Welcome to the New Day Cafe! This is an open thread.
Tom Sietsema, a longtime restaurant critic for the Washington Post, recently wrote about 8 warning signs of a bad restaurant. For copyright reasons, I won’t post them all, but here are some.
“Use your nose.
One detail that links inferior restaurants together is the lack of (good) cooking smells when you walk in. A steakhouse should smell like beef, an Italian dining room should whisper of garlic, and a Korean joint should tingle with chilies. A stale smell – or sometimes worse, a waft of bleach or ammonia from cleaning products – should send you back to the pavement.”
There is often a food truck parked near where I work that sells the most disgusting meat. I am amazed that the food truck is still in business considering how disgusting it smells.
“Listen to problems
Loud music in the early evening is almost always a sign that a restaurant does not care about the well-being of its guests or the health of its staff. A boombox disguised as a dining room does not place much value on the food. Exhibit A: the chain STK, in the Washington branch, is so loud that guests can’t tell if the waiters are greeting them or asking for their preferred water…
Search for activity
See the pretty hostess with menus outside a restaurant? Move on. A reputable restaurant doesn’t need to use shiny trinkets to lure people in. Inside a restaurant, look for servers who seem happy (proud to work there) and some activity (diners willing to wait for a table). A slow sushi place, for example, is best avoided. You want to see a busy counter and lots of turnover.”
Are there any warning signs that prevent you from visiting a restaurant?
