You might think a menu item that’s been around for sixty years and one that just launched last month would have completely different reputations among the people who actually make them. Turns out, both can end up sitting under a heat lamp way too long. Fast food employees have been spilling secrets on Reddit for years now, and the pattern is clear — some of the most iconic items on the menu are the ones workers themselves won’t touch. Here’s what they want you to know.
The Filet-O-Fish has a freshness problem
The McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish has a pretty charming origin story. A franchise owner named Lou Groen invented it back in 1962 because his Cincinnati location was in a heavily Catholic neighborhood, and most of his customers wouldn’t eat meat on Fridays. The sandwich saved his business. It’s been on the menu ever since, and it remains one of the only pescatarian-friendly options at McDonald’s.
But here’s the thing — the sandwich doesn’t sell nearly as well as a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder on most days. That means many locations cook a batch during shift transitions, then let those sandwiches sit in the warming cabinet until somebody finally orders one. One former employee put it bluntly on Reddit: “Fish doesn’t get ordered very often unless it is Lint. They cook it at transition, and then it stays there until they have sold it all.” That same worker said when they ran the shift, they’d toss the old ones. But they didn’t run every shift. So yeah, old fish went out the window plenty of times.
Asking for “fresh” might not save you
Some employees recommend asking for your Filet-O-Fish to be “cooked to order.” That phrase supposedly triggers the crew to drop a fresh filet into the fryer, which takes about five extra minutes. Sounds simple enough. And to be fair, some workers confirmed that this trick works at their location.
But not everyone plays fair. One fast food worker admitted on Reddit that at their restaurant, when someone asked for something fresh, they’d just “dump an old one in the fryer for a few seconds to heat it up and tell you it’s fresh.” Which is… not encouraging. A smarter move might be to customize the sandwich in some way — ask for Mac sauce instead of tartar, add pickles, request extra cheese, whatever. Any modification forces the crew to build a new sandwich from scratch, which increases your odds of getting something that hasn’t been slowly drying out for the last hour and a half.
The McRib is even worse, apparently
If you thought the Filet-O-Fish had a bad reputation among employees, the McRib makes it look like a five-star entrée. When this thing shows up on the menu (because it’s always a limited run, always generating hype), employees dread it. One worker described the scene as “weird-looking pork patties sitting in old BBQ sauce for HOURS without being cleaned or changed.” Multiple Reddit threads are dedicated entirely to employee hatred of this sandwich. Most of them are too profanity-laden to quote directly.
The sauce seems to be the main villain. Workers say it gets absolutely everywhere — on trays, on uniforms, on surfaces you wouldn’t expect. Some claim it doesn’t wash off trays without running them through the dishwasher multiple times. Others say the smell alone has ruined BBQ sauce for them permanently. That’s a strong statement from someone who probably eats fast food more often than most of us. When the people making your sandwich feel guilty handing it to you, maybe take the hint.
Soda machines are a whole situation
This one doesn’t get talked about enough. We all grab a fountain drink without a second thought, but employees across multiple chains have flagged soda machines, guns, and dispensing lines as serious cleanliness concerns. Not every location neglects them, sure. But enough do that it keeps coming up in these Reddit threads again and again. One bartender described pulling something out of a soda gun that they nicknamed a “soda gun snake” — basically a tube-shaped mass of sugar, yeast, and who knows what else that had been growing in there undisturbed.
Pizza places might be especially risky, since active yeast floating around in the air can speed up whatever’s growing inside those lines. And slushie machines? Employees at several chains — Sonic gets called out a lot — say those machines are extremely difficult to properly clean. Difficult enough that it often just… doesn’t happen as often as it should. Something to think about next time you’re reaching for that cherry Slurpee.
Subway’s chicken has a reputation
Subway workers from multiple locations have raised concerns about the chain’s plain chicken strips. Not because of contamination or safety violations, necessarily. The issue is simpler and somehow worse: the smell. One employee said the moment you open the bag of chicken strips, “it hits you with a smell like a fart that’s been vacuum-sealed for freshness.” I wish I were making that up.
