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Totally agree. And how about this: If you get food poisoning from a restaurant, you deal directly with them to resolve. If the food has been delivered by a 3r

Totally agree. And how about this: If you get food poisoning from a restaurant, you deal directly with them to resolve. If the food has been delivered by a 3rd party, what rights to resolve would you then have? Restaurants can simply state that the food was tainted after it left them, delivery firms can state the food from the restaurant was bad, etc etc.

learc83 6y ago
I agree with the sentiment. But you basically have no recourse if you get food poisoning from a restaurant. Unless it’s a mass event, there’s no way for you to prove it was the restaurant, and even if you could prove it, your damages aren’t likely to be enough to sue.
- newman8r 6y ago
  I had an old roommate try to sue in-n-out after getting severe food poisoning. It actually went to court - the in-n-out attorney completely destroyed him, he was outgunned. They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported. Reporting food poisoning if it ever happens to you (even if minor) could be the difference between someone else being believed of being shut down.
  - dghughes 6y ago
    >They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported. It makes you wonder: did the lawyer call each one of those thousands of people, did anyone get sick but didn't realize it was the burger, time could be an issue too maybe a few lettuce leaves had listeria on them but it only grew to levels after a certain time and temperature.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      If that’s the case and they did not consistently fail at food safety practices, just a one-off, then we can consider it an accident like any other and the restaurant is not culpable.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    Advice I wish I could give myself. Don't eat out if you can avoid it and if you do go in person, never order in. In secret someone who cares less about your health than anyone you know prepares hundreds of meals a day and if they don't come in because they are sick they lose money. If they don't try to hide mistakes it will cost them. If they don't save the company money by picking up food off the ground or using yesterdays soup as a base for today's soup they are doing a poor job. There are very few ways a customer can prove these mistakes unless they are visible upon receipt. Poor reviews hidden from the public is the only recourse.
    - jfim 6y ago
      > using yesterdays soup as a base for today's soup That's not necessarily a bad thing. There is such a thing as a perpetual stew [0] in which a stew is replenished with ingredients over months or even years. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_stew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_stew
      - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        And it's not common at all in today's world, for a reason.
        siltpotato 6y ago
        Well, as parent's parent demonstrates, it is common, just in a different way.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      So your advice is basically to never patronize restaurants? Seems like an awful overreaction to something that almost never happens?
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      A worker coming in sick can be a safety violation if they don't wear the appropriate protective equipment (generally gloves and a mask). Picking food of the ground is a safety violation that could get a restaurant shut down, and moreover would open the restaurant up to civil torts. A restaurant is not going to risk permanent closure to save a few cents on food that falls to the ground, especially not in places where they grade restaurants on food safety. As for using leftovers: this will shock you, but a large portion of menu items in even fine establishments use leftover items (that were not served to customers). Soups, stews, curries, etc., generally involve perpetually renewed bases, where the previous days leftovers "seed" the new day's mix. The meats in pastas and other starch-heavy dishes are usually trimmings from entrees in which the meat is the star. Meatloaves in restaurants always use leftover meats from the day before. Nearly all breads in bakeries involve the reuse of the sourdough starter, and indeed the concept of sourdough itself is premised on the reuse of the the dough.
- amluto 6y ago
  Food poisoning has much slower onset than most people think, and, as I understand it, it’s very common to blame the wrong food. I think it would be good to encourage everyone with food poisoning to notify a central authority to collect statistics, but blaming a specific restaurant from a single case is dicey at best. It’s also worth noting that most people expect meat to be the riskiest type of food. In fact, lettuce is much more likely to cause food poisoning. (Ground beef is indeed more dangerous than solid pieces, but most chain restaurants are pretty careful about their HACCP and are likely to cook it properly. Your average large burger chain won’t serve rare beef patties even upon request.)
  - bonzini 6y ago
    Food poisoning usually takes 10-15 hours from meal to symptoms. That gives you only a couple of meals to consider. About ten years ago one third of the office (50 people out of 150) called in sick, it was pretty clear which meal and which restaurant was the culprit.
    - amluto 6y ago
      Except when the food poisoning is due to toxins and not pathogens, e.g. scombroid poisoning. Identifying the culprit is certainly easier when you have a whole group of victims.
- ddingus 6y ago
  At the least, one can work the problem to a resturaunt. Not always possible, due to how these things can go, but more possible than when other parties are involved.
ddingus 6y ago
This is precisely why I do not use these services. When I go get the food, I know what happened from pickup to plate. Given how health care works right now, I definitely want to know about all that. This is going to happen too. Someone will push it, mistake made, lax process, something.

