It is a thought that might pop into the head of any customer in a restaurant: “How long have these chips been out?”
While those thoughts are usually left unsaid, a TikToker, while munching on the complimentary chips at a Mexican restaurant, made a whole TikTok video just to pose that question.
“Do y’all think they reuse chips at Mexican restaurants?” Lexi (@lexmarieart) questions in her video, which was viewed 19,000 times.
“Like when they give you this big-a** bowl, they know everybody not going to eat it all. There’s probably like, a big ol’ bowl in the back there, and they pour it right back in, pour in the leftovers, and then serve it to us all again. People hands, sweat all over it. Nasty,” Lexi adds.
Lexi seems particularly unfazed in the video and continues enjoying the chips and salsa.
The video is captioned “Mi tortillas es su tortillas,” leaning into the joke of what Lexi is speculating.
@lexmarieart Mi tortillas es su tortillas 🫶🏽
♬ original sound – Lex
Many commenters jokingly shared that they were frustrated Lexi planted this idea in their heads. “Girl please don’t do this to me !!!!” @aleighaaa3x wrote.
Others felt their anxieties were validated by her video. “I always put my trash in that basket so they don’t ‘reuse’it again lol,” @ayeitsmarthaa said.
Viewers who claimed they worked at Mexican restaurants chimed in, and, as it turns out, what happens with the chips might vary depending on location.
“I used to work at a Mexican restaurant and , yes they did reuse the chips…” one commenter wrote.
“I worked at a Mexican restaurant and we did not do this lol,” another countered.
“No but the chips that don’t go out from the big warmer in the back do get poured back into a big bag for the next day,” a third shared.
In most places, it is very much against the health code to re-serve food once it has been given to a customer. While some customers and employees may assert this claim online, there really is only one instance of it being confirmed. In 2016, a Mexican restaurant in Michigan admitted to reusing uneaten chips after an employee’s mother exposed the restaurant online via a Facebook post, according to Delish.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @lexmarieart via email.
