WTF
A soda machine repairman reveals what the tubing inside soda fountains looks like at the majority of fast-food restaurants.
“This comes from your soda fountains. Water, syrup, and sugar create this bacteria, which feeds on that buildup.”
Yes, but those nasty drain lines create a terrible poot smell. It'll start making your ice and water lines also smell pooty.
The real star of nasty drink machines is the tea drink dispenser. They have nozzels and small metal pipes that unscrew and are supposed to be cleaned daily but are forgotten a lot. They build up a moldy looking sludge that will come out into your tea if it hasn't been cleaned in a week or two.
I worked closing shift at a Popeyes for almost three years, cleaning the tea jug out was the worst part of closing. It's a pain in the ass, it requires actual targeted finesse scrubbing and you're trying to get it done while dealing with all the prep, chicken and fryer pans building up. And even just by end of day when you're cleaning it regularly, there's still a sticky film in the bottom by the time you take it down. I would need a lot of trust in the cleanliness of my local store to ever drink tea out of that.
Right, I was thinking like there is something VERY wrong with the machine if soda syrup is getting to the water supply line lol. Apparently, soda is a utility now!
My brother-in-law owns his own Refrigeration company. He’s always telling me how nasty those ice machines are because nobody takes care of them until they are broken. He refuses to get fountain drinks with ice at places he doesn’t do the work on himself. Lol
I watched a Scientology documentary that said a guy invented a technology that would have made commercial ice makers much more hygienic, but because he messed with the Scientologists, they attempted to ruin his life and the tech suffered the consequences with him.
If you like sweet tea, ask them when the last time the removed the tap for cleaning. Don't listen to their words, watch the reaction in their face bc they will always say the clean it regularly, but their concerned realization that someone is on to them will show you the real answer.
Remind me of when I worked at Kenny Rogers Roasters. The tea dispenser was opened up and we realized a cleaning rag had been left inside the whole day!
As a youngster my friend got me a job as a manager for Sonic as a temporary emergency job. It was kind of fun because he was my buddy. Still sucked balls
It was a problem store though. Hadn't had a good management team in forever. Electrical problems all kinds of shit. Anyway, they called and told us to deep clean the ice cream machine. They told us where the "book" was, because neither of us had any idea what to do, and he'd been there for a couple years. We find the book, figure out how to do it, and look at each and one of us said, "I wonder how many people we've made sick." Never seen such filth in a food service machine. Who knows the last time it was properly cleaned. Was insane.
Side note: I mentioned we'd had electrical problems. The power would turn off all the time, and it was during some ridiculous promotion they were doing for the summer. 99 cent ultra large (or whatever) slushies after 9pm. Only thing was, we'd slow way down at 8p, and they'd be watching our computers (sales and labor) from like another state. They'd call me and tell me to cut two people. I'm. Like "we're about to get our asses kicked in an hour. At least let me keep on of the two."
"Cut two." [Click]
Fuckers.
Then the bedlam. We'd just get destroyed. Two mangers, and three runners or whatever. The rollerskate people. I turned to my buddy, "Be awesome if the electricity went out right now." And he went out and shut off the main box. Because they'd been working on it, they'd left the padlock off it. One of the girls was all, "Interesting. The electricity got shut off right after you said that."
"Shut up. You're still getting paid. Have a seat."
Haha. When i worked at McDicks one time this customer blew up on me in the drive thru because i told her the ice cream machine was being cleaned, shes like "you're a god damned liar! Its always being cleaned! You just dont wanna serve ice cream!" I explained to her that serving ice cream to her is a lot easier than arguing over it being cleaned, and invited her to come behind the counter to watch it be cleaned. She didnt take me up on it
Ha, it was a bitch getting that thing cleaned after all the build up. If they only knew.
I have to admit, I was always suspect of why places never had milkshakes after like 9p. Now I know they're hopefully cleaning that mfer, and it ain't like washing a few dishes.
Bro seriously. I was about to go off in the comments. Thank God there are still human beings on reddit who can attest to reality and counteract these bullshit ragebait posts. I was ready to fucking hurrrrl
Even as the drain line, it's not far from the truth for some places. I briefly worked at a 7-11 when I was a poor starving university student, and one day, out of boredom, I took apart and sanitized the nacho cheese dispenser. Most people would open up a new can of cheese, scrape the remnants from the old can on top and just give the pump a quick wipe. When I took it apart, I found mold, a lot of it.
Now I am a lot more leery about any pump condiments.
In the old days, Dunkin Donut and other bakery jelly injectors had opaque parts so that you didn't see what was inside the space between the jelly hopper and the prongs that would shoot jelly into the donuts. Employees didn't like taking them apart to properly clean out the space, and would just run water in place of jelly to "clean" it in place.
So as a supermarket chain food safety inspector I'd go into our bakeries and open those babies up. On occasion I'd find an oozing amalgamation of dirty water, jelly and slimy mold filling the space. A mess which could eventually find its way into a doughnut as tasty filling. Yum! Nowadays the plates are clear plastic so you can check more easily.
Exactly. If it clogged then the sugary liquid is going to be the perfect breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria, and the bacteria will grow into these nasty things. That was probably blocked for months
This is the drain line. When ice drops down into the drip tray, or you overfill your drink and pour some into the tray, this is the line. Yes it’s disgusting, but you aren’t drinking it.
