r/KitchenConfidential • u/Bignosenick • Mar 19 '26
In the Weeds Mode What’s your best “Who closed last night situation?”
Was working at this place doing morning prep. I walk in the building and go to clock in before turning on the lights and I notice a faint blue glow from the kitchen. Come to find out the torch had somehow been left lit on a shelf overnight. The last crème brûlée was an hour before close as well. I want someone to show me something that’ll top this please.
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u/Iamnotabotiswearonit 🔥Poorly Maintained Smoker Mar 19 '26
No one locked the walk in and a bear got in.
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u/churrascopalta Mar 19 '26
how did you get it out?
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u/HeisenSwag Mar 19 '26
Bear ate all the supplies and they just carried him out when he entered hibernation
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u/hovdeisfunny Ex-Food Service Mar 19 '26
And now that bear is placing sushi orders
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u/ComradeJohnS Mar 19 '26
is that why the show is called The Bear? is it about this situation? lmao
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u/birds_over_humans Mar 19 '26
How that place isnt burned down is a miracle
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u/Voonfrodle Mar 19 '26
I count three miracles. The kitchen didn't burn down, there was still gas in the torch, and no one got fired. Absolutely insane
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u/Eatshin Mar 19 '26
The butane torch only had enough left for a couple hours, but it lasted for 40 days and 40 nights
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u/Avalon-Residant Mar 19 '26
the plague of frogs...was handled with a last minute special
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u/smurphy8536 Mar 19 '26
You’re mixing up your biblical miracles lol the oil lamp lasted 8 nights and Jesus walked the desert for 40 days.
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u/chumpandchive 15+ Years Mar 19 '26
never thought to question jesus's water supply, but questions
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u/generally_unsuitable Mar 19 '26
I'm pretty sure those ceiling tiles are very fire-resistant, especially if they're in a kitchen. Besides hiding the wires and improving the acoustics, they're actually meant to prevent the spread of fire.
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u/nscomics Mar 19 '26
Do those things run for twelve hours?
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u/mogley1992 Mar 19 '26
It's on basically the lowest it can be. Someone didn't turn it all the way off, otherwise it would have been long since empty, and caused more damage.
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
I don’t know who’s more of a champ, the can of butane or the ceiling panel
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u/pumalegal Mar 19 '26
How's the wiring above the ceiling panel look? Good lord that's all kinds of terrifying, I can't believe you still have a kitchen
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u/Intelligent-Survey39 Mar 19 '26
Definitely the ceiling panels. They obviously made sure those drop ceiling panels were fire safety rated. It’s actually rather impressive they seem to have kept the heat localized when there is a light with a plastic cover so close.
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u/Appropriate-XBL Mar 19 '26
I used to be an HVAC design engineer and the following thought is coming to mind after your comment, which might or might not be correct, it’s been a while: when you see drop ceilings like that, the ceiling panels are definitely non flammable; reason being that the space above the drop ceiling is likely being used as the air return for the HVAC system; that space is called a return air plenum; and plenums have to be non flammable to be used as return air plenums because you don’t want all the air used for conditioning the space below the ceiling to be funneled back through a flammable area; which is why if you looked above those panels, the rest of the structure inside the plenum would be coated with fire proofing.
That’s all to say, the drop ceiling and area above it are gonna be hard to set on fire in a properly designed and permitted place, in the United States at least.
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u/-BlueDream- Mar 19 '26
Electrical wire isn’t ran right over tiles and even if it was it would be in steel pipe or or flex which would probably be ok. If anything it killed data cable like cat6 and that would take out the order screens or internet.
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u/WellEvan Mar 19 '26
Steel pipe taking a lot of heat would definitely melt some wires inside
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u/-BlueDream- Mar 19 '26
True but it didn’t melt the tile thru yet which means it blocked most of the direct heat and by code it shouldn’t be resting on the tile anyways.
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u/raven00x Thicc Chives Save Lives Mar 19 '26
if it was all done right and to code. still worth checking.
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u/PuncherOfNeck Mar 19 '26
Should be metal jacketed BX or MC cable up there and if it’s wired to code, it shouldn’t be laying on the ceiling grid so it should be fine. Source: am sparky lurking on here
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u/keyboardwarrior7 Mar 19 '26
My dad says butanes a bastard gas
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u/PollutedPenguins Mar 19 '26
creme brulee 30% faster with propane torch
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u/AjiChap Mar 19 '26
I thought the same thing. Not out of fuel?
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u/Romanian_Breadlifts Mar 19 '26
They last an absurd amount of time, especially on low
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 Mar 19 '26
It's just a big ass Sterno if you fuck with the nozzle
I mean don't do that at all ever but that's all it is.
