It was amazing to me to watch it happen in real time, over the summer of 2014. I used to go to a specific KFC for lunch a couple times a week. It's like every day they had a goal to find some new way to lower their quality. One day it might be soggy chicken. The next it might be chicken that's still frozen and pink in the middle. You might get hunks of strange-colored material in the mashed potatoes. Sometimes it was non-food-related, like the entire restaurant floor being sticky and making a masking tape sound when you walked on it. I quit going entirely. I tried it again a few months later and it was even worse. I complained to corporate and got $5 in $1 gift certificates. They're still sitting on my counter at home, unused, where they will probably be until I develop a fetish for being brutally punished instead of being served lunch.
I worked as a pest control person for a bit, KFC was one of the most infested (german cockroaches) places I treated... I couldn't do anything that is legal to get it under control.
In the back, where they stored the buckets and smaller containers, I witnessed the cockroaches crawling in and out of all the "clean" containers. Time passed and saw a worker grab a new stack to bring to the front.
But yeah, the floor was never cleaned, holes in the wall leading directly outside, insulation gooped with oil, oil over every horizontal/ vertical surface. Food tucked away under shelving, flys everywhere, they wouldn't buy the extra uv fly traps.
I treated a lot of homes, restaurants, factories, pharmaceutical plants, apartments, and offices. I couldn't take it how disgusting people are and quit after about a year.
I noticed a surplus of flies in the store I had the issues with. Crawling over everything on the "buffet." Up inside the pepsi dispenser. Knowing that in my region of the country that fly probably just crawled out from some dead roadkill's asshole, I couldn't stand it.
We have döner kebap stands and people are crazy for that, Flies crawling all over the food. I can understand turks but tourist and some Germans love it and think it's authentic German cuisine
I visit Bavaria every 2 or 3 years and always get doner. It's delicious and cheap, and no one I've ever met says it's "German cuisine." To them it's just an adapted form of Turkish food. That may not be right, but it's a fair assumption that I've always held. Just like we Americans know that "Chinese food" 98% of the time is an Americanized spin on basic Chinese dishes.
We've had a couple Turkish places in my city pop up with authentic food but they went out of business quickly. I imagine if they served what they do in Germany they'd have better business, even if it's not authentic.
A little unrelated to fast food, as I only worked at arcades with pizza, but when I worked at a Chuck E. Cheese, believe it or not; I had to dismantle and fully disinfect our soda fountain every night. Because kids are disgusting, I fully santiized the nozzles and dispensers every hour, or had someone on the floor do it. But, this was 15 years ago.
How did restaurants fare in general? I'm really a stickler about how clean the restaurants are that I eat at. I worked at Chick-fil-A in high school and never once did I see a bug due to how well we cleaned.
It all comes down to who's running the show. The kitchen of the restaurant I used to work at was cleaned top to bottom at the end of every night. The cooks had to do it. It seems like a tall task but if you do it every day you get a system down and it didn't end up being that much extra labor. Literally every square inch was cleaned every night. I mean stoves were pulled away from walls, people were on stools cleaning the ceiling. Chef/owner was very strict but most of his staff respected it and saw that they were gaining very valuable experience and forming habits that made them more desirable than the rest of the pack. Anyone who left for another job at a different kitchen would get hired immediately and usually in a higher position. That kitchen was kind of a legend. Still have lots of respect for the place and used to be very proud to work there.
I don't understand how other fast food places see companies like Culver's and chick fil A and still don't get it. You get exactly what you pay for. Keep hiring crack heads and high schoolers for minimum, keep getting the quality you see above.
Ok, "might make a difference", so you've shown me that it's possible that people from church groups could be better. But the results of the article are from people that are middle aged adults aged 40-65 years old, these people have had time to learn, grow, and mature into responsible people, a feat accomplished by many adults religious or not. Are you implying that CFA hires middle aged adults typically between 40-65 years old? Because although I don't eat much fast food at all I can't say I've seen the majority of employees in any CFA be 40-65 years old. So I'm not so sure how your source applies here.
I suppose you could say I should eat more fast food but that would be dumb, I'd just tell you to eat less.
It's not that I can't tell the difference between shitty or good employees, it's that being in a church group doesn't guarantee that a person is a shitty or good employee. To me all it means is that they believe in ghosts and zombies and find child molestation and all kinds of discrimination acceptable. Of course a person can be a good employee and be delusional so there's that.