And that’s not even the weird part — other workers chimed in to say their managers actually warned them about the smell on their first day. Like it was just an accepted part of the job. “Don’t worry, the chicken always smells like that” is a sentence nobody should have to hear at work. To be fair, at least one New Zealand-based Subway employee said their location maintained high food safety standards overall. The chicken still smelled, though. Cold cut subs seem to be the safer Subway play, if you’re wondering.
Soup sounds cozy until you hear the details
Soup at a fast food or fast casual restaurant feels like a safe choice. It’s warm. It’s comforting. How can you mess up soup? Well, a few ways, actually. Employees point out that soups often sit in warming stations all day long. And while keeping them at the proper temperature should prevent bacterial growth, the reality isn’t always so clean-cut. One Reddit user raised a concern that many people (including me, honestly) had never considered: some soups are prepped in batches too large to cool properly, which means they can spend time sitting in that dangerous temperature range where bacteria thrive.
There’s also the issue of soup being where leftovers go to die. Overcooked vegetables, meat that didn’t look presentable enough to serve on its own — into the pot it goes. Some employees mentioned that certain soups arrive frozen and are reheated in bags, which occasionally means bits of plastic end up in the final product. None of this is universal, but it’s come up enough times across different threads that it’s worth a pause before you order that bread bowl.
Burger King’s chicken sandwich might literally be raw
This is one that goes beyond “ew” and into genuinely concerning territory. An unusual number of social media posts have shown Burger King chicken sandwiches that appear to be undercooked or outright raw inside. Employees have offered a few explanations for why this keeps happening. Fryer temperatures might be off. Different chicken products have different thicknesses — and therefore different cooking times — meaning a distracted or rushed employee could easily pull something out too early.
One Reddit user shared a secondhand account from someone who worked at BK, claiming that during busy periods, “they pretty much never temp them to make sure they are fully cooked.” Even worse, when raw sandwiches were returned, the workstations weren’t always fully sanitized before the next batch went out. That’s a food safety issue that goes well beyond taste or quality. If your chicken sandwich looks even slightly pink in the middle, send it back. Or maybe just order the Whopper.
Subway’s tuna is real, but that’s not really the problem
You might remember the whole Subway tuna lawsuit from a few years back, where people questioned whether the tuna was actually tuna. Turns out — yes, it is. Real, legitimate tuna. Case closed on that front. But employees still aren’t fans, and it’s mostly because of the mayo situation. Some workers have noted that jugs of mayo aren’t always stored properly. And even when they are, the ratio of mayo to tuna can be pretty intense.
How intense? One employee said the standard was a 1-to-1 ratio of mayo to tuna by volume. Let that sink in. Equal parts. Another worker said their location actually halved the mayo to make the tuna palatable, which tells you everything. The preparation also seems to vary wildly depending on who’s working that day, so consistency is basically nonexistent. If you love tuna subs, just know that what you’re getting might be closer to a mayo sandwich with a hint of fish than anything else.
Steak ‘n Shake’s milkshakes are a labor dispute in a cup
This one’s more about the human cost than the food itself. Steak ‘n Shake prides itself on hand-dipped milkshakes made with real ice cream, and by most accounts, the product itself is solid. But employees paint a different picture behind the counter. The ice cream base is apparently rock-hard and nearly impossible to scoop, and workers are expected to get each shake made in two to three minutes — even during a rush with backed-up orders and skeleton crew staffing.
When you’re fighting to scoop ice cream that might as well be frozen concrete while a line of customers stares at you, cleanliness takes a backseat. One employee admitted that “attention to cleanliness isn’t prioritized when you have backed up shake orders and an establishment that’s short staffed.” Nobody’s saying the shakes taste bad. They’re saying the conditions under which they’re made aren’t great. It’s a good shake built on a broken system, which is a very fast food thing to say.
The common thread across all of these items is pretty simple: low demand and high labor pressure create situations where food quality suffers. Whether it’s a fish sandwich sitting under a lamp, a chicken patty pulled from the fryer too early, or a tuna sub drowning in mayo, the pattern repeats. Next time you’re in a drive-through, customize your order enough that they have to make it fresh — that one small move gives you the best shot at getting what you’re actually paying for.