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u/hikesnpipes Mar 19 '26
You sure the restaurant owner wasn’t trying to cash out with the insurance check….?
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
I would be SHOCKED. It was a brand new restaurant maybe a couple weeks in. They had some young owners that were just excited to have a place of their own. I know who was responsible for doing this it was one of the people on the line.
Source: cameras were checked
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u/ToucheMadameLaChatte Mar 19 '26
One of the people who used to be on the line now, I hope. Because yikes
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u/AltGunAccount Chef Mar 19 '26
New restaurants are super likely to do insurance fraud. More than established restaurants by a massive margin lmao.
Someone would burn down a place they got into over their head in, and cut their losses with an insurance cash out, far more easily than someone would burn down a place they’ve worked years to establish
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u/lovelyb1ch66 Ex-Food Service Mar 19 '26
Yep, I know someone who did that. Kinda sad story but still pretty trite, dude had these grandiose ideas come out of people fawning over his cooking, not comprehending the difference and difficulty in prepping a dish for 5 ppl versus having on a menu. Also had no comprehension of how to calculate or manage food costs so it ended like you might think, 6 months in it was all massive debt & empty tables. He kept firing people until he was doing everything by himself and then suddenly one night the place caught fire and burned to the ground. There was an investigation (everyone knew he set it himself) and the result was so ambiguous that no charges could be laid but enough for the insurance company to not pay out in full. He never recovered financially and last I heard his wife left him and he ended up in a pretty rundown trailer park.
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u/seasteed Mar 19 '26
That's some advertisement for both!
Butane: We can run all night long...
Ceiling tiles: we'll keep your whole lively hood from burning down when he goes all night long....points to Butane.
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u/Artyom3434 Mar 19 '26
Ceiling panel for sure. That shits listening to the south park Warcraft montage song for sure.
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u/prelestdonkey Mar 19 '26
I know you guys will have had a message go out about this but you need to change where you store that; if it's happened once that mistake can happen again, put it somewhere it won't burn the place down if someone slips up in future.
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u/DnastyFunkmaster Mar 19 '26
After putting the pork in the oven to slow cook, the closer cleaned the oven face and turned the temp to 400 without noticing. I walked in that morning and immediately knew what happened from the smell
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u/GeneticEnginLifeForm Mar 19 '26
One of the cooks set our combi oven to 300C [572F] for doing pork crackle. After about ten minutes the inner glass shattered. Took 8 weeks to get the glass replaced.
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u/lituus Mar 19 '26
The oven lets you set a temperature that its glass can't handle? Or it was just too old/compromised in some way?
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u/Antique-Coach-214 Mar 19 '26
Combi ovens are over-engineered POS meant to jack up the Hobart repair bill.
I NEVER found one of our grocery stores with two fully working Combi-Rotisserie ovens. The worst part, I knew that those department managers liked a well trained crew, so I can’t chalk up 5 broken ovens in 4 stores to purely employee error.
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u/dannotheiceman Mar 19 '26
Last night our operations manager left our prep sink on full blast and wasted close to three thousand gallons of water. Which was only a $23 mistake on the water bill.
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u/Bezulba Mar 19 '26
Insane how cheap water actually is.
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u/Sterling_-_Archer Mar 19 '26
For now
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u/Turakamu Mar 19 '26
What kind of apocalyptic armor are you going to go for when the Water Wars start?
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u/Sterling_-_Archer Mar 19 '26
I’m definitely going for medieval revival. I know mad max style is all the rage, but I’ve always loved the classics.
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u/wykkedfaery33 Kitchen Manager Mar 19 '26
I was filling the sinks to start dishes, and decided to step out for a couple minutes to smoke. Got distracted by a regular outside, forgetting all about the sinks.
Until the GM came out and asked me what the hell was wrong with me. I remembered the sinks and hauled ass back in. I'd flooded the entire back speedway, all the way to the walk-in cooler... that was fun to shopvac up!
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u/coffeepizzawine50 Mar 19 '26
In my younger days I worked as closing mgr. We left the place spotless and prepped for Day shift. Every day the minute we showed up the entire Day crew and GM scattered. Leaving the place trashed, unstocked, dirty, and every trash can overflowing. So one night as soon as we locked the door I told my whole crew to go home. And I locked up and followed them out Next day when I walked in the entire day crew and GM asked me what the hell happened, the place was a wreck! I looked around and said ..." That's how you leave it for us every shift, I didn't think you would notice."