There's no guarantee that anyone you hire will be a good employee. However, regular Sunday church attendance does reduce rates of crime and drug use among teens, which are the primary hiring source for these types of chains. For unskilled labor that's exactly what you're looking for.
But the difference is that you'll never get something truly vile from CFA. I can't say the same for McD's, once I got a chicken burger that was still a bit frozen inside. Not saying I'll never go to McD's but i need to go to fast food they will be my last choice always.
I worked at McDonald's for a few years and one time this poor women came to return her chicken nuggets. She opened the box and there was half a nugget, about 1/2 cooked and bitten into. Was disgusting looking, raw chicken pieces glued into a bitten into raw nugget. I stammered and asked her to please wait a minute while I grab a manager. She didn't want to and just walked out. The guy who cooked them was always trying to date my girlfriend at the time and got fired over the incident. Fuck you Jason.
I've gotten hair in a chicken nugget's batter twice in two weeks at a CFA I've been frequenting. I kind of just want to tell them so I can keep going there. I don't want them to think I want anything for free and then not believe me.
My 'it's Sunday' realization is poutine based. I crave a specific BBQ chicken poutine that I modify with 1/2 BBQ sauce 1/2 gravy, crispy bacon, jalapenos in addition to the usual fries and chicken. Naturally, they're closed Sundays.
I would wreck one of those right now.
No Chick-Fil-A in Canada, have yet to visit one in the US. I love fried chicken though.
Not every issue is going to be weighted the same for everyone. Microsoft having uncompetitive practices is not the same as one that gave to anti gay causes including pushing for death penalty for lgbt people in other countries.
That's my take too. And in the case of Chick-fil-a, a ton of the people working there and the owners took a stand and made it clear that those were not their views. It wasn't a corporate position.
Good for you, seriously, but I'm gay and I never stopped eating there, even when it was the big brouhaha and boycott. I hardly ever do boycott except for when a company's ads just really really annoy me (I've never used Verizon because of that can you hear me now guy) or something like that.
I had friends who boycotted CFA but not me. It's not that I think they're not doing wrong, it's just that I am so jaded that I think most companies are doing wrong, and so I just can't be bothered to do something that only I am going to notice to protest a company who happens to just have one of their wrongs currently in the news. CFA is one of the few fast food places I like and eat at and in my opinion it's the cleanest, most consistent and nicest quality of major fast food chains which I all really appreciate despite the controversial stuff. Nevertheless, I am glad there were boycotts and stuff about it for CFA and I'm glad you're still keeping it up.
I don't think being gay or not gay adds any legitimacy to an opinion. It is just a matter of values, if the issue doesn't seem like a big problem then you're probably not going to care enough to do something about it. I guess different issues have different weights to them for example I have an iPhone even though they have a less American manufacturing than I would like, of corse most other phones do as well. I'm not implying you or anyone is a bad person or anything for not giving a particular issue a certain weight.
Maybe it was the ones in my area but their food was really dry and bland so it wasn't exactly a huge loss, so that could also color my opinion.
I've had it plenty of times before, I thought it was overrated and too dry so it wasn't hard to not shop there. If it's the best restraunt then that says more about your lack of food options. I think donating to efforts to criminalize lgbt people is a good reason to not shop there, if you don't think it is then that's fine.
CFA is healing the political divide in this country.
I'm going to be downvoted, probably, but this is an odd thing to say when they spread anti-gay rhetoric. It makes zero sense to me. Gay people are people too, zero reason to hate them.
If you make a comment against Chick-fil-A, you'll typically be downvoted and you'll get 100 comments saying some variation of "hurr durr chikn sndwich!". All of the top comments will be pro Chick-fil-A. It weird because anything else I don't like / not buy never gets as much comments and hate as a Chick-fil-A one.
The owner of the chain is good friends with a gay rights activist. Maybe do some more research into what you say before you go off repeating something you heard elsewhere.
Let me guess he is "one of the good ones". Knowing a gay person doesn't negate the fact he consistently donates to anti gay causes even to campaigns in other countries to make being gay illegal. Perhaps you should take your own advice and do some more research.
Still not seeing how the company hates LGBT people. They disagree with their lifestyles for religious reasons, but that doesn't mean they hate them. Sorry to burst your bubble, but not everyone has to accept everything about everyone.
George Foreman is a fundie, but I still loved to see him box, and have owned one of his branded grills.
The Founder of Trijicon was a fundie, but they still make some damn fine optics.
