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My job used to involve visiting a lot of businesses.

I can remember some restaurants would look really nice and then when you went into the back they were pretty bad. I was surprised they had passed inspection.

I also would sometimes find one to be immaculate.

I’ve got a buddy who is a salesman for a food supplier.

He has some great intel on local restaurants, and as you say, you can’t always tell by the serving side of the operation.

It’s just not restaurants. Many moons ago I had a job working for a national brand ice cream company as a merchandiser/sales rep. As such I called on grocery and convenience stores and brought product from the back room freezers. I can’t even begin to tell you what I observed walking through the back rooms of some grocery stores. The Safeway stores were usually pretty clean and neat and orderly but the A&P (later Super Fresh) stores were spotty – some were fairly clean but others smelled like a dumpster in late July, the floors were actually “sticky”. In one store I saw boxes of chicken sitting outside the meat cooler - the ice it was packed in had completely melted and bloody chicken water was all over the floor and had run across the floor to the other side of the back room, soaking boxes of dry goods that were not sitting on pallets but on the floor, the smell was awful – gross!

There was one store on my route – a discount grocery chain – I think it was called “Super Foods” that was even worse…OMG, I wouldn’t buy Rat Chow from that dump.

The cleanest stores I ever called on were Giant, a Maryland chain. They were very well run and very clean, exceptionally clean and that’s where I shopped when I lived in Maryland.

Round these parts...inspections are not that frequent....due to cut-backs in personnel...perhaps annually.

Don’t get me started on how filthy hospitals are...and lacking in common sense sanitary practices.