Eat at your own risk

September 13, 2008

Establishment: Le Boulanger Bakery -

Location: Los Gatos

Okay…you might have gone into this place if you live in or around Los Gatos, San Jose, or Sunnyvale.

It’s a cafe/bakery and coffehouse, they serve sandwiches, coffee drinks, salads, small pizzas, and of course pastries.

I worked there for over 3 months, and I can tell you right now, this place was a DUMP. I worked at the Los Gatos location, but have been told the Sunnyvale location is WAY worse.

The sandwich condiment trays (where the mayo, mustard, and other sauces, as well as the lettuce bins, where the meat was kept, etc) were supposed to be changed every couple hours, and my entire time working there they were maybe only changed ONCE A DAY!

Not only that, but when I changed them, they smelled like rotting meat and vegetables. Nine times out of ten, the mushrooms, eggplant, and the ham and turkey smelled like they were rotting, and they put the toaster for the bread right next to the sandwich table, which meant that the hot air from the toaster would heat up the sandwich ingredients, making it spoil faster.

I brought this up to my manager at the time, and what did she tell me?!

"Well, it’s ok. It’s been like this for years and we haven’t had any complaints."

Ok, Jabba The Hut…if you like rotten food, more power to you! Sheesh.

Ok…here are some other things I witnessed while I was there. That place was a HEALT HAZARD!

1) Slimy, sometimes moldy, roach-infested ingredients and pastries.

Aside from the sandwich ingredients being warm, slimy, and smelly, some of the pastries were made with ingredients that COCKROACHES had climbed all over. There was an abundance of roaches in the restaurant and while I tried to complain to my manager about this, she continued to tell me there was no way they could be dealt with, and as long as people didnt’ see them, there shouldn’t have been a problem.

YUCK!

I had seen the roaches climb on the bakery ingredients as well as get up on the counters and climb on the pastries THEMSELVES! AHHH!

2.) Nasty, stale pastries.

The brownies they served were ALWAYS stale, because they would put the new brownies in a box under the counter while the stale, 3-day-old ones were out for people to eat! And not only that, but they wouldn’t put the new ones out until all of the old ones had been bougth and were no longer there.

Gross.

3.) I have two words for you: ROTTEN CHICKEN.

Their chicken sandwiches were disgusting as it were, however, me and a co worker one day were in the sandwich section and she was working on one of their "Chicken Bacon" sandwiches. She pulled a piece of chicken out of the steamer and started to cut it to put it on the sandwich. She stopped suddenly and looked at me. I said, "What?" and she said, "Smell this.." and handed me a piece of the chicken.

I smelled it and almost puked. It smelled like a mix of bleach, rotting flesh, and garbage.

I promptly took the pieces of chicken and threw them away, then told my manager. My manager instructed me to just throw the chicken away, get a new piece and finish the sandwich. I aksed, "Well, shouldn’t we start a new sandwich? I mean, the nasty chicken was all over it! It could have salmonella!!!" What did she say?

"No…the steamer is hot enough to kill salmonella. Just finish the sandwich. Don’t make a new one, that would be wasting."

I feel sorry for the person who got that sandwich. UGH!!!

4.) Mistreatment of employees.

Most of the time we had a break schedule that was supposed to be followed, however, sometimes people would forget to go on breaks, and/or go too early, and it would throw the whole thing off. This is normal.

However, once I forgot to take my break, and they told me, "Well, you lost your opportunity to go, now you have to wait until [insert name here] gets done with her break!"

I waited and waited, finally [insert name here] got back, and I went to go on break. I came back and was told it was too late for me to take a lunch, so I wasn’t able to take a lunch, and when I complained, they told me I should have eaten my lunch on my break time!!!

Absolutely NOT tolerable in a work environment. That is also illegal, considering I had worked for a whole 8 hours.

Anyways, all I am saying, is this is a horrible place to work, the food and conditions are disgusting, and I wouldn’t touch that place with a forty-foot….no….a one-hundred foot pole!!!

Thanks for listening, and avoid this cockroach infested, disgusting restaurant at all costs .

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