From McDonald's golden arches to KFC's colonel, chain restaurants operate all around the world. However, there are still plenty of things we don't know about them—every business wants to get ahead of the competition, and to do so, they might try practices they want to keep on the down-low.
To gain a better understanding of the industry, we started digging around the internet and discovered a few discussions where people who worked at these establishments have been sharing insider secrets they learned on the job. Here are some of the most interesting ones.
#1
At Chipotle, the servers usually put more ingredients into the bowl version rather than the burrito version. However, you can ask for the wrap on the side when you order the bowl version for no extra cost. This way, you can make your own burrito with more ingredients for the same price.
Image credits: burnswuff
#2
How slippery floors in the kitchen can be, and how f*****g hot plates can be when running food. Forever more I will always tip my waitstaff well.
Image credits: foreverataglance
#3
I used to work at Romano's Macaroni Grill and their delicious Rosemary Herb Bread comes in frozen and is stored at room temperature. It must be loaded with a million kinds of preservatives to last sitting two weeks in a storage closet.
Image credits: VictoryVino
#4
I used to be a waiter and it wasn't my fault that it's taking forever for your food to come out. That's the kitchen's fault. Yelling at me won't make it come out any faster. You're just making me sad and ruining my night :( I'm a person too.
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#5
Protip: When you ask your server for something, add "when you have a second". E.g. "Can I have a refill when you have a second?" 9 times out of 10 the basic human empathy you showed by acknowledging that you personally are not the centre of this very busy, very stressed worker's existence, will prompt them to put your needs as high up on their list as they can. It always worked on me. F*****g witchcraft.
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#6
Worked at Red Lobster as a stocker. The biscuits are baked then brushed with an oily coating to give them most of their flavor. Also you have no idea how God d**n good those things are the second they're outta the oven.
Image credits: furlonium
#7
I also used to work at Applebees, and can confirm that steaks are microwaved. At the location I was at the cooks threw them on the grill after the microwave to get char marks on them. Seriously guys, don't order steaks there.
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#8
The "delivery fee" is not a tip that goes to delivery drivers.
Image credits: anon
#9
I work at mcdonalds: if you ever want to get fresh fries cooked hot for you order them with no salt. The normal fries can get old and if you order no salt then we have to make a new batch and not add salt. It will take 3 extra minutes but you will get freshass fries and you can salt them yourself.
#10
I work at a Papa John's and as you may know Papa John's brags about never frozen ingredients. Well, that's a big lie. Every time that we get a truck with food all the meats are frozen. The apple pie topping also comes frozen. The only things that don't come frozen are the dough and the vegetables.
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#11
Not a restaurant, but we serve food too. The $7 tub of popcorn you buy at a movie theater costs about 9¢ to make.
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#12
Chipotle's deep, dark secret... It's 50/50 lemon lime juice in the rice. Oh no! Seriously, that place was above-board all around.
Image credits: BridgetteBane
#13
Chili's
The molten cake that everyone seems to love is frozen. The paradise pie is frozen. If you complain that your food isn't hot enough, it just goes into the microwave. Oh, and people used to ask for the queso recipe all the time...it's delivered to the restaurant in a bag. The cooks would just heat it up and dump it in a skillet.
When the dishes came out of wash, there would still be wet lettuce and food particles stuck on the plates and silverware, and we'd just wipe it off. Makes me want to use plastic ware at every restaurant now.
Most of these things probably aren't secrets though.
Image credits: UnderD4Donut
#14
I used to work for Chick-Fil-A back in high school. Practically everything but the waffle fries and maybe the chicken salad (someone else confirm this) were made in the store. We breaded the chicken, we assembled the cool wraps, and I would cut countless boxes of fresh lemons, squeeze them in a machine and add sugar every shift. There is not a thing on the menu that I would not eat. Moreover, the employees would get to take home the cool wraps if there were any at the end of the night.