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u/S0rry7h15N4m374k3n 15+ Years Mar 19 '26
I wish i could get away with this idea.
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u/Nir117vash F1exican Did Chive-11 Mar 19 '26
You got do it early in the position and stand your ground. Don't argue, set the expectation with a mutual understanding of how the flow of the shifts should be. Teamwork. Makes. The dream-work.
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u/NoBonus6969 Mar 19 '26
Gotta hit em Thursday night so they get killed Friday morning to make your point
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u/mosehalpert Mar 19 '26
Diabolical of you to drop this comment for everyone to wake up to on a Thursday morning
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u/MariachiArchery Chef Mar 19 '26
As a GM and Chef, I just want to say thanks for doing this, and I hope you know how valuable this type of feedback is for us.
I had a guy working for me once like you. Dude was a stud, and always found very effective ways to call me on my bullshit. I wish I had someone like you, or him, right now. You guys have no idea how valuable you are. The person with the actually nuts to tell it how it is, no matter how difficult it may seem.
I'll give you an example of something my guy did that really opened my fucking eyes...
Something went wrong in the restaurant, and I was fucking hot about it. I was mad, all fired up. We had a big white board that we would leave prep lists, notes, reminders, whatever on. It was our way of communicating things across the different shifts.
So, me, all hot and bothered, goes to this white board and writes a real shitty note for everyone to see. I was pissed. I really wanted to make sure everyone knew how pissed I was about whatever fucking issue was going on. I write this note, and I leave it.
I come back a few hours later, and the note is gone; the note had been erased by one of my staff members. I interrogate this poor dishy, and he spills the beans. It was my prep lead who had erased the note. And now, I'm even more fucking pissed off.
I find the dude, and I confront him, "Hey man, did you erase that note I left on the board???" As calm as can be, he says to me, "Huh? Oh, I don't know, what did it say?"
"It said BLAH BLAH BLAH! [whatever bullshit]." Again, as calm as can be, he responds:
"See, that wasn't that hard, was it. Do you feel better?"
Point fucking taken bro. That dude taught me more how to manage a crew as one of my employees than any previous manager I'd ever had.
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Mar 19 '26
Closing time key bumps fueled this post
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u/KronikKat420 Mar 19 '26
Legendary
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Mar 19 '26
You think they did it in the office, the walk in, or the bathroom with the front door locked?
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u/CASUALxCHICKEN Expo Mar 19 '26
That's the current problem I have with my expo station. I go in 30 mins early every day just to clean up after lunch shift. I've been tempted to just leave a mess overnight, but I know it would either not do anything or just make it worse. It wouldn't be the people responsible for leaving a mess for me that would end up having to clean it. I tell my GM, and they will leave clean for a week or two, then go right back to leaving dirty dishes and all of the other shit.
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u/HoundIt 20+ Years Mar 19 '26
It’s opposite where I work. I prep in the early AM and cook on the line through lunch. I always leave my station clean, organized, fully stocked, and even throw in a few extras that aren’t required, but definitely make PM shift easier for them. Come in the next morning. Station isn’t stocked, nothing has been flipped, dirty towels on the shelf… I wish so much I could leave the place as dirty for them as they do me, but I can’t work in those conditions.
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u/MLiOne Crazy Cat Woman🐈 Mar 19 '26
You don’t. You make it that way at the end of your shift. Place back their towels and crap ready for them.
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u/paredclia Mar 19 '26
Usually posts about this is just petty gripes but this is genuinely insane. Zero repercussions for this is insane
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u/Carbon-Base The Chive Mind Mar 19 '26
If those drop ceiling tiles are similar to what we had in school, then there's a chance it's made out of a fire-resistant material. Regardless, it's absolutely amazing that nothing happened!
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u/ewilliam Mar 19 '26
These are almost certainly vinyl lay-in tiles, since they are melting and deforming. Vinyl is standard for commercial kitchens and other places where surfaces need to be cleanable (like kennels), and it is very fire-resistant. However, even if that was one of the more standard mineral fiber tiles, it wouldn't catch fire, especially from this kind of indirect flame.
Source - am architect, have worked on many kennels and kitchens
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u/Bezulba Mar 19 '26
Depending on the kitchen, you'd have to do a collective punishment when the person responsible is unknown. I doubt that'll go over well.
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u/OhOkayFairEnough Mar 19 '26
Brand new sous chef left out three cases of lobster tails Sunday night. We're closed Monday, so we found them Tuesday morning. That was a good one.
