ScottySatan
Well-Known Member
I'd like to hear some confessions of fast food workers about the practices at your place. I wonder if it would be more kosher if we keep from naming names. I can start.
When I was a teenager I spent a year working at a major international fast food burger chain. I have to say that there were no real hazards or anything really gross, but here's a secret.
I became aware almost immediately that people would put in special orders like no pickle to get a fresher sandwich. But people, you need to know that there are TWO places where your food sits and waits. One is a complete sandwich under the heat lamp waiting to be ordered, but there, the sandwiches are fairly well protected. The sandwich wrappings and the condiments and veggies keep the thing from drying out. The OTHER place the food waits has a much bigger effect on your food quality. After the burger patties are cooked, they sit in a tray in a warmer, open to the air. Hot, dry air. There is a timer involved and you have to throw the food away when it expires, but when time is up, the patty is already tough and dry. It was very common practice for us to reset the timers 1-5 times. Not because we were lazy, but because it was incredibly wasteful. We would be reprimanded for wasting so much food. But if we put fewer patties in the warmers, customers had a longer wait, which was a more serious offence. We got good at covertly resetting these timers: we could do it with 30 seconds left on the clock so management wouldn't hear the alarm. We even did it during major corporate inspections and they didn't notice. Your special orders came from the same old patties in the warmer as the rest.
Despite the very hard work the corporation put into consistency, this place has the biggest hit or miss variation in food quality of anywhere you could eat because of this.
So if you want a fresh burger at a place that keeps ready made sandwiches waiting, a special order really doesn't help. You should instead go when they're busy and there's a high product turnover. Don't go when it's dead, like in the middle of the night. The crew is busy cleaning, not grilling up new patties just in case a drunk dude shows up randomly at 2am. If you're desperate, deep fried things resist drying out a lot better than anything else.
For the same reason, I recommend you get the food that the place is known for. The menu item that you know a lot of people are going to order. It'll have a higher turnover. Unless they're really busy, don't get something weird. in fast food, that generally means the healthier items.
When I was a teenager I spent a year working at a major international fast food burger chain. I have to say that there were no real hazards or anything really gross, but here's a secret.
I became aware almost immediately that people would put in special orders like no pickle to get a fresher sandwich. But people, you need to know that there are TWO places where your food sits and waits. One is a complete sandwich under the heat lamp waiting to be ordered, but there, the sandwiches are fairly well protected. The sandwich wrappings and the condiments and veggies keep the thing from drying out. The OTHER place the food waits has a much bigger effect on your food quality. After the burger patties are cooked, they sit in a tray in a warmer, open to the air. Hot, dry air. There is a timer involved and you have to throw the food away when it expires, but when time is up, the patty is already tough and dry. It was very common practice for us to reset the timers 1-5 times. Not because we were lazy, but because it was incredibly wasteful. We would be reprimanded for wasting so much food. But if we put fewer patties in the warmers, customers had a longer wait, which was a more serious offence. We got good at covertly resetting these timers: we could do it with 30 seconds left on the clock so management wouldn't hear the alarm. We even did it during major corporate inspections and they didn't notice. Your special orders came from the same old patties in the warmer as the rest.
Despite the very hard work the corporation put into consistency, this place has the biggest hit or miss variation in food quality of anywhere you could eat because of this.
So if you want a fresh burger at a place that keeps ready made sandwiches waiting, a special order really doesn't help. You should instead go when they're busy and there's a high product turnover. Don't go when it's dead, like in the middle of the night. The crew is busy cleaning, not grilling up new patties just in case a drunk dude shows up randomly at 2am. If you're desperate, deep fried things resist drying out a lot better than anything else.
For the same reason, I recommend you get the food that the place is known for. The menu item that you know a lot of people are going to order. It'll have a higher turnover. Unless they're really busy, don't get something weird. in fast food, that generally means the healthier items.
Last edited:
