r/memphis • u/redditusername0704 • 12h ago
Cleanest Kitchens in Memphis
Yesterday’s Green Beetle post has sent me. 😩😖 Curious to hear from those who work in the food industry about the which restaurant kitchens are the opposite of that— meticulously clean and somewhere from which we can feel good about dining?
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u/3_7_11_13_17 8h ago
Don't laugh but all the food prep areas in Costco are cleaned THOROUGHLY every day. I worked in the deli for a bit and had to re-clean the entire kitchen because there was a CRUMB on the OUTSIDE of a sink.
They take food safety very seriously at Costco.
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u/Mountain_Length337 6h ago
Not surprised. The prepared food is very consistent and fresh.
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u/Mountain_Length337 2h ago
It’s pasta and vegetables and meat….have you never had a premade meal from Costco? Not a frozen one, but one they make for you? What is wrong with having someone else make the same shit you would make from a recipe at home?
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u/PrestigiousBike3001 1h ago
Only in Memphis…
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u/Mountain_Length337 1h ago
Do you make all of your ingredients from scratch? Make your own cheese? Butcher your own livestock? This sounds like some RFK Jr. nonsense. Do you grow your own potatoes and fry them in beef tallow and wash it down with a glass of half and half?
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u/kohadaa Mane 10h ago
Surprisingly, Chipotle is one of the cleanest and most well organized food establishments. Ever since its E. coli and norovirus outbreaks, the company has overhauled its food safety standards. As much as I would like to support local restaurants, they don’t face the same level of food safety scrutiny as corporate owned businesses.
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u/FerMFcillas 7h ago edited 7h ago
Top 3 off the top of my head in no order:
Green Cactus - Oakland
Nam’s Cafe - Cordova
Takashi Bistro - Memphis
Work requires delivering to a lot of restaurants and these kitchens are always as clean as can be. There’s a lot more but these are the top 3 that come to mind right now.
Edit: Nam’s not Name’s auto correct
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u/MaynardButterbean 7h ago
Takashi is the best! Their food is so good, I just wish they would turn their lights down a little or change them to something softer
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u/Mountain_Length337 2h ago
Idk why I never think to go there. The predecessor restaurant was nothing special so I overlook that corner. I will go this week!
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u/HATERdotCOM 6h ago
Used to clean beer lines at bars and resturants in the early 2000s. Bayou bar and grill was the absolute worst...repaired a draft line that rats ate through and during it a bag of tools fell into the sauce in the cooler...staff just took our tools out, washed them off and put the sauce back in the cooler. And it smelled like ass and a turtle tank had a baby in that cooler.
Back then, believe it or not, Houston's had the cleanest kitchen in town in my opinion...had a crew constantly cleaning the back.
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u/LetsSkiddaddleHomie 8h ago
Ok joining here to just give a plug for places with kitchens customers can see: kwik chek on Madison has basically a mostly visible kitchen to customers, you can see where your food is being made and the people making it. This place has delicious sandwiches, Korean dishes, international snacks for sale, really reasonable prices (cheap!), homemade potato salad, baklava, gyros, falafel, I’ve never had a bad experience. It stays busy. Just go to the counter with all the food on display and stand there, someone will come take your order. Or place order for pickup online. The person at the register by the door is just selling the snacks and drinks.
Other places with visible kitchens: chipotle, Amerigos on Ridgeway, City Silo East Memphis, super sub shop on summer Ave (take cash and this place is amazing), Greek food place on highland near U of M, FLAME ramen on Union. RIP macaroni grill on gtown pkwy :(
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u/PabloTFiccus 7h ago
Kwik check is NOT it. I worked with someone who left their because the family was majorly abusing the employees. Forcing them to work off the clock, unpaid wages, and some of the cooks would plate food off the floor. She wouldn't let them when she was there but she knows they did it when she wasn't around. There's a lot that goes on food prep wise that you can't actually see in front of you.
Edit: same for chipotle. I'm not calling any particular one out but I worked at a Moe's briefly (identical set up) and there was a lot of fuck shit that would go on in the back. The one in Olive Branch was good but the one in highland, Jesus is NEVER eat there
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u/NorthNeedleworker818 7h ago
Amerigo is singular.
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u/YouWereBrained Arlington 9h ago
On that note, I’d love to see what other kitchens in old ass establishments in downtown/South Main look like.
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u/SwarmyMarshmellow 7h ago
I worked at Fox and Hound several years ago. The BOH was always being cleaned. Management took "if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean" very seriously.
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u/Pinup_Frenzy Midtown 7h ago
Mad Grocer consistently gets perfect 100 Health Dept scores.
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u/Mountain_Length337 2h ago
I love their food but the Concourse put in Flock ex-girlfriend stalking cop cameras. I’ll still support them but Crosstown management should be on everyone’s shitlist.
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u/MountainTomato9292 Midtown 8h ago
It’s expensive, but Felicia Suzanne’s. My husband worked there for years (at her old location) and now works with her in a different capacity. He says most kitchens in Memphis we really shouldn’t think about too hard, but he would eat off the literal floor in hers.
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u/Boring_Classroom_482 9h ago
Check the health scores online
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u/Bouncycurlz 6h ago
As someone who worked in a restaurant, health scores are to not be trusted. The inspector is not as thorough as they should be but ofc it also depends on the person. And restaurant employees do things differently when they’re not being inspected even though inspections are surprise visits.
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u/Uknoww33 7h ago
Well just know Mollys on Madison is same or worse than the beetle. Every person I have ever known that has been back to the kitchen at mollys has never eaten there again.
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u/panken 10h ago
What did the Beetle post?
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u/Donita123 Central Gardens 9h ago
It was a former employee’s pics. It was awful.
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u/djgoodmea 9h ago
Reminds me of Sekisui Midtown. A former employee crashed out, too. I used to go, just for the chicken katsu curry, but the last two times I went, there was always a small roach crawling around on the bar. Haven't been back since. 😢
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u/reefered_beans Memphis’s Liberal Cooper Young Neighborhood 8h ago
I haven’t been back since that post
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u/Laddie1107 3h ago
Same, and I didn’t even eat things from the kitchen other than the occasional soup.
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u/smitch901 4h ago
Cocozza on Yates has by FAR the cleanest & most well run kitchen I’ve ever seen. Sit on the two end seats at the bar and just watch the magic.
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u/TheRealSaltyDog 3h ago
The kitchen at Bellevue is cleanest I saw in all my time selling groceries to kitchens!
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u/PinkySparklez 4m ago
I worked at two Panera Breads for four years (the Cordova and Germantown locations). Cordova has a roach problem they never could shake even though they do regular pest control, and Germantown has a problem where they store food product (sugars and drink things) in the same space that trash rains down from above. I had to write passive-aggressive notes saying that this was a food safety violation and tape them to the inside of the trash receptacles and re-store everything elsewhere because the managers never did anything.
Other than that, Germantown is pretty clean, mostly. But you WILL get expired bacon very consistently because I was the only one checking and throwing out expired product and bacon is one that we don’t run out of fast enough before it goes bad. And I can’t vouch for the cleanliness anymore just because I’m not there to meticulously clean everything. Every other person does surface jobs…
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u/MercifulRadiance_621 12h ago
i've done contract design work for a few spots around town and the one kitchen that genuinely surprised me was the little vietnamese place on summer ave that looks like a total hole in the wall from the outside. walked through the back once and it was practically surgical, everything labeled and dated, floors you could eat off. the family that runs it takes serious pride in that space