Saturday, February 23, 2008

Little Waffle House of Horrors

We went to the new Waffle House on Parker Road - the one next to Home Depot - for breakfast today.
We were seated at the counter because the booths and tables were full, which afforded us a view of the grill and food preparation area.
After about 10 minutes of reading the paper and chatting, we started to notice what was going on.
Nobody involved in food preparation and handling wore gloves and what little hand-washing was done was haphazard. And everyone used the same soggy germbag of a towel.
We saw one worker escorted out of the building with a bleeding hand, only to notice her returning to her ungloved duties a few minutes later. One girl was seen handling a wad of dollar bills, sticking it into a tip cup and returning to work without washing her hands. Food that fell from the grill was left on the floor. One girl fumbled a pan she had just washed and it fell onto the floor. She picked it up and stacked it on a presumably clean pan.
Another girl coughed on her hand, then handled food. I photographed a girl using her fingers to pluck a waffle from the waffle iron and slap it onto a plate.
Maria's eggs arrived with a hair in them.
When Maria complained to the manager about these things, the response was, "That's just how we do it."
We refused to pay and promised to report them to health authorities. The manager seemed unimpressed.

5 comments:

The Untamed Palate said...

The WH in Bloomington is really shady too. Here, you can't really see them cooking as easily as you can there. My suggestion is to go to Denny's or IHOP. (Too bad there aren't any IHOPs in B-town.)

Lauri Shillings said...

EEwwww.... Remind me not to eat at the waffle house ANYwhere. The one that closed in cville was just as iffy... I think it is a corporate directive to make crappy pancakes and hairy huevos.--- Wait, that could be a bathroom thriller!

The Untamed Palate said...

Hairy Huevos sounds like a really bad Hispanic porn star.

The Oracle said...

We have an IHOP but no Denny's.

Anonymous said...

Ewwwwwwww that is disgusting!!

Its bad managment. It always comes down to that. Did you contact the corporate office?
Theyd probably offer you a free complimentary meal or some such stupidity to make up for it to shut you up instead of crack down on lazy managment. Its getting almost IMPOSSIBLE to find ethical workminded employees nowadays.