Image credits: SlimJD
#15
I work at McDonald's. I'm f*****g sick of people asking me if I can make a suggestion that we should have the Big Tasty all year round, or that we should try and bring in a new type of McFlurry. I'm like 'Yeah, I'll just go give Ronald a call and let him know..'. The only person I can tell is my manager and he won't give a c**p.
#16
Not a chain, but I work at a burger joint with a few locations around the area.
1) I can't do S**T about our prices. I'm a cashier, I don't decide the prices individually.
2) Nobody spits in food unless you're ordering at the trashiest restaurant in the most ghetto area of town. Not only would I not want that done to me, but if someone found out then I would get my a*s canned faster than you can say "horse testicles". We'll just complain about you out back.
#17
Don't eat at Golden Corral. Ever.
DON'T.
F*****G.
**EAT.**
***AT GOLDEN CORRAL***.
Image credits: GODDAMNFOOL
#18
Former Domino's Employee here. Something that I didn't realize was that your delivery driver gets paid $3.15 an hour for all the time spent on the road. Please tip well. They do not get reimbursed for gas and are using their personal cars. If your pizza was late, it is much, much more likely that it was the manager's fault (the managers are the only ones allowed to make the pizzas). You work s****y hours and there is absolutely no way you are getting a Friday or Saturday night off because that's when everyone wants pizza. They will most likely be working from 5 PM to 2 or 3 AM on those nights and then if you're opening the store on Sunday, you'll be back at 11 AM. Domino's isn't even good.
Image credits: MechanicalBird
#19
Panera is pretty much just as bad for you as McDonald's. People come in thinking they're eating healthy, but they're really not.
The Italian Combo used to have more than a thousand calories, but they took some stuff off so it's 980 now. All the soups have >1000mg of sodium (Italian Combo has >2000mg or a day's worth). A You Pick Two with Broccoli Cheddar, Frontega, and bread on the side is not significantly different from a McDouble with medium fries.
EDIT: And the "fresh-squeezed lemonade" is made from cartons of concentrate and regular old faucet water. Green tea is the same.
#20
The servers are in charge of making bread sticks at Olive Garden. I can't remember exactly how it worked but all the soup/salad/bread sticks were done by the servers. Two servers would usually be scheduled to be in charge of those things. I can't remember if the breadsticks were frozen or fresh...but I think they were fresh. As soon as they came out of the oven they were slathered in butter and salted, and they usually didn't last long. So chances are the breadsticks you get at Olive Garden are gonna be fresh and tasty. We were told that a table gets one bread stick per person and then one extra...this did not help curb massive consumption of bread sticks.
Once we had to throw out a bunch of old boxes...one of which I managed to take home. I ate bread sticks for at least a month...it was glorious.
Image credits: Invisllama
#21
I worked at a Culver's a few years ago, and some people know, but I don't think many do, the burgers are fresh. They are portioned out hamburger, not pre-made patties. They take a cube of hamburger and press it on the grill as soon as you say you want a Butterburger. Also, chicken salad is made fresh every Wednesday morning.
So unlike Wendy's that says they have fresh, never frozen burgers (I find it hard to believe), Culver's actually does. And for those that don't know Culver's, it's a "fast food" burger/ice cream restaurant. After eating there for a year, I still am not sick of it.
#22
Worked at Burger King in the 1990s. Aside from the half the crew being permanently s****d, there were no real shenanigans. We wouldn't serve anything that hit the ground, made most things to order, threw out old and stale s**t.
Hell, we even threw out the frozen meat we played frisbee with.
#23
Former Starbucks employee here and here's a secret:
*No one cares if you don't like the price or the coffee.* They still make millions without you. Go be hipster someplace else.
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#24
I guess this is the opposite of a secret I wish everyone knew. It's a truth I wish more people understood. There is no "Secret Menu" at Starbucks. There is no recipe for drinks called a Clint Eastwood, Undertow, Tear Drop, Tuxedo, Bloody Tuxedo, or my most recent favorite "Butter Beer." Ordering these drinks makes you look like a d****e and you've got a good chance of getting decaf from your annoyed barista. If you want one of these drinks, just order it by ingredient.