learc83 6y ago

I agree with the sentiment. But you basically have no recourse if you get food poisoning from a restaurant. Unless it’s a mass event, there’s no way for you to prove it was the restaurant, and even if you could prove it, your damages aren’t likely to be enough to sue.

newman8r 6y ago
I had an old roommate try to sue in-n-out after getting severe food poisoning. It actually went to court - the in-n-out attorney completely destroyed him, he was outgunned. They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported. Reporting food poisoning if it ever happens to you (even if minor) could be the difference between someone else being believed of being shut down.
- dghughes 6y ago
  >They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported. It makes you wonder: did the lawyer call each one of those thousands of people, did anyone get sick but didn't realize it was the burger, time could be an issue too maybe a few lettuce leaves had listeria on them but it only grew to levels after a certain time and temperature.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    If that’s the case and they did not consistently fail at food safety practices, just a one-off, then we can consider it an accident like any other and the restaurant is not culpable.
- wolco2 6y ago
  Advice I wish I could give myself. Don't eat out if you can avoid it and if you do go in person, never order in. In secret someone who cares less about your health than anyone you know prepares hundreds of meals a day and if they don't come in because they are sick they lose money. If they don't try to hide mistakes it will cost them. If they don't save the company money by picking up food off the ground or using yesterdays soup as a base for today's soup they are doing a poor job. There are very few ways a customer can prove these mistakes unless they are visible upon receipt. Poor reviews hidden from the public is the only recourse.
  - jfim 6y ago
    > using yesterdays soup as a base for today's soup That's not necessarily a bad thing. There is such a thing as a perpetual stew [0] in which a stew is replenished with ingredients over months or even years. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_stew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_stew
    - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
      And it's not common at all in today's world, for a reason.
      - siltpotato 6y ago
        Well, as parent's parent demonstrates, it is common, just in a different way.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    So your advice is basically to never patronize restaurants? Seems like an awful overreaction to something that almost never happens?
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    A worker coming in sick can be a safety violation if they don't wear the appropriate protective equipment (generally gloves and a mask). Picking food of the ground is a safety violation that could get a restaurant shut down, and moreover would open the restaurant up to civil torts. A restaurant is not going to risk permanent closure to save a few cents on food that falls to the ground, especially not in places where they grade restaurants on food safety. As for using leftovers: this will shock you, but a large portion of menu items in even fine establishments use leftover items (that were not served to customers). Soups, stews, curries, etc., generally involve perpetually renewed bases, where the previous days leftovers "seed" the new day's mix. The meats in pastas and other starch-heavy dishes are usually trimmings from entrees in which the meat is the star. Meatloaves in restaurants always use leftover meats from the day before. Nearly all breads in bakeries involve the reuse of the sourdough starter, and indeed the concept of sourdough itself is premised on the reuse of the the dough.
amluto 6y ago
Food poisoning has much slower onset than most people think, and, as I understand it, it’s very common to blame the wrong food. I think it would be good to encourage everyone with food poisoning to notify a central authority to collect statistics, but blaming a specific restaurant from a single case is dicey at best. It’s also worth noting that most people expect meat to be the riskiest type of food. In fact, lettuce is much more likely to cause food poisoning. (Ground beef is indeed more dangerous than solid pieces, but most chain restaurants are pretty careful about their HACCP and are likely to cook it properly. Your average large burger chain won’t serve rare beef patties even upon request.)
- bonzini 6y ago
  Food poisoning usually takes 10-15 hours from meal to symptoms. That gives you only a couple of meals to consider. About ten years ago one third of the office (50 people out of 150) called in sick, it was pretty clear which meal and which restaurant was the culprit.
  - amluto 6y ago
    Except when the food poisoning is due to toxins and not pathogens, e.g. scombroid poisoning. Identifying the culprit is certainly easier when you have a whole group of victims.
ddingus 6y ago
At the least, one can work the problem to a resturaunt. Not always possible, due to how these things can go, but more possible than when other parties are involved.

ddingus 6y ago

This is precisely why I do not use these services. When I go get the food, I know what happened from pickup to plate. Given how health care works right now, I definitely want to know about all that. This is going to happen too. Someone will push it, mistake made, lax process, something.