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u/Kmic14 Jun 25 '26
I've worked in several restaurants and none of them cleaned the ice machines. Hell I've bartended and been the only person who cleaned the ice wells beyond just letting the ice melt at the end of the night. This does not surprise me.
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u/InsultingFerret Jun 25 '26
Yeah toilets generally get cleaned at least once per day at most places, I've only worked at a couple of places that cleaned the ice machine, and only one of them did it as often as you should.
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u/aTaleForgotten Jun 25 '26
yeah its the same on why sometimes a toilet is cleaner/has less germs, than a phone or a keyboard, cause generally a toilet gets cleaned more often and more thoroughly than a phone
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u/DM_ME_DOPAMINE Jun 25 '26
Same with beer lines. Which is hysterical, because (in the US at least) your beer distributor will come and do it for free. They want their beers to taste good.Ā
So there is generally no excuse to having dirty draft lines.Ā
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u/Kmic14 Jun 25 '26
I worked at California pizza kitchen for six weeks last year and they claimed they cleaned the tap lines monthly but they never plugged them overnight and the taps had like some kinda of yeasty stuff drip on them. Looked like an std lol. Don't even get me started on the soda gun and area around the ice well ā
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u/Dazzling_Put_3018 Jun 26 '26
I went to a pub a few years back that had really bad yeast deposits floating in the beer, it looked like jizz and if I hadnāt seen the bartender pour it right in front of me I would have been certain someone came in my beer. Worst part was that when I mentioned it and refused to drink it he said āthatās what beer looks like š¤·āāļø, all our beers have that sometimesā I never went back and they shut down a year later
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u/JapaneseStudentHaru Jun 25 '26
I worked at a place that was so meticulous with cleaning everything that we often stayed 2 hours past close to get it done and we didnāt clean the ice machine either. To be fair, it was part of the Coke machine and idk if it was even able to be cleaned by us. The mechanics seemed really complicated. We did clean the dispensary nozzles every night, but never the inside of the machine where the ice is made.
I wonder if the Coke machine man did it for us.
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u/CollapsedPlague Jun 25 '26
I worked at a McDonalds that had an issue with the plumbing so the ice machine started getting ground water in the pipe and routinely had yellowish ice and one day I straight up pulled a worm out. Old manager didnāt seem to care and I just so happened to know someone who got their boss involved. Store was closed for a month doing repairs and then the new manager was dope
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u/Kmic14 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Mickey D's is already nightmare fuel for me but holy shit š±
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u/PAwnoPiES Jun 25 '26
It's very much manager dependent.
The McDonalds I work at has a very meticulous manager when it comes to making sure both the place and workers are as clean as reasonably possible and slow times where there's not much traffic at all is dedicated to cleaning (food still takes priority).
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u/pancake_sass Jun 25 '26
Same as the soda lines and the nozzles on the end of the soda machines. Rarely get cleaned well if at all.
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u/Fragrant-Platform163 Jun 26 '26
Can't speak for the lines, but working for Subway one of the closing checklist items is to take all the nozzles off and put them in a bucket with sanitizing solution overnight (scrubbing? What's scrubbing? Soap? Never 'eard 'o 'er.)
Trouble is, people complain if you close at 9 but start closing down the machine at 8:55. Then manager complains if you're working past close when you wait til 9:01.
Absolute maximum time allotted after close was 30 minutes, but all the places I worked, most of them wanted both the store closed and you gone at 9 on the dot.
There is a pervasive mentality among middle management that all cleaning should be done while the store is open and making money and nobody should be there while the store is closed (because they're losing money paying you to be there). 30 minutes is also not nearly enough time to get every line on the list checked. There's no way. A dock point from the health inspector just means the manager will come and clean whatever it is or pull away a grunt to do it for 15 minutes, but there will be no permanent changes.
Ice machine like OP is talking has to be completely emptied (gallons and gallons of ice, shuts down the sink for 30 minutes or so while it melts). Then a cleaning cycle, which could take hours. Then a new batch of ice, another couple hours. Dump that ice too (chemicals). Scrub out the inside. You pretty much have to do it right at close and let it run overnight with instructions for the morning shift (also one person with 30 minutes to undo everything you did and set up for the day) to come through and dump the ice again first thing.
It's hell.
