Buffet Workers Share The Most Disgusting Things They've Ever Seen Customers Do

The process of people-watching is always entertaining, especially at a restaurant. There's something uniquely satisfying about kicking back with a beverage or meal of choice and seeing what others do when they think no one's watching — whether that's watching your niece feed her vegetables to the dog under the table, or watching someone trip over a discarded shoe and pretend that nothing happened. But frankly, when it comes to the things customers get up to at buffets, some things are better left unseen.

Buffet workers on Reddit don't hold back when it comes to sharing the culinary crimes they've witnessed throughout their careers, from terrifying hygiene habits to a greater lack of common decency. To save you from scrolling through social media in search of the most disgusting incidents, we have compiled a list of them for you to picture in abject horror.

There are many foods in the world that require the use of your hands. Pizza, for example. Hot dogs are another. These foods are so commonly eaten with the use of your fingers that if you were to whip out your trusty knife and fork, you might attract an odd look or two. You'll find that typically these foods are less messy and more on the dry side. After all, no one wants pasta sauce dribbling all over their hands in the middle of spaghetti night.

Unfortunately, not everyone seems to have gotten this memo. One buffet worker at Golden Corral took to Reddit to describe a man deciding to forgo cutlery. "I saw a man use his hand instead of the spoon to get ranch dressing on his plate," they wrote. That's right, instead of finding a utensil, as would be the instinct of many, this man just plunged his presumably ungloved hand right into the dressing and deposited some on his plate.

To make matters worse, the comment goes on to say that he "proceeded to lick his hand clean, and then go for a second scoop." After picturing a scene like that, it's understandable why you may opt to forgo the dressing when you next enter a buffet.

The word "massage" is one that should arguably only be used in a spa-type setting as a remedy to sore or unruly muscles. Or even perhaps as something to be done to kale before adding it to a dish, because, yes, there's more value to massaging kale than you may think. But at no point should the "massage" be used in a buffet setting — especially when talking about someone massaging food on a buffet table.

Unfortunately, one Redditor got an eyeful of just that while watching a child standing at a dessert table. The buffet worker claimed that the child was deep in conversation with a second young customer. While speaking, he had one hand in the bowl of sprinkles. "His hand was fully in the bowl of sprinkles, doing what I would describe as massaging the sprinkles, the entire time," they wrote.

What compelled the child to do this is beyond comprehension. Suffice it to say, what may have offered a delightful sensory experience for the child may not be as appreciated by others seeking sundae toppings.

Mayonnaise is, in general, a delightful condiment. It can be a fabulous addition to sandwiches or used as a dipping sauce for finger foods like fries or nuggets. It can also be added to wraps or potato salad, or even mixed with sriracha sauce for a twist. In other words, there are numerous ways to use mayonnaise. None of those ways typically involves pairing mayo and fruit.

It seems that this pairing has happened at least once, though. One Reddit user described catching someone red-handed in the act while working in their school's all-you-can-eat cafeteria. The individual watched a football player fill his plate with pieces of watermelon, only to cover the entire thing in mayo.

If the idea of these two foods together has you nauseated to begin with, then you'll be no better off when you learn the sheer amount that was eaten. "I watched, half amazed and half horrified, as he ate what looked like half a watermelon and half a jar of mayo in one sitting," the Reddit user wrote. "It was honestly one of the most bizarre and impressive things I've ever seen."

In the debate of superior breakfast foods, the question of whether waffles are better than pancakes always sparks some of the most passionate opinions. The comparison makes sense; both are made from batter and are typically eaten with similar toppings. But what seems to unite even those who swear by a crisp and crunchy Belgian waffle and others who prefer a light and fluffy pancake is that they both would like them served cooked.

When you consider this, you might be shocked to learn about the experience of one cook at a restauarant with a lunch buffet. Even though all the toppings and containers surrounding the station were clearly labeled, customers would grab pancake batter and pour it all over their food. The Reddit user took extreme measures to tackle the issue, but mostly in vain. "I couldn't understand," they wrote. "I even told the people that it was the batter and they would not stop. I even put lids on everything [and] other stuff. I would grab the ladle out of their hands. IT DID NOT STOP THEM."

As strange as this sounds, it seems to have happened because the patrons believed the batter was vanilla sauce. Even when they were shown the true condiment, diners would refuse to believe the batter wasn't vanilla sauce. Eventually, due to safety concerns, the buffet had to stop serving pancakes and waffles altogether. This was likely the best decision, as eating a meal doused in a raw flour-and-egg batter certainly isn't wise from a food safety perspective.