#25
I worked at Raising Cane's, and the chicken was never frozen, marinated, and hand battered and fried to order. The toast you can order buttered on both sides, and you can substitute just about anything for anything. They would shell out for the best longest french fries of the cut, usually getting 3-4 fires per potato, but they would get broken frozen in the bag so I didn't see the point. It was insanely clean in the kitchen too, you could do surgery in the kitchen after we left at night.
#26
Any employees from IHOP here? That place always seemed really shadey...
Once, I ordered a BLT and found a piece of banana under the sandwich. I'm guessing they really don't clean their plates, either.
Image credits: just2good
#27
I worked at Subway until this afternoon. I will say that the food is surprisingly very fresh- we sliced all the vegetables other than olives and jalepenos on location, the bread was fresh-baked daily, the meat came in frozen bags but was otherwise not-nasty. Super clean, fresh place.
That said, the managers are money-hounding, condescending, sneery a******s that insist your work schedule come before your school schedule. They expect you to be available every f****n day and if you can't do that, you're fired. Screw that!
EDIT: I would eat at Subway every day if I had to- it's all real fresh, clean, and pretty healthy given the alternates. But I wouldn't work there ever again.
#28
I worked at a "local chain" and they prided themselves on making everything from scratch with fresh ingredients. Many things came from cans and the most cringeworthy was their summer lobster dishes made with pre cooked, shelled, and frozen lobster.
#29
So, I have a friend who works at 5 guys, which is one of the top fastest growing restaurants in the US in the last few years. I have had heard the most awful stories about how they treat their "managers" as in make them work > 50 hours a week with wages barely 10-20% higher than minimum wage, with 0 benefits, 0 vacation days, 0 bonuses, and the entire time, they are told that they are next in line for promotion. My friend has been there for almost 2.5 years with a total of approximately a 10% pay increase over that entire time with no promotion. It's too hard for me to explain all rest of the details of the stories i've heard, but basically they are able to make tons and tons of money by treating their middle management and lower employees like garbage, and giving them the opportunity to quit if they feel that they are being treated unfairly. I know a lot of places do this, but it still doesn't make it ok. Anyone else have a similar experience with them?
#30
Might have just been the buffalo wild wings that i worked at, but dont order anything thats on an actual plate. Nobody wants to wash that s**t so we would always just kinda spray it off for half a second then put it in the clean pile.
Image credits: eaclark2
#31
I worked in a kitchen for a summer and here's what I learned: don't eat from a salad bar! Don't do it! The toppings (chickpeas, tofu, carrots, etc) that aren't used one day are just put in the fridge in the salad bar container and re-used every day until they run out... you could be eating weeks old, slimy chickpeas if a lot of people haven't been eating them.
Image credits: anon
#32
The better question might be---who has worked at a restaurant and would still happily eat there? I used to work at Paragary's restaurants in Sacramento (for 3 years) and they are still one of my favourite places to eat. seems to me that is a mark of a good restaurant.
#33
When you complain that the coffee isn't fresh, we take your cup, add hot water to it, and give it back to you. no one has ever been able to tell the difference and usually go on about how much better it tastes now.
Image credits: lauralouhoo
#34
I work at Panera bread. Although the dough comes Pre-made from another place. Everything there is "as advertised". The leftovers get donated, and the managers are nice to the employees. As a company, Panera is probably one of the few that are honest.
#35
Employees at Chuck E. Cheese use the same towels to clean the arcade games as they do tables. Also, the tubes that your children crawl in are usually only cleaned once a month, if that. Don't take your kids to Chuck E. Cheese. (former employee).
Image credits: geoffham
#36
McDonalds for 5 years. When you're trained they encourage you to look for "golden moments", which are essentially targetting children and making them feel special.