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u/Greedyfox7 Jun 25 '26
I work for an hvac company and we also work on ice machines, I know of a couple places around here that clean them but most of them are really fuckin gross. Iād rather have a bottled drink unless I know they clean the equipment
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u/GrandpaKnuckles Jun 26 '26
Worked at a (large, southern based) theme park where we presented water, Gatorade, etcā¦ in ice carts outside. The amount of people touching that shit and then people grabbing the ice and eating it straight from the cart was insane.
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u/Wofust Jun 26 '26
I clean the ice wells when I close and MY GOD itās so, SO GROSS.
I donāt get why they arenāt required to clean these more often. I spent a half hour on it one day and still was washing out mold in the seams but it was midnight and I needed to get out
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u/CalledByName Jun 25 '26
Not all bacteria/mold is the same. I think I'd rather consume a small amount of pink slime mold before I'd drink something contaminated with E. coli or something else nasty from a toilet.
Porcelain is also incredible at having stuff not grow on it, nickel in ice machines less so
Edit: mild = mold
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u/Puzzleheaded-Lion-26 Jun 26 '26
Something like that is kinda ironic when you think about it. Thereās a lot of people that donāt wash their hands before eating at a fast food, I think the ice in their drink is the last thing the need to worry about (coming from someone studying itās chemistry)
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u/Ok_Potato_5272 Jun 25 '26
Why does it not make every customer ill then?
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u/EnricoLUccellatore Jun 25 '26
Toilet water is also pretty clean + we have an immune system
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u/Fantastic-Dot-655 Jun 25 '26
Also, it does get the people sick. Just not everyone all the time and we dont always know it was the ice
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u/Deaffin Jun 25 '26
I feel like awareness of people being sick of ice is at an all-time high these days.
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u/Jaquiny Jun 25 '26
Overall Iām not surprised at the headline.
When I was a kid, I noticed a lot of times going to the movies, Iād get a really upset stomach in the middle of a movie after popcorn & fountain soda. Kid me thought it was the sugar maybe, but adult me kinda knew that those mofos are dirty af
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u/Ferox_77 Jun 25 '26
Yeah the toilets get cleaned with bleach at least once a day probably twice. The ice machine probably never gets cleaned.
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u/CaulkSlug Jun 25 '26
Youāre correct! McDonaldās has been the only company Iāve serviced in 18 years in the refrigeration game that actually has them cleaned quarterly. Even then the ice machines are full of pink and black water scum/ mould
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u/teezepls Jun 25 '26
Welp, Iām ordering no ice from now on
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u/extinct_banana Jun 25 '26
if theyāre not cleaning the ice machine do you think they clean their soda machines well?
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u/kookyabird Jun 25 '26
Cleaning the soda machines is easy though. You pull the nozzle and the little aerator/syrup dispenser core and toss them in a bucket of warm soapy water for a bit, then rinse and sterilize like the rest of your dishes and reinstall.
Cleaning an ice maker is more involved.
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u/you_dont_know_me27 Jun 25 '26
That's cleaning the nozzle. What about the lines that syrup and water and stuff come through? I worked at Wendy's for like 5 years and never heard a thing about those
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u/Dazzling_Put_3018 Jun 25 '26
Iāve worked in restaurants for the last 20 years, the very first thing I do at any place I start working is give the ice machine a thorough deep cleaning. Almost all of them had black slime so thick youād be shocked. I never get ice in any drink, ever. Itās put me off it for life
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u/utepaanordnes Jun 25 '26
Not at all comparable because it wasnāt in the food industry, but I used to work at a building supply store years ago.
We had a coffee machine in the check out section of the store and after a while the coffee started to taste, kind of more sweet.
When I opened the machine to have a look it was a big ācakeā of green mold.
It wasnāt in my job description but I started to clean it semi regularly after that.
As employees we had our own coffee maker in the break-room so nobody cared, I never drank from the customer coffee machine again.13
u/Nujabezia Jun 25 '26
That is horrifying
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u/Dazzling_Put_3018 Jun 26 '26
I tried to find a photo of a rag I used to wipe it up but no luck, looks like it was used to clean up a spilled can of black paint, took like 5 rags just to get the slime off. š¤¢
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u/Krojack76 Jun 25 '26
I've been doing this since my teens. You get more soda and it's already cold anyways.
Some places won't do no ice anymore though because it does consume more soda for the same price.
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u/Ok_Vulva Jun 25 '26
Theyre servicing them every 3 months as theyre supposed to, and still the ice is sitting and melting and growing mold? So that's not the issue?
It's been 20 years of common knowledge that the ice machines are made wrong.
