KFC that was cited for having broken glass and “other debris” on the serving line????? I really don’t get that one.

#20

Image source: anon, Curated Lifestyle

A tuna canning plant in Los Angeles was off of Terminal Island, the processing plant owned the entire Island a few miles off shore. Needless to say, had to take a boat to the plant to look at some machinery they needed repaired.

We get to the plant and there are dozens of cats, inside the plant, outside the plant, wharehouse, etc. CATS EVERYWHERE! Nobody said anything. They were even in the office building. After a few trips, I finally asked. One guy said in a joke, “It’s either rats or cats. We don’t have a rat problem here.”.

#21

The current Kebab shop I work at, everything is clean, well kept, everything is well maintained, the owner has a twin who also decided to open a Kebab Shop. I went to visit a few weeks ago.

The cheesecakes are left in low temperature cupboards rater than freezers, which isn’t cold enough so they have bright green mould.

Every single egg there is expired – I checked with the egg in water test.

The pizza doughs have all gone bad – you can even tell from the smell.

There are milk cartons in the fridge that have been there for around 2 months.

He offered me to come work there for £9 an hour, which in England is a lot for someone my age.

I said no and I dont regret it, a health inspector is gonna come there soon and close it anyway hopefully.

Image source: anon

#22

I do a lot of polishing and chrome plating. I am NOT a health inspector but I do a lot of work for restaurants.

I got a call to chrome plate some refrigerator racks. It’s common request. These are large 36 to 48″ long racks/grills that the food sits on. This one high end steak house that I used to go to calls me in. Their racks were literally falling apart, rusted joints, old food hanging off of them, just disgusting. I explained it can’t be repaired but they insisted that we just shine them up, do whatever is needed. I refused the job, left and wanted to throw up. Never went to that restaurant aver again.

Immediately called the health department on them. Don’t know what happened.

Image source: anon

#23

Image source: 1ofZuulsMinions, almc0404

Our local Health Inspector told us a funny conversation he had with a restaurant owner:

H.I.: *pulls bug out of already prepared food* “What’s this?”
Owner: “That’s a bean.”
H.I.: “Beans don’t have legs!!!”.

#24

Image source: Scoregasm666, pboyd04

Not an inspector, but my SO told me about what happened at at a popular seafood restaurant in my town. A guy working the fry station had a magnetic kitchen timer above the fryer stuck to the hood vent above. One day, the timer fell into the hot grease. They managed to fish out the main plastic part, but the batteries were nowhere to be found. It was determined that the batteries must have disintegrated into the grease. Being a seafood restaurant in the south, half the menu is fried. The owner is too much of a skinflint to stop serving fried food and change out the grease during dinner rush. So whoever ate catfish that night had it fried in a tangy alkaline grease.

#25

Not an inspector but I worked at sushi and hibachi restaurant for about a year as a server, host and deliver driver. This place had a ton of things that were certainly questionable but a few of them ended up causing me to leave the place. In the dry storage area, they had cleaning chemicals directly above all of the togo food packages and plastics ware. In that same room, which was really big, I’d randomly see a sleeping bag and pillow tucked away every once and a while. It always stuck out but I never really thought too much into until I went back to grab a bottle of wine and sure enough had stepped on a sleeping woman. She started yelling and I just ran out. My manager pulled me aside later, which I assume was going to be a conversation about keeping that hush hush but no. The dude offered me $25,000 to marry a Thai chick so she could get a green card. My response to him was my two weeks notice.

Image source: KrakenWarg