Yeah. My restaurant has Janice, the toughest & meanest of all the Mobile County Health Inspectors.

Actually the mildew is most abundant inside the machine up underneath the top on the white plastic near where the ice drops from.  This hapens when hot air enters the machine as the door is opened.  It condenses on the white plastic and drips onto the ice below. This white plastic is where a lot of mildew grows.  You have to actually put your head inside the machine and look up to see it.  Most restaurants never know its there until the Board of Health points it out.  You are correct vicious… eating out is scary.

Yeah. Not to mention, if a ice machine is going to mildew, it’s going to be the bottom of the bin. New ice dumps on the top several times a day, and that is also where the ice is taken from to fill the ice bins and whatnot. I definately don’t worry about the ice….

Although I do know of a popular local restaurant where the drain for the ice in the soda fountain got clogged, so one of the underpaid lackeys actually used the BATHROOM PLUNGER to try to clear the clog. Yeah.

If you’re not eating at home, or somewhere where the employees make at least $10 an hour, you can pretty much bet that something nasty has happened with your food.

Sliced lemons are perhaps the most dangerous food item in most restaurants.  They are much more likely to spread bacteria than anything else because of the manner in which they are prepped, stored, and handled.  While many ice machines do have mold growing in them, ice because of its surface temperature, is not conducive to promoting any bacterial growth.

This is very correct. I work in a kitchen, and I’m always getting onto the servers for being nasty.

You are so right!  Avoid the lemons.

Many times the lemons are sliced, not in the health inspected kitchen prep area, but in a beverage station in the dining room.  The lemons are usually not refrigerated during business hours, the knives and cutting board are usually not sanitized, and more often than you think, a waitress will just a pick up a lemon slice with her hand and press it on the rim of your glass.  Have you seen many waitresses wearing a glove?

The beverage stations are usually in the dining room, the lemons are usually out in the open without a sneeze guard.

Creamers, sugar packets, etc. are sealed, so they are safe, but lemons are there, all day long until used up.

It’s not the tea that makes you sick! It’s the LEMONS. Good god. Never EVER get lemon with your tea or water!

Bama, some restaurants are not great about cleaning out the tea dispensers and let’s not mention the ice machines.

Yeah, I was taught the same thing about mayo.  We also were never allowed to eat fish and drink milk.  Never did figure that one out, since school always served fish and milk on Fridays.  lol

What’s wrong with the ice tea, or do I really want to know this one?  My granny used to collect rain water to make her tea.  I would be afraid of that too these days.

Bama, now they are saying it was never the Mayo in salads at picnics making people sick (Grandma would NEVER allow us to eat anything with mayo in it in that heat). Apparently, onions once sliced are a very good medium for certain bacteria. They don’t keep in the fridge. In fact, garlic doesn’t keep well either. Who knew?

And DO NOT ORDER ice tea while at restaurants. ICK!