21 Restaurant Red Flags That Suggest Your Meal May Not Be Very Good, According To People Who Love Dining Out

Life is way too short for a bad meal (at least, that's what I say). So when choosing where to dine out, you want to choose wisely. Luckily, a few red flags might help you decipher a mediocre restaurant from a great one. So, redditor u/ArtsyAksel asked, "What are red flags at a restaurant?" Here's what people (along with some members of the BuzzFeed Community ) said.

1. "If they serve cold butter with the bread. Don't give me cold butter! If you can’t be bothered to give me butter that I can actually spread, I can’t be bothered with you."

2. "Dirty bathrooms. In the words of Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential : They let you see the bathroom! If it's dirty, imagine what the parts they don't let you see look like. "

— u/CoreyTrevor1

3. "Too many items on the menu. It's a sign that a restaurant probably uses all frozen food. Nothing against frozen food. It's ideal for some things. Some things, not all things."

4. "The kiss of death for me is if I see only one demographic eating at a restaurant. You ideally want to see a good mix of people. If I see blue- and white-collar types in the same place, I know it is probably pretty good quality."

— u/Misterstaberinde

5. "When you go in and see most of the guests have dirty plates on their tables and are looking around for a server. Add empty tables still piled with plates, and you know the place is incredibly short-staffed. Time to bail out."

6. "Plastic menus that have residue of food splatter on them and smell. Yuck."

— u/Cool_Owl2609

7. "As a non-American myself, it's cultural restaurants that have zero people of that culture eating there. It's a huge green flag to me when I go to an Indian, Chinese, or Middle Eastern restaurant, for example, and the clientele is all of that particular region."

8. "If you're looking at the menu outside, and an employee/manager comes out to usher you into the restaurant, walk away. I've only had this happen to me once, but it was clear quickly why they were so desperate for my business."

— u/Abloy702

9. "As someone who used to be a waiter, I can't stand seeing waiting staff grab clean glasses at the top when handling them."

10. "An incoherent menu or a menu that offers various cuisines that don't share common ingredients. This means some ingredients may sit longer than others."

— u/Freshlyhonkedgoose

11. "Ask where your oysters come from. If the server doesn't know, you don’t want them. This tactic works for most seafood."

12. "When the menu is really long, and yet the food comes out of the kitchen really fast."

— u/LittleIrishGuy80

13. "When a menu has blurry, poorly taken photos of the dishes, it's either a really bad restaurant or you're about to have the best meal of your life. There is no in-between."

14. "Does a restaurant sound like it could be two or more restaurants? For example, if they're serving sushi and pizza at the same place, they can't do either well."

— u/rukasu83

15. "If all anyone can talk about is the view, then you might as well go to a diner because the food will be bad (awful for what you'll pay). I've never worked nor eaten anywhere with a 'stunning view' that didn't serve lukewarm garbage at a highway robbery price."

16. "I'm an ex-restaurant manager, and I always look at how happy the staff looks. Do they seem like they like their jobs? You won't get quality food or service if the staff are miserable. It's worth seeking out restaurants that treat their staff well. If they're treated well, they'll treat you well."

— u/ohno

17. "At Mexican restaurants, I always automatically assume if the chips and salsa aren’t good, the food won’t be either. Can you tell if the chips are fresh and made in-house versus out of a bag? Does the salsa have good flavor and depth, or is it similar to jarred or store-bought?"

18. "If you ask about your food allergy and the waitstaff can't answer because they don't know what's in the food."

— u/friendly-sam

19. "Food that focuses on presentation. For example, those extreme Bloody Mary's with an entire burger stuck to the glass are designed for people to post on Instagram. The quality will never be good, and it probably means the restaurant relies on people coming for the spectacle rather than the taste of the food."

20. "If a place changes its name or cuisine frequently, they're cycling owners, which means there are better options in the area, or there's something toxic in the chain."

— kathryna456a720b8

21. "When the chef will not remove an ingredient, especially if it’s not essential to cooking. If I ask for a burger or sandwich without one topping or ingredient and they can’t do it, it gives off the impression that they are just mindlessly slapping together sandwiches."

What's a glaring sign of a bad restaurant? Or what's a green flag that indicates you're probably about to have a great meal? Tell me in the comments or drop your thoughts into this anonymous form .