What's the worst restaurant you have eaten at?

[TL1961]

I can't say it is worst ever, but as far as one I remember, I would say it's a Waffle House I went to about a year ago in Nashville.

It was very close to a hotel at which I was staying. 9:00 PM. I looked around at other options, and just didn't see anything I wanted that night. I hesitated to pull into the parking lot, as I just had a bad feeling about it.

I pulled into the lot and parked, and sat for three or four minutes before getting out of the car. I got to the door, saw one customer, and stood with my hand on the door for a few minutes. I knew this was a mistake.

I sat down, ordered eggs and bacon, and the waitress turned and yelled toward the kitchen: "Hold on, Mark. I can use that bacon!" Wait. What??

The eggs were so-so. The bacon looked like it had been sitting in motor oil, and for the first time in my life, I left bacon uneaten.

I have had worse, but this one is fresh in my mind.

 

[TL1961]

Old Country Buffet....

The last time I ate there I was in my young adult years... 20-22.... I want to say it was one of those cases where I was with my family in an unfamiliar area for a wake or a funeral, and everyone was hungry and saw OCB and said "Let's just go there".

I had not been to one since I was a kid and thought "I bet I can appreciate the variety of food more as an adult... I won't just eat Mac N Cheese and then move on to cinnamon rolls and ice cream"

It was kinda dirty/dated.... like one of those mid-late 30s female bartenders who you can tell was attractive at some point and has the STDs/kids to prove it.

I distinctly remember getting my first plate of food and thinking "I've never gotten food poisoning before, I wonder what that's like".

I tried to get adult food... roast beef, chicken, potatoes.... was not good.... like season 8 of Game of Thrones, decent raw product had been turned into a nightmare I felt I couldn't walk away from.

I wound up eating a plate of shitty Mac N Cheese with cinnamon rolls and then an ice cream cone.

No wonder I wound up so fucking fat, but the food at OCB is awful and that particular one made me reconsider my life choices.

Old Country Buffet, which became Hometown Buffet....also known as "The House of Sweatpants".

 

[Adipost]

The first time I had CinnaBon was at an airport.

 

[Rory Sparrow]

You go into a restaurant and order whole eggs still in their shell brought to you? Like unpeeled hard boiled eggs, to ensure they are insect free?

After refrigeration eggs have a room temperature life of 2 hours, pretty much the same as meat and everything else.

Sometimes when I'm making breakfast, I'll crack open an egg and there will be a beetle or an earwig inside the yoke. It doesn't really phase me, as I simply turn up the heat on my burner and cook the egg a little longer, ensuring its freshness.

 

[modo]

I've never eaten at a Denny's. Used to go to Village Inn for similar food though.

Not far off....

 

[BearFanJohn]

Denny’s is fine if you are under 25 and drunk and it is 3am.

 

[gpphat]

Denny’s is fine if you are under 25 and drunk and it is 3am.

IHOP was my go to under that criteria

 

[Burque]

Has anyone actually ever had an airport meal that was just to die for? They are mostly just okay

There used to be a quiznos in our airport that made pretty damn good breakfast sandwiches. Whenever we flew in the AM we didn't ever worry about breakfast. now its a Schlotskys and its alright but not great.

 

[Burque]

I ate a chinese buffet in Loveland Colorado one time where there was not a single hot thing on the "hot" buffet.

The only thing that seemed safe was the ice cream.

 

[Burque]

Live insects can't get inside the eggshell, so there is that. Eggs are the one thing that can be left out at room temperature for a length of time and not go bad. Or get insects inside them. I would rather eat an overdone egg than a cockroach/ant infested salad any day of the week. Don't even get me started on the germ fest a salad bar brings to the table. One would think a Denny's, any Denny's, go's through a shit ton of eggs, so they should at least be reasonably safe to eat. I guess I am looking at it from a "what can I eat and not die" perspective more than a "what is the cook least likely to screw up" perspective.

Olive Garden, yes, another gem indeed. is there any decent chains out there though? Red Lobster?

Papdeaux and Chic-Fil-A

 

[Novak]

Papdeaux and Chic-Fil-A

LMFAO chic-fil-a

 

[The Apostate]

This one's easy.

A few years ago my wife and I attended the wedding of a family friend in Wisconsin Rapids. As all the hotel rooms in the
Rapids were all booked that weekend, we were staying in a little hotel in the next town south Friendship, Wisconsin.

After the reception, an interesting event in it's own right, we were traveling south on US 13, looking for a place to eat, at close to midnight, in central Wisconsin.

Not much luck was being had, when around a sweeping left curve there slowly appeared the glowing neon of a Chinese take out place.

My wife grabbed my arm excitedly, saying "how bad can it be?" So we pulled in and walked through the door only to see an empty room except for a sleeping asian couple , the wife in a chair by the register and the husband curled up on the stainless steel table across from the wok station in the kitchen.

As my wife and I exchanged glances, nodded, and slowly backed away, the asian lady opened an eye, then the other and she quickly popped up, yelling at her ( I assume) husband in (I also assume) Cantonese, while giving us her best smile.

Figuring we were on the hook after waking them up, my wife approached the counter and after a few quick questions and some polite smiles, placed our order.

Giving the husband his due, after a few perfunctory yawns, and some eye rubbing, he fired up his wok and gave us his best efforts to provide a proper stir fry, you know, under the circumstances.

After my wife profusely apologized for walking in so late, we paid and drove back to our hotel room, where we unpacked our bountiful repast.

Words fail me.

It was... all greasy surimi, and brown vegetables that may have been green at some point in their lives, small chunks of what could possibly have been some kind of protein, and uniformly grey and over thickend, and ridiculously sweet sauces.