#37
I worked at Starbucks for a while. Overall, everything was really clean and fresh. I got to take home "expired" foods at the end of the night because they had really strict expiration rules, and "expired" food wouldn't really expire for another few days.
BUT here's a tip: If you're EVER a d**k at Starbucks, you will get decaffed or sugar-freed or non-fatted. I always felt like an evil mastermind when someone ordered their quad venti seven pump mocha because I would decaff all four shots and only give them THE RECOMMENDED AMOUNT OF PUMPS!! MUAHAHA
Edit: Apparently I wasn't clear that I would only do this to people that were being very rude to me for no reason except that their over-priced mediocre coffee drinks are more important to them than treating people in the service industry like human beings.
I also guess I will specify that
-I worked in a "rich" community Starbucks, so I encountered more d***s than the average barista
-I would never, under any circumstances, do the opposite, ie. caffeinating or sugaring or whole-ing someone's drink, in case of medical issues. I hated the rude customers, but I don't want to be responsible for someone's diabetic coma or pacemaker going wacko.
#38
I worked at taco bell in the mid-nineties. The beans were dehydrated and in plastic bags like coco pebbles cereal. There were always two big pots of hot water. One pot was to add water to the beans, and the other pot was for heating the bags of ground beef, chicken, and steak. Also, I worked the closing shift. When we closed the lobby, we'd get beer and put the bottles in the ice machine. We paid for the beer by making up prices at the register and never ringing it up. When we had enough for beer we'd operate normally again. I never saw anyone do anything to the food.
I still eat taco bell.
#39
Used to work at red lobster, the biscuits are dry mix- mixed with water and shredded cheese. Then brushed with garlic butter. They are fattening as s**t. But still delicious. **After reading the Olive Garden breadstick comment, I feel compelled to add that usually the batches are hot and fresh, but in a weirdly shaped warmer that would be hard to grab with bare hands. So don't worry about dirty server hands on your biscuits, everyone used tongs at our restaurant.
Also, surprisingly, Crab legs/Lobster are very healthy if you don't slather it with butter. And the crab legs are usually excellent condition. Something about how they get a good pick from their source. I served maybe one pair of yucky looking crab legs and it was only because of the barnacle thingies on the outside. Which btw, you crabby heads, doesn't affect the inside meat really at all. It's still amazingly delicious.
Oh I forgot: All the "fresh" fish in our area (Near Chicago... thousands of miles from any f*****g ocean) is flash frozen, not fresh. That's b******t. But for some reason frozen and fresh frozen are different.. don't know why exactly. Exceptions are made for a few fish, but all the salmon,mahi, etc... frozen.
And their "wood grill" was the exact same grill as before except some smoked woodchips are added to the bottom to allow some smoke to get up into the food. They act like they throw chunks of cedar into a wood fire place in the commercials.
#40
Well, I have a good one....
If you have ever eaten at Outback Steakhouse they give you this awesome honeywheat bread with some butter. The bread is amazing itself but if you ask for a side of ranch and dip the bread in it...... It is the best m***********g thing in the world. I used to eat a loaf or two when we had a few mins between the rushes. To this day, I always ask for ranch with my bread there.
#41
I work at Panera Bread. Please don't order anything besides bread and pastries. They are the only things made fresh on a daily basis. The sandwich ingredients are always old or expired. When we find that something has passed its date, we simply switch the date to the next day, and the next and the next. The prep stations get cleaned maybe once or twice a week, the rest of the time they get wiped down with the same dirty rag I washed them with yesterday. The food all gets mixed together, there's Caesar dressing had chipotle mayo in it, and the horseradish has some olives dropped in there, I have no idea if this is turkey or chicken, but it's leaking and smelly and it's going on your sandwich. The soup comes in bags, that get heated, frozen, reheated until they're empty. It films over on a hourly basis, and we just add hot water to them and mix it up. It's really gross.