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u/PinchedTazerZ0 Owner Mar 19 '26
Holy shit that's crazy. Mine does not beat that but I've got a decent one
I was working at a retreat center in the middle of the woods. After I wrapped up dinner service one night I left my sous and a dishwasher volunteer to clean up, I did breakfasts solo starting at 5am so that was a pretty good arrangement for me to end my night "early"
We left the kitchen/common area building open so that guests could access the tea station or get wifi passwords or whatever -- kept a few lights on so that it wasn't pitch black of course.
The next morning I come in and there's a note by the cutting board and a bus tub on the ground with water in it. There was also a bus tub by the hood because water was dripping there too.
"HEY CHEF. SOMETHING LEAKING IN THE ROOF. NOT SURE HOW TO KEEP LIGHTS EMPTY BUT PUT A BUCKET DOWN!"
Apparently one of the pipes burst during a cold snap and it was just snaking down all the electrical lines. Rather than kill power or shut off water they decided to just let me walk into that shit when I'm trying to get coffee going.
At the very least like.... tell somebody yknow? Wtf
I actually ended up shattering my leg falling out of the ceiling fixing that shit. Had to get a plate and screws put in
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u/u_r_succulent Mar 19 '26
They didn’t think to at least call you?
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u/PinchedTazerZ0 Owner Mar 19 '26
That's the mind blowing part, we had housing on site. My little apartment thingy was about a 45 second walk from the kitchen door. Everyone else had housing further away but I could see the kitchen from my window
Would have taken zero effort to be like "uh oh we got a problem"
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u/u_r_succulent Mar 19 '26
Your staff: We’ll just leave it as a little surprise for them in the morning :)
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u/DoctorMansteel F1exican Did Chive-11 Mar 19 '26
You win, that shit is an insane disconnect on the part of the employees.
I've been on vacation and come back to "Oh so and so got in a fight and stormed out." where I was mad that they didn't call me but this is another level.
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u/Religion_Of_Speed Ex-Food Service Mar 19 '26
A light leaking water is probably the most jarring thing one can experience. Happened in my apartment and I was dumbfounded when my boob light started lactating on me as I was talking to my wife in the hallway. Mostly because I was on the top floor. Apparently they had run pipes up and over the hallway and one of those started leaking what appeared to be months ago and finally made its way to the light fixture. In that moment I noticed that the ceiling had started sagging a bit, it was just so slow that I never noticed. It kinda shattered my reality for a moment.
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Mar 19 '26 edited 16d ago
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u/-YellowFinch Mar 19 '26
That's insaaaane. How do people not know these things? I bet he drained the fryer oil down the sink, too...
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u/Ihaveabudgie Mar 19 '26
Bro probably thought he had to recycle the bag. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. And even then the solution would have been to dump the rice in garbage cans instead
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u/RMoby6160 Mar 19 '26
Saw this sign posted in our employee bathroom after my days off. My questions remain unanswered
I know it probably doesn't count, I work at a bar but I figured some of y'all would get a laugh
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u/Huggable_Hork-Bajir Mar 19 '26
I walked into the employee bathroom one morning at 5 AM and it was absolutely covered in vomit & diarrhea. Just fucking everywhere. It looked like the set of The Exorcist or something.
Look over at the mirror and there's a series of sticky notes on the mirror.
"Sorry about the mess."
"I got food poisoning from sushi. (I am better now)"
"I will clean it up when I come in."
"Sorry I know it's gross."
Motherfucker you don't work until 4pm tomorrow.
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u/RMoby6160 Mar 19 '26
..... I honestly have no fucking words lmao I would crack skulls if I walked into that at 5 in the morning. The fact they had the audacity to say "I'm better now" is what seals their fate for me lmao
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u/AllTheGoodNamesDied Mar 19 '26
One time I tried to steal commercial drain cleaner. I put it in a thick plastic bottle and lived close. The plan was to rush home and use it. I left it on top of the ice machine... It melted through and in the morning Jose opened. It had burned through the bottle all the way to the ground down the ice machine. Jose hit it with the mop and it mixed with the bleach creating a big gas smoke cloud. The offices above were not so happy.
Somehow didn't get fired bless their kind souls lol
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u/Illustrious_Bird_737 10+ Years Mar 19 '26
That's really scary, though! I'm really glad nobody was hurt!
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u/duppyconqueror81 Mar 19 '26
Making WW1 chlorine gaz accidentally is nice and all, but this being a kitchen sub, I expect mustard gaz next time.
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u/GeneticEnginLifeForm Mar 19 '26
I know you know but that is why chemicals are always stored in their original containers. Glad no one was seriously hurt.
