My friends and I once went to a fab looking restaurant while travelling abroad. The food was wonderful and the staff were super nice, and even better we were seated outside in the hot and sunny weather, so it was a perfect environment to eat.
When we had finished our meal I decided I needed to go to the bathroom. I told my friends I would be back shortly and spotted a sign saying TOILETS pointing to a staircase going down. While descending down the spiralling staircase, I noticed that it was taking an unusually long time to reach the bottom and the environment seemed to be deteriorating the further down I got. Finally I reached the bottom and stopped dead. The scene in front of me looked very much like the set of a horror film. A long corridor with dirty, grey walls with peeling paint, loud pipes were sticking out of the walls and ceiling, and a big fan was rotating near the ceiling on the other side of the corridor. It was dimly lit and quite a foreboding atmosphere. Normally I would have fled in fear, but the hotel was quite a walk so I tried to be brave and continue.
Heart beating and breathing deeply, I walked down the corridor with several doors until I finally found two doors opposite each other labeled MALE and FEMALE. With a shaking hand I reached out for the door when it suddenly opened. I gasped when a rather scruffy fellow stalked out of it. He took one glance at me before shuffling off. Pulling myself together I went inside and it was just as bad in here. After doing my business and washing my hands, I practically ran out of there and back upstairs. When I told my friends where I had been they were wary of climbing down hell’s descent.
Tagged as:
restroom
Several years ago, I was visiting Boston. I was near Harvard Square and decided to have lunch at a small Chinese restaurant. The meal was OK, nothing great, but nothing to complain about.
After I ate and paid for my meal, I went to use the restroom. The restroom was one of those one-person restrooms, so the toilet was not in an enclosed stall. I was sitting on toilet, doing my business, and I saw a rat sitting in the corner staring at me. This brought a new meaning to the phrase “It scared the sh** out of me!” After that experience, I check out the restroom of a restaurant when I arrive. If it’s not clean, then I leave.
Tagged as:
animals,
rat,
restroom
This was back in about 1999 or 2000 when my family had been on the way home after a Hot Air Balloon event in Howell; we stopped at McD’s near Hartland, on Highland Rd next to US-23. It was late Sunday afternoon but it appeared the employees there were expecting a slow day and not what they ended up with that day.
There were only 3 visible crews, a manager running ragged, a cashier who looked like she was dragged out of bed (unkempt frayed hair, half done face make up, not a typical teenaged girl appearance), and a lone kitchen crew. In front of my family placing their food order was a rather large gathering of children in Soccer outfits. It was probably a local Soccer team and a few of their parents out to treat them post game.
First I needed to use the bathroom, but upon getting there I decided I was better off waiting because the toilet was full and about to overflow, the soap dispenser was empty, and toilet paper and assorted colored liquid decorated the floor.
That should have been a sign for us to consider a different restaurant, but we were hungry and it’s hard to find cheap local restaurants still open Sunday evening. When it was finally our turn to place the order, everything seemed to go OK except that we didn’t get iced tea because they had run out. The manager informed us it would be ready in a few minutes.
Food came and went. We found the pies were bad, they were like rubber wrapped in paper. They would have served better as rectangular hockey pucks or pot hole fillers than as food. Obviously they were too old and overdone so we complained. They didn’t have any more pies hot and ready. And worse, they STILL didn’t have the iced tea ready after almost 20 minutes. So we just left without waiting to hear any more excuses.
I sent a complaint to McD’s web site that night (including the very graphic detail of the bathroom) and they did respond initially but the follow up response never happened. That McD still owes us 2 large ice teas and 4 pies.
Tagged as:
fast food restaurant,
food & beverage issues,
hygiene,
restroom