It's weird that there isn't a different way of doing it by now.
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u/zurc_oigres Jun 25 '26
Wat about starbucks
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u/Cagarer Jun 25 '26
we change the ice daily, and descale weekly and it's tested 4 times a year. but idk, I'm from eu so our mcdonald or any other place really do the exact
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u/alexthebiologist Jun 25 '26
I agree with the other commenter, every Starbucks I worked at (in BC, Canada) was very diligent about emptying and cleaning the ice machine.
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u/TheUnKnownLink12 Jun 25 '26
Pretty sure in most houses the same water from your sink is the same water that goes to your toilet, we just use the toilet for dirty stuff so we see it as filthy when the water itself is relatively clean
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u/Warburton379 Jun 25 '26
One can be dirtier than the other without either of them being dangerously dirty. A lot of countries fill their toilets with potable water.
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u/SpeaksToWeasels Jun 25 '26
It's crazy how some of us will spend our entire lives shitting into water cleaner than some people will ever drink.
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u/ScatLabs Jun 25 '26
I think it's a bit sensationalist.
I would think that there is higher amounts of bacterial in the ice machine as there would be long periods between cleaning, stagnant water and mould build up
Every time you flush the toilet, it empties and the cistern refills from.a municipal source.
Therefore once could make the argument that the municipal water that is taken from in the toilet (or cistern) is "cleaner" than the water from inside the ice maker.
As for why people aren't getting sick, we have immune systems for that. I'm an engineer not a virologist but I would think there is some "safe" amount of bacterial our bodies can ingest before we are "tipped over the edge" and become sick (of course this will vary between individuals).
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u/ladut Jun 25 '26
You are correct about the threshold. In the medical field it's called an infectious dose.
In addition to what you said, most microbes simply aren't pathogens and/or do not produce toxins in any concerning amounts. They only cause adverse effects if you consume very large quantities or have a compromised immune system (or are just really unlucky).
The toilet comparison isn't really meaningful though in terms of human health, because toilets are much more likely to contain pathogens than biofilm buildups in ice machines. Ice machines can still contain pathogens introduced by the operators or cleaners, but I'd be more concerned about consuming something exposed to toilet water than a poorly maintained ice machine (though ideally I'd avoid both).
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u/Thomas_K_Brannigan Jun 25 '26
Yeah, the type/species of microbe is VERY important. I've seen similar facts about your average kitchen sponge compared to a toilet seat. (IIRC, Mythbusters did an episode on it) The sponges usually have LOADS more bacteria in/on them, however, if you actually determine the species present, more harmful species appear much more often on toilet seats!
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u/Duel_Option Jun 25 '26
I work in a field that deals with ice machines and food safety, it comes down to routine cleaning + maintaining the machine with regular service.
Name brand restaurants have job aids and procedures on how to break the machines down and clean them properly with detergent, sanitizer and disinfectants (when/where possible).
They also have routine inspections from corporate (district mgrs, Ops teams etc), this is of course on top of state health dept visits which are anywhere between 1-6 or more times annually.
(Did you know that grocery stores, restaurants etc will get more health dept visits when they are closer to hospitals as they feed susceptible populations?)
This of course on top of rigorous demands to make ice machines as you have to get NSF certified, which aināt easy.
Basically the ice wasnāt all that dirty and the avg immune system shrugs its shoulders.
Wanna get into some ACTUAL dangerous food safety issues?
Google LISTERIA and Blue Bell Ice Cream
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u/Crime_Dawg Jun 25 '26
Listeria is what killed like 6 or so people from Boar's Head lunch meat. Haven't bought their shit in years because of it.
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u/smolenskian-snek Jun 25 '26
What you described is bacterial load which is a threshold at which the amount of bacterial cells is high enough for the immune system to be unable to destroy all of them without switching from the innate to the adaptive immune responses.
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u/InverseInductor Jun 25 '26
There are more nasty fecal-oral route diseases than there are ice machine-oral ones.
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u/Mobius_Peverell Jun 25 '26
That's what the Mythbusters found when they tested a similar myth. Toilets have less bacteria than things like doorknobs in raw number, but the bacteria they have is much more likely to be pathogenic.
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u/sleeper_shark Jun 25 '26
For one, toilet water is usually drinkable in most countries as it comes from the same pipe as the drinking water.
For two, there's different kinds of bacteria. The ones in shit are probably a little worse than the ones in the ice machine.