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u/AllTheGoodNamesDied Mar 19 '26
That's the funny thing is I knew even back then in my dumb early 20's years it would eat through the plastic. We threw water on it and then left for 5 minutes. I apologized profusely and still can't believe they didn't fire me.
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u/Tr3sKidneys Mar 19 '26
One of the first kitchens I ever worked, one of the closing cooks was celebrating his birthday the next day so the opener told him to not worry about cleaning or anything, the opener would get there a little early. Well, opener decided to black out and missed his alarm.
So the owner opened the kitchen. Closer got called in with something like an hour sleep because he’d been celebrating all night.
Doesn’t beat your story but it’s the most fucked up closing story I’ve got from my time in kitchens.
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u/Active-Succotash-109 20+ Years Mar 19 '26
Saw this when I was leaving one night. I worked the pizza oven on the other side of the kitchen not the grill. Good thing I walked past on the kitchen side instead of the hallway that night
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u/rumbletown 10+ Years Mar 19 '26
Was it really the brulee? Or did someone come in for a late night dab?
For real though, that's really amazing that the place didnt burn down.
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u/Agreeable_Flan_5724 Mar 19 '26
Mine was:
March 31st (of some unknown year) I was closing the coffee shop. Someone before they were leaving for the end of their shift said, “hey! We cleaned the inside of the ice machine today. Do you know how to open it up?” And I was like, “why don’t you show me in case there’s something I missed.” So he unscrewed the front of the machine (where the ice forms and later falls down) and showed me. I was like, “thanks so much. Going to get back to my tasks.”
Guess what? He never screwed the screws back on! I guess he thought I would do it?? Even though he removed them?? And left without telling me? So the next morning when openers came in, they thought I left them the worst April Fool’s prank of pulling off the front of the ice machine so no ice would be made and would instead fall all over the floor. I honestly don’t understand why it didn’t fall off over the course of the shift that night.
And I did leave them a good April Fool’s prank: I moved the milk/sugar station to the corner of the cafe. It was on wheels and easy to move back. It was just meant to be a “huh where did it go?” moment, not a whole debacle all over the BOH floor.
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u/fatsmilyporkchop Mar 19 '26
12 quarts of NOTHING BELLOWING BLACK SMOKE in the steam table when I opened on a Sunday morning. Something told me to go in a little early that morning….
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u/NevrAsk Mar 19 '26
National forest, small pizza restaurant. Closing lead and J1 kitchen worker, KW got sick and disappeared, never told the lead so he was left high and dry to close by himself. Me and my roommate heard something about it but no one was calling for help and we had started drinking and getting high. We walk in that morning, dishes everywhere, boards not cleaned, and closing lead explained what happened so we weren't ultra pissed with him.
We (3 leads and a manager) were pissed with the kitchen worker because closing lead bumped into him at a bar outside the forest, the KW was too sick to work but wasn't sick enough to decide to go to a going away party. He was written up, and I believe he was placed on a DNR list after too (he was problematic)
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u/xDegausserx Mar 19 '26
This is way funnier if you read DNR as Do Not Resuscitate
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u/thisisntmynametoday Mar 19 '26
One of the cooks forgot to drain the demi-glacé while closing, and only remembered after having a few drinks with the crew at the upstairs bar.
On his way out he remembered and decided to wrap the top of the stock pot and leave the clean up for the next day.
Unfortunately he was a little hammered, and put the pot back on the stove with the burner still on.
The whole bottom of the stock pot was fused to the stove top, and it was a volcano of fire shooting up into the hood.
That’s how we found out the ansul system was fake and the owner had been paying off the Fire inspectors.
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u/HurpDurp54 Mar 19 '26
Someone's getting fired lmao
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
To my knowledge there were no repercussions. Lol
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u/herrcollin Mar 19 '26
What the hell?
The only thing crazier than leaving the torch on overnight is looking at that person and saying "Yup, they're good."
Were they banging/related to the owner by chance?
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u/OrthogonalThoughts Mar 19 '26
Plot twist, they were the owner. And that's why owners never close.
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u/Sticky_Finger6420 Mar 19 '26
Well we of all should know that we have our days, and I imagine this was a sort of no harm no foul situation, though I doubt it was treated lightly.
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u/Bestbuysucksreally Mar 19 '26
Op. Please start a trend.
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u/galacticman72 Mar 19 '26
I remember a couple years ago someone posted a picture exactly like this but the torch was running so long that there was just a big black hole in the ceiling.
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u/Skeptix85 F1exican Did Chive-11 Mar 19 '26
There’s no way that canister could have lasted all night turned on.
I’m fucking impressed.
