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One of my company’s clients wanted to find out exactly what their service staff was doing wrong when it came to food safety, so before food safety training was implemented, they wanted me to come by to document all of the violations I witnessed throughout the course of service for an evening. They were kind enough to let me write an article about what I saw as a way of exposing the common food safety infractions that occur in many foodservice establishments. The question you need to be asking yourself as a foodservice operator is: “Could these things be happening in my establishment?”

The setting

The establishment that I watched over for an evening was an independently owned fine dining steak and seafood restaurant in the Washington D.C. area. The average age of the servers is around 25, so we’re talking about adult professionals that should know what they’re doing. I spent a good deal of time at every key point in the restaurant, including the kitchen line, the prep area, the server stations, and the bar. They were nice enough to buy me dinner, so I even sat at a table as if I were a diner so I could see things as their guests see them. All of this made for a very enlightening evening, for both their managers and myself- and hopefully you too.

I saw it with my own eyes

In the prep area of the kitchen where food products are cleaned, chopped, sliced, and diced, and pre-cooked, I found the following food safety violations:

- A tray of chicken breasts was on a shelf where the juices could have easily dripped onto the raw vegetables on the table below.

- A knife that was used to fillet fish wasn’t properly washed and sanitized before it was used to chop onions.

- Meat, fish, and poultry products were left out at room temperature when it was not necessary.

- Prep cooks often did not wash their hands in between handling meats, fish and produce.

- When they did wash their hands it was a quick 2-second rinse under water with no soap.

- The walk-in door was left open for long periods unnecessarily.


As service started and the guests started placing their orders, I proceeded to the kitchen line to see what they were up to. This is what I saw:

- Steaks, chicken, and fish were out at room temperature when it was not necessary.
- Hands were not properly washed after handling raw meats, or after employees touching their hair or face.

- A cook made very little effort to shield a cough from the food in front of him.

- The same bowl was used to mix salads throughout the evening without being washed.

Next, I moved to the service area to see what the servers and bussers were up to. I saw the following food safety no-no’s:

- Servers and bussers almost never washed their hands. Whether they touched money, their hair, food, etc....., it didn’t matter. I even saw two of them eat a piece of bread and not wash their hands.

- A server ate food off a guest’s plate.

- The paper towel dispenser in the service area was empty.

- Silverware was touched above the handle and glassware was touched on the rim. This happened often.

At the bar, I saw some equally disturbing events:

- The ice scoop was left in the ice throughout the evening.

- After a glass was broken, the surrounding area was not properly scoured for broken pieces of glass.

- Again, silverware and glassware was touched where it shouldn’t have been.

- Money was handled constantly with very little hand-washing afterwards.

- Opened beer bottles were touched on the rim.

- Fruit containers weren’t washed before being refilled.

- Straws were touched on the top before being put into drinks.

Finally, while eating my complimentary meal at a table in the dining room, I saw the following things occur, which any guest could easily have spotted:

- Food was delivered with the server’s thumb accidentally touching a piece of food on the plate.

- A server was seen putting her hair in a “scrunchy”.

- Excessive jewelry was worn by a few female servers.

- As empty glasses were cleared from a table, a busser actually placed his fingers inside three glasses so he could carry them all at once with one hand.

Assessing the damage

While many of these violations are unfortunately common occurrences in most restaurants, a few of them are not. The scoop in the ice at the bar is fairly common, but really should be noticed because if the bartender’s hands are contaminated with anything throughout the night, it will transfer to the scoop and into the ice- and we all know where the ice goes. The lack of hand-washing throughout the staff was alarming, especially after handling commonly contaminated items such as money and raw meats. The server eating food off a guests plate is another one that sticks out, but it’s really the inconspicuous violations that can hurt the most people. For example, the chicken breasts sitting on a shelf over the tray of vegetables in the prep area is potentially catastrophic. If the juices of the chicken drip onto the vegetables and the vegetables are served raw (e.g. in a salad), a Salmonella outbreak is imminent. The meats left out at room temperature on the kitchen line is another potential disaster. As Bacteria reproduces and accumulates on the meat while it’s out, the more unsafe it becomes. A medium rare steak that has been left out for four hours before being cooked is a food borne illness waiting to happen.
I was also disappointed in what I was able to see from the guest’s perspective in the dining room. Personally, these food safety faux pas would be reason enough for me not to return as a guest. After all, if this is what is out in the open, imagine what’s going on in the kitchen and other areas that are hidden to the guests!

Fight the good fight

So after documenting everything I saw throughout the evening and reporting it to the managers, they asked me what my thoughts were on how the staff could be this negligent when it came to food safety practices. After all, all their managers, chefs, and sous chefs were certified according to state regulations and whenever they saw something wrong, they’d let the offending employee know about it. Was it the way they were training (or not training)? Was it that the employees don’t care about food safety? And most importantly, what could they do to improve the situation in their restaurant, thus improving their guests dining experience and protecting their brand name?
The answer I gave them was that they weren’t making a strong enough effort to create a learning culture within the restaurant in which proper food safety practices were constantly at the forefront of everybody’s mind. I told them that implementing a food safety training program for all of their food handling employees was a good start, but they need to use that as a foundation for their entire food safety program. Besides proper training, the following are other effective ways of making sure your employees are constantly mindful of food safety:

- Monitor your employees’ hand-washing. If you see them touch something potentially contaminated and not wash, don’t be afraid to call them out on it.

- Make someone’s sidework to fill paper towels and soap at every sink at the beginning of each shift.

- Touch on at least one food safety guideline during every shift meeting. Keep hammering the same points over and over- they’ll get it eventually.

- Conduct your own “food safety audit” every few weeks and document violations. Approach each offender and explain to them exactly what they did wrong and how it could hurt somebody.

You can always teach somebody something, but the importance lies in making them realize why they are learning it. When it comes to food safety, it’s your guests’ well-being that should be your employees’ top priority.

Lee Biars is the director of industry relations for Safe Food Solutions, and can be reached at www.safefoodsolutions.com or Lbiars@safefoodsolutions.com.