Just got back from a kitchen walkthrough in Portland that made me nervous

I saw three different line cooks reusing the same gloves after handling raw chicken and wiping down counters, has anyone else caught this at their spot?

3 comments

3 Comments

margareto266d ago

Had a similar thing happen at a place I used to work at. What finally worked was bringing it up to the head chef privately instead of making a scene on the line. I just said something like "hey, I noticed the guys are using the same gloves for raw chicken and then wiping down counters, it's making me nervous about cross contamination." The chef actually appreciated me saying it calmly and hit it during the next pre shift meeting without throwing me under the bus. Maybe try that route if you feel like management would be receptive, sometimes it's just a quick fix that nobody's thought to call out directly.

joel_clark376d ago

Which is funny because I had a buddy who worked a prep shift at this spot in Eugene and he told me about catching the sous chef doing the exact same thing (glove reuse after raw chicken then grabbing clean utensils). He mentioned it to the KM the next day and got totally brushed off - like "oh we're all careful about it" type of response. A week later two customers got sick from a special that involved raw poultry prep and suddenly management was all over glove protocol. My buddy said the sous chef never got in trouble though, which is the part that bugs me. Seems like these habits stick around until someone actually gets hurt, you know?

diana5126d ago

Oh come on, you're actually defending the guy who didn't get in trouble? That's exactly why this stuff keeps happening. The sous chef should have been fired on the spot, not just given a warning after people got sick. It's not about being nice to management or handling it quietly, it's about basic food safety. If you catch someone doing something that could make people sick, you call them out right there. Making it a private conversation just lets them keep doing it until someone else calls them out too. The whole "don't make a scene on the line" attitude is why restaurants get away with this crap for so long. People get scared of being the bad guy and suddenly customers end up with food poisoning.