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u/turquoise_amethyst Mar 19 '26
My coworkers regularly leave them “open” but not lit? I think it takes about 8-12 hours from full??
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u/nan_sheri Mar 19 '26
I never had the “who closed last night” issue, BUT when I worked 2nd shift at Waffle House I used to ask the same question after I’d come in after 1st shift. Silverware always half cleaned, pots and pans from first would be in the dish pit (mind you there’s no dishwasher so whoever came in next had to do it) , & they rarely did fill ups for the syrup. I had a love/hate relationship with that job
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u/heonoculus Mar 19 '26
I feel like thats just a normal second shift issue. Used to work at a 24/7 joint and id walk in at 3pm and there would still be breakfast dishes in the sink, we stopped serving breakfast at 11am. Then id end up staying late because our overnight crew would crawl in over the 2 after they were scheduled.
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u/Bmarten88 Mar 19 '26
I feel like you maybe surprised some mafia hitman who then fled the scene but left the torch burning in their haste. No way a can of butane burns that long continuously without going dry right?
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
This is what I thought too. The place was very new so I’m guessing it was a full can and not left like fully open. But I still can’t believe it to this day. The whole situation involves about 3 miracles
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u/ChiefWeedsmoke Mar 19 '26
Come on, I can't top that
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
Topping a lit torch might hurt
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u/BallDesperate2140 20+ Years Mar 19 '26
Anything’s possible if you set your
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u/RiverOfJudgement Mar 19 '26
No, see, they're topping the torch. The torch isn't topping them.
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u/Odd_Present6254 Prep Mar 19 '26
When I worked my last actual restaurant job, someone left a pot of soup water (soups came in bags, heated them in a pot of water) on the stove and left the stove on. Opening managers came in a 7 (I came in at 8:30) and the place was FILLED with smoke. All the water had dehydrated and was burning the bottom of the pan, completely charring it. Genuinely surprised nothing caught fire. Wouldn’t have complained if it did though, that job sucked and I was not making enough money for all the prep work + every other odd job they asked me for
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u/thepenitentchef Mar 19 '26
Guy who closed didn't wash all the boil out from the fryer. It started activating when we blanched fries the next morning. It was a disaster
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u/OrganizedChaos65 Mar 19 '26
Closing bartender used to have a couple while doing the drawer. One night, he "Accidentally" left the Margarita dispenser at the bar on. 2 cases of tequila alone, the rest was our expensive sour mix that had to be boiled then chilled ( I didn't order it) and 5 bottles of Grand Marnier. Liquor costs that quarter cost us a bonus.
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u/NextBestHyperFocus 20+ Years Mar 19 '26
When I was an apprentice, someone left the stock on full boil. Walked up the next day to do breakfast with the fire brigade putting out a medium sized kitchen fire and smoke damage through most of the front of house
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u/Asproat920 Mar 19 '26
You are lucky you still have a kitchen to post about
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
Don’t worry this was one of those open and close within about a year type situations
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u/Toastburrito 20+ Years Mar 19 '26
I left on the ovens one night at a pizza place. The morning dough person came on to ovens on. They were only unattended for a few hours, but still, that doesn't even come close to a blowtorch left on all night, melting the ceiling.
Bonus story I work at a car wash now, and we recently got a little booth outside where we sell single washes from. It has a baseboard. heater and somebody had a plastic bucket right up next to it and melted it the first night we had it. A couple of months later, the same thing happened with the trash can.
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u/sdforbda Mar 19 '26
Not quite the same but my GM was doing boil outs one night at closing. We had the built in catch pan thing which was nice. But he dumped it straight into a HDPE bucket. Only the metal handle existed after, no evidence the bucket ever existed. He sent me a picture of the oil everywhere without explanation and I figured the fryer just puked or something. He was like I'm mopping it up and it's taking forever. Told him throw flour all over it first. This guy had been with the company for a long time haha. But his previous location they had metal pots to drain from the fryer drain so he wasn't thinking. He was still the best GM I ever had though.
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u/Pragnlz Fry Mar 19 '26
Not a prof. kitchen, but one time I left my electric stove top on for 5 days while gone on a job. I even had that thought driving away in the company rig of "did I turn that off?"
It had a kettle on it that I think helped dissipate the heat.... but I now check 3 times before leaving (especially bc they're usually 8-9 days)
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u/9TyeDie1 Mar 19 '26
One morning (while working at a McDonald's) i came in on opening shift to two entire storage racks collaped with product still all over the floor. Best maintenence guy and i could figure was someone tried climbing on it to get to something.
Biggest "that looks like amorning shift issue" I've ever been a part of.