There are many ways in the world to transport a chicken wing. A Styrofoam container, for example. A good old-fashioned cardboard box would do the trick. Even Tupperware would be appropriate. But one woman at a buffet was caught by a worker transporting wings via one of the most cringeworthy ways possible: by purse.

One worker on Reddit mentions watching a senior who would frequently visit with a group, get a plate full of chicken wings, and pour them into her purse. One can only venture a guess at how the bag would smell with time, even after the chicken wings were removed. One can only hope the woman had prepared the purse by cleaning it out, lest the long-lost purse mints and various receipts of days act as unexpected chicken seasoning.

This story ends in a more heart-warming way than the rest, which is a nice change. When the workers learned that the woman was doing this for financial reasons and using the additional chicken to bulk out her home-cooked meals, they intervened. "After about the [third] month we just started making her a little to-go bag with some extras," they wrote. A lovely sentiment that ended the need for purse chicken.

Some people on the internet believe that ketchup belongs on everything. While it is technically true that the condiment can be squeezed onto whatever you desire, most people would likely agree that some things have no business being coated in the red substance. This partner of fries and hot dogs everywhere may raise some brows if thrown into a Caesar salad or added to your next batch of chicken noodle soup. An anecdote from one restaurant worker adds two more items to the keep-away-from-ketchup list: soft serve ice cream and chocolate cake.

While working at a buffet during high school, one Reddit user witnessed a man who would top his sweet treat with both ice cream and the red stuff. "[He] used to come and take several pieces of chocolate cake from the bar, place them in a single plate, do soft serve over the top [and] cover it in ketchup as if it was chocolate sauce," they recalled. This move appears to truly put readers' teeth on edge, with one commenter claiming the combination "makes their skin crawl."

The chocolate cake and ketchup alone would likely cause many feelings of disgust, but adding ice cream to the mix just makes it criminal. One can only imagine the horrifying sight of melted ice cream-ketchup mush left for the workers when he was finished.

A salad is a great addition to almost any meal. Somewhere along the line, salad seems to have stopped being a punishment and become a dish many people are wild about consuming. With this level of enthusiasm for the dish, it's understandable that hungry patrons would become a bit antsy when waiting for the salad bar to open. But as per one buffet worker, this enthusiasm can go way too far.

The Reddit user claimed that, as a former self-service station employee, they would lay out the salad bar in the morning. Due to the volume of dishes they needed to carry, they split the process into two trips. On the first, they would set up all the salad bowls, and on the second, they would bring out the utensils. In the time it took them to bring out the utensils, the customers would become so restless that they would take matters into their own hands. Literally.

"I would often catch and scold customers who tried to handle the salad with their bare hands and have tossed out a whole lot of salad once or twice because I was too late," they wrote. If you're wondering whether they tried bringing out the utensils before the salad, they did. Sadly, even that had its downsides. "I've seen people pick up something they dropped and put it back in the respective container," they added. It goes without saying that they were tossed out, too.

If you are a donut lover, then you know that picking out the best donut of the batch can prove to be one of the highest-pressure moments of your day. After all, only so many donuts can fit into one human body, despite the delicious taste. A sample platter of donuts for customers to try can make matters easier, but as per one buffet worker, it doesn't always function as planned.

The same Reddit user that witnessed the hand salad fiasco also described their negative experiences with the donut station, where it was apparently not uncommon for customers to open the self-service donut case, take a bite of a random donut, and then place it back where they found it. "I also once had an old guy manage to get chocolate icing all over the case," they added. "It looked like a monkey smeared poo all over the doors."

The thought of heading to the donut case, only to see a half-eaten donut awaiting you, is a disgusting one indeed. Not to mention that those sad donuts, and potentially others on the display, presumably had to be tossed in the garbage for food safety reasons. What a sad end for something that could have otherwise been thoroughly enjoyed by a hungry patron.

Many would agree that the point of an all-you-can-eat buffet is to, well, eat as much as you can. If you don't leave stuffed to the brim, you just aren't getting the full experience. But as with most things, reality dictates that there is a reasonable limit on the amount of food the typical human body can consume. If you're regularly clearing an entire buffet of food — unless you're shoving it into a massive purse, à la the customer with a bag full of chicken — there may be some degree of gastrointestinal distress in your future.