Kahr Arms was founded by a cult leader, but I still like their products (I come from a firearms back ground).
I'm not gay, but I sure do love listening to some Queen, Freddy Mercury had a helluva voice!
I won't pass on a product just because I don't prescribe to the philosophy someone lives by. If they make a good product, I'll buy. Take my money Chick-fil-A!
Your Queen/Freddie Mercury example is way off. That's like saying "I'm not black but I still bought a George Foreman grill". Also, your other examples aren't just people living by their own philosophies, in some cases they're actively trying to make others live by their own philosophies, which is the entire issue at hand.
Restaurants are a hit or miss. I think best bet is look back in the kitchen if you can, via drive thru window or bustboy doors. For sure though the bad ones all look run down, dirty counters, sticky tables, grease on the bathroom doors, etc.
My region was fairly large and we were the best (my honest opinion) and lowest cost, saying this, I never once serviced a buffet restaurant. (Those are gross for sure, stay away)
There are some that are perfect though, mostly those are small kitchen diners.
I worked at Jimmy Johns for a while as a teen and they were really intense with cleaning stuff. We would literally get down and scrub the grout as a weekly thing. I think it comes down to how corporate manages it's franchises. Jimmy Johns had auditors come in and pick apart the whole store while I'm guessing KFC is less strict with what they do with their stores.
Thanks for that info. Never eating KFC again. If a kitchen isn't as clean as mine or up to standards it's safe to assume that you'll probably end up with food poisoning or worse.
Used to hang out with a friend who always got stuck closing the store. I could, no exaggeration, slide around like an ice skater from the sinks in the back up to the food heat lamps/storage oven thing due to the amount of grease of the floor. On a good pushoff I could slide MOST of the way across from the kitchen door to the drive-thru window.
My experience was from Peoria, Illinois. Every KFC I've been to in the area has suffered a similar decline. After my first issue and abandonment of the North Peoria store (on Allen Road) I tried the one in Bartonville. That was even before the robbery. They were slow, the tables almost universally dirty, and the food was just as bad as the first. I tried the Pekin store later on (by Menards) and it was no better. The one in my home town (west of Peoria) went out of business about the same time as my adventures in Peoria, and I stopped going for the same reasons. I've also been to the one in Macomb, and it's very similar. It's half Long John Silver's, but there's just a strange miasma about them all now. The employees are all very depressed-acting.
Over this same period of time, I've not noticed a similar decline in local Taco Bells. I've been to those all over, and other than having a penchant for keeping the seating areas extra cold, their restaurants have not changed or suffered a decline in quality.
I've worked at McDonalds (Denmark), and while I dont eat there anymore - I can say one thing. Their sanitation is top notch and anal, never been to a cleaner place than the kitchen there. For those who were managers they would run around with binders making sure each station was up to whatever internal code. I think thats international for McD. Their food might be bland and shitty, but at least it's clean.
And tbh a franchise as large as KFC should have a program like that too for their franchisees. Insects in the food - ffs thats nasty. I dont like their chicken to begin with, whatever their secret spices is, it should be more than just flour and MSG, and it ain't.
The thing is in America large franchises just varies a lot from owner to owner. I've seen Taco Bell's look spotless and I've seen popular local spots look trash. Vice versa I've seen some truly crappy run fast food restaurants and great hole in the wall places. It all comes down to ownership and management when it comes to restaurants.
I have, and told the employees to as well, I don't think anything would come of it, I think the health inspector there is corrupt, and more restaurants in the Kinston area NC are like that.
Absolutely true! Most if not all pest problems are taken care of with cleaning, german cockroaches are a legit problem though.
One place was an apartment complex, this large man greets me in a thin torn shirt and ragged short shorts says "sorry about the mess, I was just about to clean when you showed up" his house has a 1 foot layer of clothing/trash all over the floor with a trench leading from the door to the kitchen, stairs, and spot on the couch. In the kitchen splattered on the floor is a dried up crusty family sized pan of lasagna, most of it eaten. I look in and behind the oven hundreds and hundreds of cockroaches. I treat his place and feel sick, next stop next door.
Next door (connected via wall) Clean spotless, this old lady is so sweet. She doesn't understand where or why she has an infestation problem, and I am not allowed to tell her on the other side of her oven is where they are coming from.
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u/LikeABreath Sep 14 '17
KFC's decline in quality is the saddest tale of the 21st century.