#42
I used to work at subway. My manager at the time was really conscious of food costs...to a fault. Most commonly was changing the expiration dates of food so it wouldn't have to be thrown out. This may not be a huge deal for a couple days, but food would last a couple WEEKS. He would also take lettuce in a pan and put it back into the bag.
Finally, he kept frozen (unbaked) bread for over a year. It was so old that the yeast had died, causing the bread to not rise. He was fired after I got fed up and blew the whistle to the franchise owner.
#43
Just started working at Starbucks. I accidentally brewed decaf instead of regular. After fixing the problem, I notified the girl training me that I wasted two scoops of the decaf and she laughed and said, "You should have just left it. I do that all the time -- on purpose. The customers can't tell the difference."
:/.
#44
Not quite a chain per se but I worked at a packing house that grows tomatoes for the vast majority of all fast food restaurants on the east coast. I've seen what happens in the fields they're grown in. Long story short I don't get tomatoes on my sandwiches anymore.
#45
Worked at Wawa for ~4 years. Management is incredibly a**l about cleanliness, "freshness" of food (you will never get something that's been "sitting out," I promise), full stock and getting you in and out as quickly and happily as possible. A challenge to work for at times and was definitely not paid enough for the work I put in, but at least the company wasn't full of scumbags.
I will say that in order to get fresher meat/cheese on your sandwich, request that they use meat/cheese that's available from the deli so they cut it fresh. It's a pain in the a*s and I can't guarantee that the deli attendant won't hate you for it, but it will be a g*****n delicious sandwich.
#46
Pizza Hut secrets:
The only fresh veggies are tomatoes, green peppers, and red onions. Everything else comes from cans/ prepackaged bags.
The only pizza dough that isn't saturated in oil is hand tossed dough. The Edge/ Original Pan dough is made with excessive amounts of oil. I make pizza dough at home and I know you can make it with 1/10th the oil.
The dough is not prepared daily. If there is left over dough from the previous day, it will be used the following day. If you've ever eaten a Pizza Hut pizza and felt the dough was thicker than usual, you've eaten day old dough.
Ham, Black Olives and Salami are the three least used ingredients in Pizza Hut pizza's. Avoid ordering pizzas with these ingredients because they are most likely going bad and haven't been changed in quite some time.
The "natural pizza sauce" or whatever b******t they tell you comes from a bag. We mix it with tap water till it's a pizza sauce worthy consistency and keep it stored in an industrial sized bucket in the walk-in freezer.
The oil in the Wing Street fryers are changed upon managerial request, usually based on the color and consistency of the oil. If it can be used for another weekend it will be. It will be topped up with fresh oil when needed, but the oil is rarely changed over completely. Knowing that, consider the amount of potentially spoiled meat products that have been sitting in the same oil that fried up your chicken wings/ tatter tots and mozza sticks.
#47
As a manager of a restaurant; don't be a f****n d**k. Reason with each other.
Sometimes a get customers whom you can tell they are just stressed out and the waiter/counter person is the best option to blow off steam on.
One important thing I try to do is keep the restaurant as friendly as possible but sometimes we get these snobby a******s who just k**l the mood.
#48
Worked at Crakcer Barrell about 8 years ago. Like most chains all the meat came frozen. All the soups also came frozen and were boiled in their plastic bag which sketched m out. On the flip side mash potatoes and mac and cheese were made from scratch and were a pain in the a*s to make in large batches.
#49
In 2008 I had a job at a Food Avenue in Target. One day my dad went into the hospital, and since I wasn't allowed to take calls while at work, I spent the day not knowing what was going on.
I sobbed into your pizzas. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. All over those pizzas.
So, if you had an extra salty pizza from a Target in South Florida in 2008, it was because you were eating my tears.
#50
I know that at Pizza Hut Express, they throw out unpurchased pizzas every 20 minutes. Since I thought this was such a food waste, I would stockpile them on days my manager wasnt working and take them home. Hell, I'll eat pizza thats been sitting out for days.