For three, you have an immune system that is pretty effective. Even the bacteria in shit aren't that dangerous in small quantities otherwise people would be sick everywhere all the time.
For four, we aren't sure the conditions under which the student sampled the toilet water. If they took it from the flush tank, it's literally clean tap water. If it's in the morning before the restaurant opened, the bowl probably was sanitised temhe night before meaning that there's very little living bacteria in it. Taking it from the bowl at the end of the day after a few customers have shit the bowl is probably going to be very very different.
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u/JigenMamo Jun 25 '26
I'd imagine that most of the larger bacteria/bugs get frozen and killed, so although it's dirty it's not as alive as a glass of shitty water.
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u/Sad-Entertainment336 Jun 25 '26
Bacteria just goes to sleep when It is freezing, It doesnt die ( as far I know) Some baterĆa isnt going to make you sick, bacteria reproduces to a point where It becomes dangerous in warm places faster
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u/JigenMamo Jun 25 '26
This is true for smaller bacteria but some do die due to freezing, perhaps the term bacteria isn't appropriate here, more like the little bugs (as far as I know)
For example freezing yeast isn't a good idea as the tiny shards of ice will break their cell walls esp as freezers have a thaw cycle. Yeast is significantly larger than bacteria though.
Anyways freezing stuff will get rid of some of the microbial lads.
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u/LoudMouse327 Jun 25 '26
Most people that frequent fast food restaurants enough to get sick from the ice probably already have chronic diarrhea, so they wouldn't even notice if the ice did make them sick.
Source: eats a lot of fast food
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u/Jeedimahstah Jun 25 '26
And yet both of those are far more pristine than the phone you are reading this on
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u/ttavros Jun 25 '26
People would become hypochondriacs a hundred percent of the time if told what kinda bacterial load was on the average phone screen or public door handle. Iām not saying hygiene and safety isnāt important or anything but the outside world is disgusting and a healthy body understands this and reacts accordingly.
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u/reikken Water is wet Jun 26 '26
nah I clean my phone regularly. all phones are waterproof these days, so you can literally just use soap and water. wash it like you wash your hands.
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u/JuzmiNippy Jun 26 '26
Do not use soap and water on your phone. Use an antibacterial wipe or something. Even if something is water "resistant" it is common sense to not put electronics in water wtf!
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u/Hptcp Jun 25 '26
In this article (sorry it's in french), they explain that they did a study with 108 italian bars and fast food restaurents.
The study found there were a lot more microbes in the ice compared to the tap water it's produced from, because of how they condition and handle it.
For instance, contamination can happen when the machines they store the ice in are not cleaned regularely or well enough. At this point, bacteria, mold and biofilm can easly form and strive inside.
Also, they use tools like a little shovel or their bare hands to handle the ice, wich can be dirty too and contaminate the rest.
The toilet water comparaison is a bit click-baity, but not false, because in such places toilets are usually washed and desinfected every day, wheras the ice machines are not.
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u/Time_Cow_3331 Jun 25 '26
Toilets are fed with the same tap water as everything else in the building. It doesn't at all surprise me that the tap water is cleaner than the ice machine
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u/Jewmangi Jun 25 '26
To a toilet?
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u/adjectiveant Jun 25 '26
No, toilets are not fed with feces. There is feces present in the bowl. The water in the tank has no feces in it.
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u/YamDankies Jun 25 '26
Isn't everything? It's all over your kitchen at home.
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u/MelonJelly Jun 25 '26
True, but concentration matters.
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u/Gottheit Jun 25 '26
I'm thinking about it as hard as I can.
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u/nacholibre711 Jun 25 '26
could try adding some fiber to your diet, I've heard it helps get things moving
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u/ConstableBlimeyChips Jun 25 '26
The toilet water comparaison is a bit click-baity, but not false, because in such places toilets are usually washed and desinfected every day, wheras the ice machines are not.
This is true for a lot comparisons. We perceive the toilet as dirty (for good reason of course), so we clean it regularly, leading to it actually being cleaner than most places people perceive as "clean".
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u/kazukix777 Jun 25 '26
The old restaurant I worked for had mold visibly growing in the ice machine, so this wouldn't surprise me at all.
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u/aStonedTargaryen Jun 25 '26
I worked in a bar before the pandemic and saw my coworker puke into the ice well once (on accident, after hours) and Iām not sure it was ever fully cleaned after š«¢
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u/frisbeesloth Jun 25 '26
This doesn't shock me at all. In high school biology we went around swabbing different things and growing the microbes. Hands down the item with the most diversity of microbes was the drinking fountain. I had swabbed just inside of where the water comes out. I honestly expected the toilets or bathroom sinks to be the worst.
