Eating at a restaurant is supposed to be all about pleasure: The joy of being able to relax and enjoy a meal you didn’t have to sweat over, the luxury of being served by professionals, the deliciousness of a well-cooked dinner. That’s why a bad restaurant experience hits you with multiple regrets: You didn’t enjoy your meal, you wasted your time, and you wasted your money—these days, probably a lot of money, because restaurants have become increasingly expensive . That makes knowing the signs of a bad restaurant a crucial life skill.
If you’re looking for a new place to have dinner with some friends, keep your eyes open for the following restaurant red flags—and if you see one (or more), turn around and start looking for an alternative. Restaurants (should) change constantly. Staff turns over, new chefs take over the kitchen, and the menu (hopefully) changes over time.
A restaurant that hasn’t bothered to update things like reviews posted on the walls or their website (or the website itself) has probably let other things slide over the years. As noted by food critic Tom Sietsema, if a restaurant’s reviews are so old the authors are dead , that might indicate no one has said anything nice about the place in a very long time. And if the website was last updated to reflect pandemic-era masking etiquette, you have to wonder what else has slipped their minds over the last, oh, several years.
Smell is always an important indication of what you’re about to experien.