Employees of fast-food restaurants shared secrets from their work that will change your opinion about this type of food

The first fast-food restaurant in the world was the “White Castle”, opened in 1921, in the United States. Since then, the production of hamburgers and other fast foods has become a full-fledged industry with billions of dollars in revenue. Only the well-known McDonald’s chain has more than 37,000 points in different countries, while Subway has around 44,000. Virtually all residents of large cities have been to this type of establishment at least once, but do you know what happens in the kitchens of such stores?

O awesome.club carefully studied the stories of employees of fast-food chains about their work and decided to share with you the most interesting of them.

What most worries all visitors to fast-food restaurants is the quality of products. There are many rumors that hamburgers, fries and all kinds of sandwiches are full of many chemicals, and that they are even made with products of incomprehensible origin. But employees of McDonald’s, KFC and other chains claim the opposite.

Meat, vegetables and salad mixes are made with real products. The only thing that raises questions is sauces, the composition of which is unknown to most employees🇧🇷 BonyKlyde Production is closely monitored, such as storage standards and temperature. The worst that can happen is that they make you a crooked hamburger.but it’s hard to be intoxicated at KFC. tvy_ninja
The products the burgers are made with are really good. Vegetables are of good quality and fresh. The oil, despite rumors, is changed at the first need (sometimes in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the workday). I can’t say anything about the meat: burgers come in the form of a manufactured mass, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. unknown author After preparation, the nuggets, chicken, fish or meat burgers are placed in a thermal compartment, where they will remain warm. The shelf life of all products in this cabinet is 20 minutes. According to the rules, after the expiration of the term, the products must be disposed of in a special container. Of course nobody does that. Or rather, very rarely. What you do is reset the timer and leave the tray in the cabinet for another 20 minutes. Does this affect the quality of McDonald’s food? In my opinion, no. From what I could see, more than 80% of baked goods are used within 20 minutes and only 15-20% can be stored for up to 40 minutes, but no more than that. zapponka The oil in which the hamburgers are fried is changed every night and the fryers are washed. The potato fryer is washed during working hours and nobody cares if there’s a crowd of customers behind the register. You have to pack them up and work even if you only have two fryers instead of three. These same fryers are washed at the end of the night shift, because during the day the worker can only remove the oil. When the fryer gets dirty (we had a situation where a pen fell into the oil and, of course, melted, filling everything with ink), we changed the oil, because no one would sell hamburgers with paint. Julia L.

Of course, don’t expect that for a few reais they will serve you a hamburger made of marbled beef, but all major chains have strict product quality standards and a supply chain control system. For example, a “Big Mac”, before reaching the table, goes through about 500 checks. Before the end of the year, the management of the KFC network in the United States plans to stop using chicken raised with antibiotics.

Another common stereotype about fast food is that it is a kitchen that is not very clean. Actually, the big chains have pretty strict rules🇧🇷 For example, in Hong Kong, McDonald’s restaurants must sterilize kitchen utensils every 4 hours, and gloves of different colors are used for each type of product to avoid cross-contamination. In the UK, all employees must wash their hands with antibacterial soap every 30 minutes. This is also confirmed by employees of other fast-food chains.

According to the rules, we must wash our hands literally after all: rubbed the table, you must wash your hands before taking a broom and sweeping the floor. In winter, the skin on your hands “dies” from frequent washing, so a good moisturizer makes a great gift for friends who work in the fast-food industry. tvy_ninja
All products are classified and each is in its place. Breads, for example, are placed below, on huge red trays. When a new package arrives, the correct procedure is to put on gloves and remove the bread, tearing the polyethylene. Meat is in the refrigerator next to the oven, where there is another pack of gloves, but for meat. After a single use, the gloves are discarded. So checkmate anyone who thinks restaurants are unsanitary. Laebra

I worked for 4 years at a Starbucks. And I have no complaints about the food. There was a specialized company that carried out meticulous controls. During all those 4 years I couldn’t wear my painted nails. Twice a day, the food was checked with a special meter, and if any of the superiors saw washcloths somewhere other than the bucket (for example, in the box), we were in serious trouble. Trust me, this place is completely safe. a_greenbean Are you afraid that they will give you food that has been dropped or that someone has touched with dirty hands? Don’t worry! At McDonald’s, what fell was lost forever, whether it was a hamburger or an empty soda cup. zloy_schwarz

In most fast-food chains, the staffing policy is quite liberal: they hire students with no work experience. No problem. However, this work cannot be called easy.