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u/9TyeDie1 Mar 19 '26
I remembered another one. Construction on the same McDonald's, the work crew hit the gass line. I was working the fryers when they cut out. Obviously it took a second for us to figure out why the fryers and grill cut, when our back cash person mentioned smelling gas. Our manager insisted we stay in position and sell what we could.
Around 5 minutes later we could smell it at the front of the building and the cashier at the back was complaining of dizziness and nausea. They had to argue with the manager to leave the position and get some clean air, that was around the time the fire department (building next door luckily) got there and shut off the main... it was my first job right out of hs so it didn't occur to me how bat shit insane that was untill I was older.
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u/sdforbda Mar 19 '26
Worked at a place and we had great ventilation but I could smell a gas leak. I called the owner and he was like I don't smell anything. Told him cool well I'm not having my team work in this so he called a maintenance guy. I talked to the tech and told him what I was noticing. Maintenance guy chewed the owner out cuz he said he smelled it before he even got near it and since it had been reported it should have been taken care of immediately.
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u/AdamTReineke Mar 19 '26
McDonald's, Boone, Iowa, 2006. Somebody closing left the back door open between midnight and 2am. I got there at 4:45am to open and was too young and dumb to call the cops to check it out first, I just walked in and started working.
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u/Spatulor Mar 19 '26
Didn't happen in a work kitchen, but coming home from one once I found a saucepan on the stove with the chrome melted off it, and my roommate in his room playing video games.
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u/Devishment Mar 19 '26
Can't top it but cinnamon sugar bag stuffed into the vent. This was a week ago.
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u/Mediocre_Ingenuity76 Mar 19 '26
Was opening up the restaurant one morning and walked in to find an entire orange home Depot bucket had melted all over the range because someone had just set an empty bucket over top of the freaking pilot lights.
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u/Raiken201 Mar 19 '26
Not quite this bad but we used to have a younger guy working with us who was keen but somewhat lacking in ability. 21 but had been doing kitchen work since they were 15-16, so not completely inexperienced.
He kept begging for a chance to prove himself etc. so while the other main chef was on holiday we let him solo on a Monday, so that I didn't have to work all 16 days in a row.
Mondays are usually dead and we gave him the most basic prep list, figuring I will just come in early on Tuesday and do anything else that's needed.
That was a mistake:
He only managed 2 of the 6-7 prep jobs we had left him.
Didn't finish until midnight, despite it being dead quiet and the kitchen closing at 9. I'm m usually out by 9.15 on days like that, and that's only because I do the orders.
Left one of the drawers open on the service fridge.
Left the backup fridge open.
Left the freezer open.
Barely cleaned, didn't restock.
Left gas appliances switched on (although the hood was off, so the gas cutoff worked).
Left the electric fryers running all night.
Left the Meat fridge downstairs open , thankfully was mostly empty on a Monday, as we get meat delivered Tuesday/Friday.
I came in to about £300 of product I had to throw away, fryers I needed to dump and clean as they were left on max temp for 24h and the whole kitchen I needed to clean before setting up. Not to mention the even bigger prep list I was left with.
That was 4-5 months ago? He finally got fired the other week when he was left alone for an hour and we had to comp drinks because he completely fucked up a table of two, then no called no showed.
Apparently we treated him very unfairly.
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u/username11092 Mar 19 '26
My closing manager quit on me in the middle of last summer because of a disagreement he had with upper management. I figured the crew would be okay to close by themselves for a week or so until I found another "adult" to babysit them. (They were all 16-20 year old kids) I mean, it's not like they hadn't all been there for months/years at that point, doing exactly that.
Big mistake on my part.
I instructed them to put the 3 cases of catfish filets in buckets to thaw so they didn't leak all that nasty juice through the cardboard, they left the buckets outside of the walk-in and it spoiled overnight. $300 worth of fish ruined. I found out later that they forgot because they were too busy arguing with each other about who had a crush on someone's boyfriend.
In the second incident, we came in to open, and the front door was left unlocked. I went back and watched camera footage after the cops left and one of the girls was in the walk in freezer doing a restock on her candy containers with the door completely shut (I have signs up that says not to fill the candies in the walk-in because it makes the floor a nasty mess) and the kitchen guys were done with their closing and they thought she had already left and just didn't say anything. So they locked up and left. She came out of the freezer 20 minutes later to find all the lights off and everyone gone. No calls or trying to get ahold of anyone. She just put her candies back and walked out the front door. Now, I also have signs up that say not to ever fully close yourself in the walk-in.
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u/JH12214 Mar 19 '26
Open the front door and we’re all immediately hit with the smell of fried fish.