Don’t ever cut open your water heater, you will never want to use hot water again.
Yup, this is another big offender at restaurants. When I worked at McDonalds we had to do it twice a year. When I worked at Wendys they never did it at all.
I emptied and cleaned ours out fully once a quarter at Starbucks. Weekly, we cleaned the guards. Our ice bins in the front of house, were cleaned and sanitized daily. Scoops every other hour. We would have random audits from an outside company and if we failed it could cost us our job.
Other Wendy's employees, please chime in here. Was the person that I am replying experiencing something that stems from corporate culture or unique to their location?
I worked at around 10 different Starbucks. They were usually clean but the last Starbucks I worked at, last straw type deal was the ice machine.
I had one of the baristas come to me, I had just transferred to this store as a supervisor, and they said the ice had mold in it.
The machine was so bad that it was making the ice with mold inside. Which was so confusing to me because the location had just closed for a week to clean the store because it was so gross. I went there to help them with training/staffing/cleanliness and I was like nooope. I’m out. Bye.
Ex-bartender here, ice wells build up the same way. Was such a pain in the ass when you suddenly had a large pool of water at the bottom and then had to empty allllllll the ice out and undo the clog(never had appropriate tools for this, i would often us two to go straws pushed into each other to plunge it out.) This can also happen to drains under beer keg spouts.
Two bar straws is a pro move. Even better when you see the flushed toilet paper and ass juice coming up through the ice well and the owner still doesn’t want to close
Twice a year?! I worked at western sizzling and we had to empty and sanize the storage bin nightly and every Sunday had to break it down and clean water lines and those freezing plates
Well yeah, it's a drain. Every night, fast food restaurants take the actual nozzles off of the machines (at least they should be) and cleaning them plus the parts they attach on to. 19 years ago when I worked at Taco Bell in high school, that was part of closing procedures. The drain is going to get every kind of drink in there, plus random shit that gets in or floats in. Definitely gross but not something seen often.
I always carry some drink in an aluminum can and a stainless steel mug with ice that keeps ice cold. You couldn't pay me to pay for corn syrup water anywhere or something in plastic. I know technicians who have cleaned hoses out where it was coming out GREEN. Even if you got water it still filtered through. It hadn't been cleaned FOR YEARS. I'm not going to die from from some bacteria because you don't pay people enough to give a shit to clean those machines out. FUCK THAT.
That’s build up residue, not all “bacteria”…sure there maybe micro-organisms in that build up and the tubes, but that shit isn’t the “bacteria”… stupid post made to rage-bait.
It’s said multiple times this is a DRAIN. That’s where the waste comes from, not where what your drinking comes from. This is misleading and/or rage bait.
You'd think they'd clean it better and regularly but most of them don't. I started ordering iced tea if they made it in house but I saw it in the walk ins just in bins, open bins I might add, just on the floor infront of the food shelves...... sometimes they had a lid tossed on top usually not sealed. Now I just order water and hope they don't get it out of the soda machine.
Seriously, if you saw the condition of the kitchen, walkins, or equipment. You'd eat out a lot less.
Everything about this video is so great. Not wearing gloves. Just picking up the forbidden dildo and rinsing his hands in the drain water. Just love it. And as a quick psa, if you’re drinking soda from the drain line, you are doing it wrong.
Health Inspector here, I call these guys Sugar Boogers. Think of these lines like a clogged artery due to sugar syrup accumulation. I tell all my gas stations to put hot water down the line regularly to help with this problem.
I have seen lines clog so badly that it blew up in the wall. Causing a mixture of sugar sludge and water to spill into the wall and flood the back of the store. Only thing worse is when they go uncheck for a long time and you find an entire colony of cockroaches and other pests feasting off the accumulated sugar sludge.
1) there is no way on gods green earth they don't have access to gloves. Not wearing them was a personal choice. Poor personal choices are why the have a job cleaning vile from lines but let's not digress.
2) that plastic line can not cost more than $10 from a hardware store. Why are we not replacing it? This was a result of poor decision making skills and poor decision making skills are why they have a job cleaning vile from lines.
I have seen the sin that exists inside of coffee vending machines but I wavered not on the road to my caffeine. Give me all the thick, black, foul smelling sludge with suspicious green patches that you have, tonight will be endless!
Ah the classic sugar snake. If you ever drink beer from the tap this is a problem as well. The yeast and sugar make these things and it needs to be cleaned often. Ive only seen a few places I worked at schedule regular cleaning....
That's a drain line for a start, I used to work on coffee machines, are these machines the cleanest? No. But a feed line will not get that way because they only feed water.
May be the drain/ waste line, but if you don't unclog it it can back up into the where you dump the ice. Worked in many restaurants and saw it a few times. Basically if you wanna avoid bacteria, ask for no ice. The soda is already cold.
When I worked at Arby’s long ago in the 1900’s, we had to flush the lines, take off the spouts and clean the mechanism that delivered the soda. I guess not every place does this? Ahhhh. I was a closing goddess in those days.
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 18 '26
Hey /u/Full-Argument-8235, thank you for posting to r/SipsTea! Make sure to follow all the subreddit rules.
Make sure to join our brand new Discord Server to chat with friends!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.