This Cheddar’s customer said she’d never go back to Cheddar’s after finding out what they accidentally put in her pasta dish.
Cheddar’s is a fast dining chain (similar to an Applebee’s or TGI Friday’s) known for serving large plates of southern comfort and American food at a reasonable price. They have more than 170 locations across dozens of states, but are mostly concentrated across the south and middle of the country.
In a viral video that’s garnered almost 2 million views in 24 hours, Hailey (@haileyxc) explains that she was at Cheddar’s and ordered chicken alfredo. But when it came to her table, she ate it slowly and hesitantly as she noticed the flavor was off.
“This is off. This isn’t right. This sucks, this is really sucky. This tastes like poor quality,” she recalls.
Suddenly, the server comes up to her.
“Is there something wrong with, is your alfredo okay?” the server asked. “… Is there something off?”
“I thought he was gonna tell you they used dirty mop water or something omg,” a commenter said.
“I would freak out if the server came to ask if something was off when I was thinking the same thing. I would think the worst had happened,” another added.
Turns out it wasn’t that bad.
“They mistook the gravy bag for the alfredo bag,” the server explained.
What the server didn’t realize was that they’d just let a secret slip up. See, Cheddar’s full name is Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, but judging by the fact that the serve mentioned bags of sauce (alfredo vs. gravy), their food may not be as “handmade” as they advertise.
Instead, it seems that each sauce comes premade in a bag, and given that some gravies are white like alfredo sauce, the kitchen staff got confused and opened up a gravy bag instead of an alfredo bag.
And while they look alike, the flavor profiles are very different. A simple white gravy is just butter, flour, milk, salt, and pepper, while alfredo has additional seasonings and parmesan cheese that give it its distinct cheesy tangy flavor. Gravy is also much thicker than alfredo sauce.
The kitchen ended up remaking her dish instead of comping it, but by that point, she’d lost her appetite, Hailey said in the comment section. Hailey added that she hadn’t returned to Cheddar’s since the mixup.
In an Instagram direct message to the Daily Dot, Hailey clarified that she still tipped the server and they all laughed about it in the moment.
“A lot of comments are worried that I was a Karen, I realized in the moment it was just a little human error! We had been served bad food there before, so we decided not to go back anymore after the gravy incident.”
“I’m so glad it wasn’t something worse, but it was still alarming!”
@haileyxc And we havent been back since🤪 #oldvideo #gross #plottwist #cheddarsscratchkitchen ♬ original sound – hey it’s hai
The video has more than 600 comments, and many people said they’ve had something similar happen.
“Former cheddars server, THIS HAPPENS MORE THAN YOU THINK LOL,” a former employee wrote.
“At least there is nothing in there that was expired or undercooked,” a top comment read.
“my bf worked at cheddars and once topped a chicken fried steak w Alfredo sauce and the dude said it was the best cfs he’s had there,” a person shared.
“They did that EXACT same thing to me once! That was my one and only time there lol,” another said.
The Daily Dot reached out to Hailey for comment via Instagram direct message and to Cheddar’s via email.
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