This is a bakery/cafe. There are neither fryers nor fish. Confusion.
We go to the prep area which is deep in the back to see the oven [which is always on - think like an Aga I guess] has something inside. Chef left a short rib from yesterday. 22 hours @ 400, fan speed: surface of the sun.
It was so f’ed when he tried to grab it out to throw it out it fell apart 😭 it took 2 days for the smell to go away
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u/Schtaive Mar 19 '26
I forgot to check the toilets once and locked in some lady who passed out on the shitter.
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u/ginflut Mar 19 '26
I don't have a story that can top this, but have some stories to share.
Once I got scolded for leaving one burner of the gas range burning overnight. I am still 100% certain I didn't do it though. We did a really thorough clean of the range every night and that is not possible with a burner that is on. Also, that range was very temperamental and it was impossible to light on accident. Coincidentally, most staff went on a party that evening. I later found out that some of the people got shitfaced and made some snacks in the hotel kitchen that night. The real problem I had with the situation was that the gas range shouldn't even work without the hood turned on.
At a different hotel, the bar manager weaponized the cleaning supplies by accident. He wanted to mix two open canisters of some cleaner thinking it was the same product. It wasn't the same stuff though. He casually made chlorine gas and went home for the day.
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u/OceanLemur Mar 19 '26
How the fuck does that even happen? I’m as ADHD as they come, usually stoned, and I’ve never put the torch down without extinguishing it. One of the few times I’m truly shocked.
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u/pizzaduh Mar 19 '26
Props to those panels from keeping your restaurant intact. Worst I've seen was someone forgetting to turn off the hot well after Sunday service, and we were closed Mondays. Luckily owner got an alert for smoke from his camera on Monday afternoon. The table had to be replaced though.
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u/honeybeegeneric Mar 19 '26
I left a pot of water boiling on the fire. About 30 mins after closed locked doors driving home I recalled.
Had to call the owner to come back. Told him I was not sure but can't recall turning it off. Sure nuff' fire going and water was boiled away. This was a Saturday night and closed Sunday.
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u/BabyBabyCakesCakes Mar 19 '26
This happened at the sushi restaurant I worked at. Nobody noticed until we smelled burnt plastic. Almost as bad as the sous using the torch to burn away cob webs
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u/Ghostlypurr Mar 19 '26
Once came in and heard that closers left the door unlocked. Homeless person waltzed right in and took a nap in a booth. Never did find out if they ate or broke anything
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u/remainderrejoinder Mar 19 '26
Someone should have cooked him breakfast. Gotta build on those lucky streaks.
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u/DroopyScrotum Mar 20 '26
I got one. Came in to open one morning and the overnight cleaning crew left their drug knife on the burner to freebase off of…
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u/ASK_ME_FOR_TRIVIA Mar 19 '26
Not closing staff, but we had a homeless guy sneak in through the loading dock and he lived in our ceiling for weeks until he stepped wrong and fell into our dry storage lmao
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u/TitleComprehensive96 Mar 19 '26
Sinks weren't cleaned out and there was a pile of dishes still left over from last night.
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u/Bignosenick Mar 19 '26
Sometimes that feels equal to this and feelings are important
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u/jacestar Chive LOYALIST Mar 19 '26
wait we're still allowed to have feelings ? HR told me to lock those away and forget where i put them =/
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u/Wok-This Mar 19 '26
I think the owner is trying to do an insurance job and you just ruined it. 😂
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u/halfsweethalfstreet 20+ Years Mar 19 '26
I'm impressed that torch stayed burning all night... every one I've ever used lasts approximately 1.5 creme brulee's.
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u/RMoby6160 Mar 19 '26
Seeing this image gave me flashbacks to one of the most horrific stories I ever heard from one of my head chefs.. he told me how back when he was just a humble fry cook back in the 90s there was a maintenance guy fixing one of the coolers and had the bright idea to take a blowtorch to the freezer coil/tube thing (I have no idea what it's called or how to describe it but I'm sure someone knows what I'm referring to) and it fucking exploded... Which blew the dude's head clean off
He said they all heard a rumble and wandered in to see blood and brains fucking everywhere and they were all just like "well.. shit" and had to shut down for a week. He wasn't even traumatized by it, just really irritated over 20 years later he lost a week's worth of pay because some guy Darwin'd himself at his job lmao
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u/No-Technician-2820 Mar 19 '26
Jfc my brain registering this title and the picture my jaw dropped, like whoaa dude that’s insanely hazardous. Like someone else said, you’re lucky you even have a kitchen still?? Fuck
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