#51
I just learned yesterday that if you order something that comes with dressing at Arby's, they'll ask you if you want Honey Mustard or Barbecue. If you want Ranch, you have to specifically ask for it or they won't tell you that they have it. The logic behind this is that Ranch is more expensive than the other two options.
Not ground-breaking, but I'm glad I asked her.
#52
I was a shift manager at a Pizza Hut when I was in college, and I would still eat there. The general manager took cleanliness seriously, and we followed the rules quite closely.
In regards to the salad bar, most items from the previous day would be kept on the salad bar, but each container was changed out in the morning. You would put enough of the fresh item in to make a full container then dump the older stuff on top. If the items from the previous day were slimy or no longer good, you threw them away. You weren't expected to put out shabby or old product. Items we knew wouldn't get used in the day wouldn't get filled all the way.
The produce for both the pizzas and the salad bar were cut fresh daily. We would often cut more in the late afternoon, and some of that would carry over to the next day to get us started. I never saw anything served that shouldn't have been.
The pan pizza dough was made fresh every day. The breadsticks and all other pizza dough come in frozen. They actually changed over to frozen stuffed crust pizza while I was working there. It was better when it was fresh, but it went largely unnoticed. Now, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
The Pizza Hut I worked at was safe; I can't speak as to any of the others. I know that I've gotten bad pizza from other Pizza Huts. When it happens, I usually just let it go. Occasionally, if it is bad enough, I'll call them on it. When I worked for them, the worst thing you could do was call the number on the box, as it generated a complaint that higher ups saw. We handled all our complaints in house in an attempt to never give customers cause to call the number on the box. I've used that knowledge to my benefit when necessary.
#53
Chipotle has the highest standards I have ever seen. I'm excited to work for them again. They are the clean. Organic and local when in season. As cruelty free as they can be. They are even trying to change laws to help animals get better treatment. The place I worked at didn't use any food from the day before. They have the best atmosphere and business model.
#54
I've worked in many and the thing that gets me the most is the fruit for beverages. Lemons lime oranges all that never never put them all the way into your drink. For instance, they are rarely washed before they are cut and 90% of the time are handled with bare hands by the staff. Trust me, if ya want it, squeeze it in and throw it away.
#55
Chili's:
They took out the grill in the kitchen, even though many items have "grill marks."
They cook everything in an oven and steaks are made on a flattop.
Best part:
recently decided that bartenders don't make signature drinks anymore. the day time bartender makes huge batches of the signature drinks and at night I'm required to pour this premade concoction for dining room guest.
That's when I decided to quit.
#56
Papa John's driver here. A cheese pizza dipped in garlic sauce is the same exact thing as a cheese stick dipped in marinara sauce, only it costs about twice as much. If you get cheese pizzas, and dip them in the garlic sauce, just start asking for cheese sticks with two pizza sauces, you'll save yourself some money.
#57
I worked at a Tim Horton's all through high school and a bit of University. The "Always Fresh" stuff is kind of bull s**t. Everything is frozen, and re-heated when they need to be served. The doughnuts, the eggs in the breakfast sandwich, and any baked good was all frozen, put in the oven and then served.
My location, however, was strict about the "20 minute" rule on our pots of coffee.
#58
I worked at a BWW for a while. If you go to one and order food when the bar is only open...well, just don't. The food is just cooked in a microwave at that point.
There are also many hands touching the food to make sure it is still "hot" (and if it isn't, it's just microwaved for a short amount of time) before it is taken to a table. If you wait a really long time for your food, I would complain about it and send it back to make sure you have a fresh dish.
#59
I work at bk (the king), thee grossest thing I've ever seen happen in my store is something a customer did. Midway through this ladies meal she decides her babies diaper is full. So she changes it. On the f*****g table. Right next to her food. And as the baby is lying in ketchup she proceeds to shove French fries down her grotesque gullet.