It was so bad and so sad and so 'what else could you expect in central Wisconsin at midnight" we actually laughed out loud as we picked through the various containers, trying to find something, anything, that looked like it wouldn't give us ptomaine.

We still laugh about it to this day and use it as the bar for every other bad restaurant we've been to, as in "well, this may be bad, but at least it isn't that chinese place in Friendship bad..."

 

[HeHateMe]

This one's easy.

A few years ago my wife and I attended the wedding of a family friend in Wisconsin Rapids. As all the hotel rooms in the
Rapids were all booked that weekend, we were staying in a little hotel in the next town south Friendship, Wisconsin.

After the reception, an interesting event in it's own right, we were traveling south on US 13, looking for a place to eat, at close to midnight, in central Wisconsin.

Not much luck was being had, when around a sweeping left curve there slowly appeared the glowing neon of a Chinese take out place.

My wife grabbed my arm excitedly, saying "how bad can it be?" So we pulled in and walked through the door only to see an empty room except for a sleeping asian couple , the wife in a chair by the register and the husband curled up on the stainless steel table across from the wok station in the kitchen.

As my wife and I exchanged glances, nodded, and slowly backed away, the asian lady opened an eye, then the other and she quickly popped up, yelling at her ( I assume) husband in (I also assume) Cantonese, while giving us her best smile.

Figuring we were on the hook after waking them up, my wife approached the counter and after a few quick questions and some polite smiles, placed our order.

Giving the husband his due, after a few perfunctory yawns, and some eye rubbing, he fired up his wok and gave us his best efforts to provide a proper stir fry, you know, under the circumstances.

After my wife profusely apologized for walking in so late, we paid and drove back to our hotel room, where we unpacked our bountiful repast.

Words fail me.

It was... all greasy surimi, and brown vegetables that may have been green at some point in their lives, small chunks of what could possibly have been some kind of protein, and uniformly grey and over thickend, and ridiculously sweet sauces.

It was so bad and so sad and so 'what else could you expect in central Wisconsin at midnight" we actually laughed out loud as we picked through the various containers, trying to find something, anything, that looked like it wouldn't give us ptomaine.

We still laugh about it to this day and use it as the bar for every other bad restaurant we've been to, as in "well, this may be bad, but at least it isn't that chinese place in Friendship bad..."

Are you sure u didnt just order the "Triple Shittiness?"

 

[Dogstar]

The Golden Corral in Elgin.

About a year or so ago. No soap in the bathroom. Half the food was out and what was left looked like it had been sitting there for a week. I took a dish from the rack and it was filthy. That did it for me. We were there about 10 minutes, asked for our money back and walked out the door.

2nd worst was at a Wag's. Ordered a stir fry plate and got a huge wad of melted plastic wrap in it.

 

[Xuder O'Clam]

Foody Goody

 

[puckthefackers]

There's breakfast place in Lisle, IL, that was horrible, called Fox Restaurant. I can't figure out how they have 4 stars on google. It wasn't extremely dirty, but it wasn't clean. Dated might be a better description. Food was horrible.

Been there and can confirm that place is awful.

 

[Ares]

Oh here's another one...

Clearview Restaurant in Alsip (really more like Creswtood)

I dated a girl in Senior year of High School and evidently her parents knew the owners, so they would go to this restaurant, though idk how often.

I had not met them, and I lived near this place, so one evening she texts me that they were going their for dinner and invited me to join them and meet her parents.

I had never been there, but I knew it was kinda your generic American Diner type restaurant and figured dinner is dinner, sure why not.

The best way I can describe it is bland in every way.

The inside was kinda dated.... menu seemed like it had not changed in 50 years, which can be fine if you make good classics and people enjoy them, but you won't get much influx of new customers nor rave reviews.

I always liked my Mom's meatloaf, and they had meatloaf on the menu and I figured it was a safe choice.

Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and some veggies and a brown gravy.

The Meatloaf was oddly served in relatively thin slices.... like 10-12 of them, instead of 2 or 3 thicker slices.

And it somehow was dry/bland to me.... and I used to eat my Grandmother's meatloaf which legitimately was just meat and breadcrumbs and egg.... no salt, no pepper, no seasonings of any kind.... but it was usually moist.... this Meatloaf was even more bland and needed to sit in the gravy because it was real dry.

The mashed potatoes had no seasoning of any kind, I guess because the gravy was a brown puddle of salt.

The veggies appeared to be for display only... I ate some but again no seasoning at all.

I've toughed out bland meals before, but at least at the dinner table I could just take smaller portions, eat them and excuse myself.... this was a plate of awful food that my gf's parents were paying for and their friends were the owners lol so I felt compelled to pretend it was good.

Here's the fun ending... I ate half of it and the waitress asked if I'd like a box for the leftovers and I said yes... might as well continue the charade, right? Worst case I bring it home and toss it out.

Her Dad let me say it and the waitress walks off, and he goes "You don't have to take it home, the food here is awful" lol

Apparently that place only had a few truly edible items and they would go there as a kindness to their friends.

Old people love those places though.... no flavor but salty gravy.... reminds them fondly of their mother's cooking during the 1940s.

 

[Xuder O'Clam]

Should have gone for the Salisbury steak @Ares

 

[Ares]

Should have gone for the Salisbury steak @Ares

Supposedly that was one of the only decent items.

Idk if you googled it and found that out or are just a tremendous guesser

 

[Xuder O'Clam]

Supposedly that was one of the only decent items.

Idk if you googled it and found that out or are just a tremendous guesser

Nah, your meatloaf dinner description sounded like Swanson's Salisbury steak.