A Pizza Hut customer snapped photos of a few notices he saw hanging up on the interior of the restaurant that gives a bit of insight into what it’s like working there in a viral TikTok video.
He discovers the notes urging workers to upsell customers on items other than pizza. However, there’s one of the notices that Berry (@berrydtreasure_reply) seemed to take issue with. It seemed to suggest that there may be some employees at the restaurant who don’t take cleanliness all that seriously.
“So I’m at Pizza Hut and they want you to upsell the wings, upsell desserts, and upsell pop,” the TikToker relays into the camera. His face is superimposed over a green screen image: a photograph of the interior of a Pizza Hut restaurant taken from the drive-thru.
Three sheets of paper can be seen posted to the cash register, one reads, “UP SELL WINGS,” the second, “UPSELL DESSERTS,” and the third says, “UP SELL POP.”
Berry commented on these signs. “That’s completely fine even though it’s called soda,” he quips, before transitioning to show another sign in the restaurant.
“This right here is my favorite. You can see that the inspections start this month, and they’re sad about it,” he says, referencing a notice about an upcoming inspection with a frowning face drawn on it. “And then they have a checklist of what to do to prepare for this inspection.”
He points to the sign, noting one specific detail. “And this one right here is my favorite. It says, ‘Really wash dishes.’ You guys fake washing them? You got a inspection, so now you really gotta do it? Sorry about your luck. Hope you pass your inspection,” he says at the end of the clip.
Cleanliness and health code violations at fast food establishments aren’t uncommon. In some cases, Pizza Hut restaurants have been found not complying with their local regulatory body’s guidelines in maintaining a satisfactorily clean kitchen or dining environment.
Nikkei Asia reported that two Pizza Hut locations were caught in a “food safety” scandal in China, where regulators spotted some shiftiness going on with food expiration dates and that some of the eateries in question had “dirty kitchen environment[s].”
But again, not all Pizza Huts are created equal. As is the case with any franchise restaurant, the overall quality of a diner’s experience is up to the management team and individual employees at the establishment. This is evidenced by the above satisfactory hygiene ratings that one Pizza Hut received and a 5-star Trip Advisor location that was labeled as the best “Pizza Hut in the world” by a very satisfied customer.
Viewers had varying opinions when it came to Berry’s video. One person didn’t seem too concerned with the sad-face inspection notice left by Pizza Hut management for employees to see. “To me, really means to wash them harder than they normally do,” they said.
Someone else penned a response that seemed to suggest Berry hasn’t worked in food service. “Bros never seen how bad the dishes get,” they wrote. But Berry replied, “I used to work at [Buffalo Wild Wings] but we would wash the dishes daily. This was 2003-05.”
One TikToker who said that they work at Pizza Hut commented that notices like this from management are common at their job.”Nah we do inspections every month lol and at our pizza hut nobody leaves until all the dishes are done and the managers do check,” they wrote.
Another said seemed to think the notice just meant extra scraping. “No they probably have to scrub the basically ruined seasoned pans till all the soot ‘seasoning’ comes off which means scraping,” the user suggested.
However, some seemed just as appalled as Berry that management was “sad-faced” about the upcoming inspection. “Yuh….tbh we need to pass laws making food inspections random,” one wrote. Someone else said, “We wash the hell out of our dishes. That place needs a surprise inspection.”
@berrydtreasure_reply #greenscreen #pizzahut @Pizza Hut @pizzahut @Pizza Hut UAE @Pizza Hut UK @Pizza Hut Canada ♬ original sound – BerrryD Treasure
Another former Pizza Hut employee replied that the battle against grime at their location was a daily struggle: “I used to work at pizza hut and we were so understaffed that all 3 sinks would be full plus a whole trash can and there would be only one person to wash everything so no nothing was ever actually clean. that was the first time I walked out on a job.”
Others were shocked that these notes were just inside the drive-thru window for customers to see.
“Why are these signs right by the window?” one commenter asked.
“I saw a sign at Wendy’s ‘days without complaint: 0’ no one took our order we had to leave,” another laughed.
Another said that these notes for employees would cause them to leave.
“I would’ve left after seeing DATES. They don’t date their food? No thanks,” one viewer said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Pizza Hut via email and Berry via TikTok comment for further information.