As outlandish as it seems, this is exactly what a Reddit user who used to work at their grandmother's buffet witnessed. To be clear, they did not personally witness gastrointestinal distress, thank goodness. Instead, they recalled a couple who visited once or twice and ate average amounts, then started taking things to the extreme.

It didn't just happen once, either. "They started getting a lot more. To the point we charged them double because we basically had to," they said. "Then the last two times they came in and cleared the entire buffet." The couple would apparently wait until more food was added to the buffet station before descending like a couple of hungry seagulls. "I watched them like mix everything together to eat it," they added. "The guy mixed blackberry cobbler and f***ing gravy." How the couple built up this level of digestive fortitude remains unknown, but it is certainly a testament to the feats human hunger can accomplish.

As you've likely realized from the massaging sprinkles incident, children, though delightful to be around, can sometimes do the strangest things. They might throw a tantrum because you put juice in the blue cup instead of the pink cup, but they're fine when you use the blue plate. Maybe they claim to hate tomatoes and anything remotely similar to a tomato, but eat pasta with tomato sauce moments later. But perhaps one of the most unfortunate traits in a buffet setting is that, when unleashed on shared plates of food, they may lack the consideration for hygiene possessed by (most) adults.

It's likely this lack of hygiene instinct that led to bodily fluids mixing into the toppings at the dessert table overseen by one Reddit user. The former buffet worker described watching a child wipe snot off his nose (not a sight you want to see around food to begin with), then plunge his hand into the gummy bears bin.

As bad as this is, the snot-tinged hand didn't stop there on its tour around the toppings. "He did the same to the candy corn and the chocolate chips," they added. May you never look at an innocuous-looking bin of candy toppings at a buffet without an iota of suspicion ever again.

The only acceptable use of the phrase "scratch and sniff" should be in relation to those scented stickers that emit different odors when scratched. If there are any contexts in which this term is used, it should raise flags faster than a grand marshal at a race track. Least of all, "scratching and sniffing" is not a term you would want to describe the actions of your fellow buffet patrons. 

Unfortunately, though, this was the exact chain of events that one Reddit user claimed to have encountered. While working at a buffet, they witnessed a customer "visibly scratching under their skirt, sniffing, and then using the same fingers to flip through a stack of cookies like a Rolodex." The image the comment paints doesn't exactly endear us to picking up a buffet cookie any time soon. Just the thought of this happening is enough to turn you off buffet sweet treats for a while in general.

A chocolate fountain can look aesthetically appealing at the buffet, while also providing seemingly unending amounts of sweet flourish to anything you so please. You don't even have to use it only for sweet treats, if that's how you roll. However, you may not want to use it at all after hearing what one Reddit user claimed is often lurking beneath all that opaque, chocolatey goodness.

A former worker in the buffet industry (Golden Corral, to be precise) revealed that they've witnessed customers dipping unusual things into the chocolate fountain. "Watched a 70+ year old dip his fried chicken in the chocolate fountain," they said. "He caught my look of astonishment and said 'you've never tried it? You're missing out.' Years later and I am still missing out."

Remnants of whatever is dipped into a chocolate fountain can often end up lurking in the pool at the bottom and cycling through the fountain over and over again. If customers knew that pieces of old chicken were lurking in its chocolatey waterfall, they probably would hesitate to dip their berries in chicken-steeped sauce.

Sneezes happen every single day. People can't exactly control or hold in that tingle that starts in your nose and then bursts out of your mouth. But a single sneeze can propel germs approximately 19 to 26 feet through the air, which is how they spread illness so effectively. Think of them as a rocket launcher for the flu. This makes the idea of sneezing around a buffet all the more terrifying.

This is illustrated once more by a Reddit user who mentioned that their husband once worked at a buffet where he watched a child sneeze directly onto the food. "He went up to the front to check to see what needed restock, and just casually watched a small child, small enough to be under the plastic guards, proceed to just have a full on attack and sneeze all over the food he was standing in front of," they wrote. "Picked up a few pieces and put them on his plate and walked away."

Picturing the force with which these germs were propelled onto the shared plates is, in itself, a bit horrifying. But just to make it worse, when he informed the cooks of the incident, they didn't fix it. "They just shrugged and said they don't have enough to replace the food just yet," they added. "He quit the next day." They added that they have not returned to a buffet since hearing the story, which, to be frank, is completely understandable.