About the work itself, it is difficult and scary to learn: everything around is bright red and full of grease, and something constantly beeps🇧🇷 When I walked into the kitchen for the first time and saw the robots making 12 “Big Tasty” per minute, I was speechless. Julia L Julia L

You must always be busy with something. If there are no customers, replenish the products. If the products have already been replenished, clean the display. Wash the ice cream machine (from the outside, of course). Replace the muffins. Order the waffles and dips. Leonert

Absolutely no one can avoid burns. The lightest thing that can happen is to be splashed with a drop of oil. zloy_schwarz

For me, the hardest part was working with the potatoes. Near the deep fryer the air is so hot that you feel dizzy. And you can burn yourself at any time, and the salt irritates your hands. This year I sealed my hand splendidly with a basket of hot potatoes. I got a scar. Though now it is hardly seen, it is there. zloy_schwarz

The hardest thing is the cash register. It is very emotionally draining due to the constant flow of customers. Most are very derogatory, rude and abusive. At the end of the shift, we feel like a squeezed lemon. Alina Dmitrieva

By the way, in fast-food restaurants (except those in food courts), employees not only work in the kitchen and behind the cash register, they are also in charge of cleaning.

As a colleague said: “first of all, we are cleaners, and in the intervals between cleaning, we welcome customers”. And so. If there are no customers, there will always be something to wash. If you can’t find what to do, you will be shown what is dirty and where. Therefore, PLEASE remove the trays after use: for you it is a minimal effort, but imagine how many times we run to clean trays🇧🇷 tvy_ninja

Thousands of people go to fast-food restaurants every day. For example, an average McDonald’s serves about 8,000 people a day (and, according to some sources, the better located ones reach 40,000). Naturally, with this influx of customers, every fast-food employee has many stories about diners.

I work at a McDonald’s. Today, a customer threw a hamburger in my face because “the cucumber isn’t in the middle of that damn hamburger.” bigmac01

I worked at a Starbucks. One day a woman came and asked for a 60 degree coffee. After receiving it, she left, but soon came back and complained that his coffee temperature was only 59.4 degrees🇧🇷 She said she had a thermometer in her car and asked us to “re-brew” her coffee. I laughed and asked if she was kidding. In response she asked me to get the manager. blatently_blunt

When I was in university, I worked part-time at a McDonald’s. One time, I was at the Drive Thru window. A customer ordered several glasses of soda. I made a mistake and in one of them I put a little syrup, but instead of asking, like a normal person, to make a new drink, this guy just threw me the glass. Naturally, the lid fell off and I got soaked. snacks

Among our regular customers, there were two women who always ordered Diet Coke. Every day they would go to the drive thru window and order two medium-sized Diet Cokes… Sometimes, if there weren’t many customers, I would exchange a few words with them while they paid… One day, I mentioned in conversation that I was getting ready to go to university. They were happy for me and wished me luck. Two days later they came as usual and, along with the money for the drink, they handed me a small box tied with a silk ribbon. Inside was a silver ballpoint pen that was engraved with “Two Medium Diet Cokes”🇧🇷 The ladies told me they wanted me to write my first exam with that pen. Martinwuff

I worked at a McDonald’s for almost two years. Probably the strangest case that happened in all that time was when a kid tried to pay me with some Pokémon cards, telling me that soon they would cost a fortune on eBay. When I explained that I couldn’t accept the letters, she got really upset. kittenrageparty

If you see a dish on the menu whose ingredients aren’t used in at least 2 or 3 other dishes, don’t ask for it. For example, at our restaurant, there was a pork burger on the menu. It was not used for anything else. Since that burger was ordered infrequently, the pork wasn’t very fresh. anc6

I strongly recommend ordering…