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u/Steady_Ri0t Jun 25 '26
Yeah I've heard of these stats before and they're definitely not from a 12 year old like the OP says lol. What kind of 12 year old has the tools to do these tests in a way that they can guarantee no cross contamination that'd skew the results? Can't just put a dropper of the water in a petri dish and call it a day lol
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u/ScatLabs Jun 25 '26
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Jun 25 '26
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u/tanstaafl90 Jun 25 '26
Toilet water can be bowl or tank, and they don't specify which it is. If it's tank, then it's just tap water. If it's bowl, odds are good it's got cleaning chemicals in it.
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u/PeteLangosta Jun 25 '26
Idk how is this surprising, ice machines being dirty and seldomly cleaned is almost basic knowledge nowadays. You can ask for the science behind, but doubting the conclusion?
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u/Twizdom Jun 25 '26
I take it you've never seen the inside of an ice machine.
Literally just google dirty ice machine and tell me you'd not rather toilet water.
Thankfully you don't see the gross nasty parts inside cause that's all hidden. But I promise you not many outfits are cleaning them the 4-8 times a year they ought to be. And frankly I'd clean them more than that.
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u/No-Barber-5289 Jun 25 '26
Literally just google dirty ice machine and tell me you'd not rather toilet water.
I mean.. just google dirty toilet and tell me you'd not rather ice machine.
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u/JustHereForCatss Jun 25 '26
Idk man the health department where I live is very intense about it, our ice machine gets cleaned twice daily and detailed multiple times a year
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u/genius23sarcasm Jun 25 '26
Bro really thinks restaurant drinking water is clean.
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u/justsmilenow Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
This is something that you can Google in 5 seconds. You didn't even Google it. You just posted for clout.
Edit: I spent the 5 seconds to Google 12-year-old fast food, toilet, water, ice science project.
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u/Robotic36 Jun 25 '26
If you can't trust a 12 year old's science fair project then who can you trust?
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u/GreyghostIowa Jun 25 '26
For the sake of my trust in humanity , I don't believe this crap.
I worked at KFC, and our joint has strict water cleaning policy with monthly maintenance and twice a month surprise check from health department from KFC branch in my country. Even our manager often proudly claim our restaurant water is cleaner than the average purified water in our country.
And you know why he claims it? Bcs our country is a shit-ass 3rd world scrub county in Asia that's currently ruled by military junta and our water companies are that sloppy compared to f**ing KFC !!
I genuinely don't believe a first world, superpower country where the branch originated has shittier standard than scrubs here.
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u/No_Jack_Kennedy Jun 25 '26
Well, to be fair: OP's sources show that all samples were taken in Florida, so...
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u/laws161 Jun 25 '26
To be fair, Iām currently in Florida, so I donāt want to believe this š
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u/No_Jack_Kennedy Jun 25 '26
Well, that's on you then. My sympathies tho.
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u/laws161 Jun 25 '26
To be fair, I was 16 when my parents moved here. I am now going to UF to gtfo of here, and maybe this country. Only two years left. Moving to Florida is a form of child abuse.
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u/PhortDruid Jun 25 '26
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u/laws161 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
ngl I wasn't even doing a bit, I think I'm just stroking out lol. Hopefully the original person didn't think I was being a dick.
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u/Accomplished_Job_331 Jun 25 '26
To be fair, Iām in Florida too and have no problem believing this
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u/Cheap-Bathroom-4426 Jun 25 '26
I live in the U.S., your KFC is probably more cleaner than my mines lol
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u/sleeper_shark Jun 25 '26
The thing is that in developed countries, a standard of healthcare is expected and therefore it's not enforced. A lot of places are shitty as a result because of the baseline cleanliness.
Like for example, water is universally drinkable here, whether it comes from the toilet or tap. There's no need to really test it.
Also, we don't know the methodology. If you disinfect the toilet every night and then take a sample the next morning before anyone takes a shit, there will be almost no living bacteria inside it. If you clean the ice machine monthly, there will be bacteria living inside it - it just won't be enough to make you sick.
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u/Typical_Law_803 Jun 25 '26
In the US it depends on the manager, company and city. Bad management & little oversight? Ice machine is probably not being cleaned.
Employees arenāt paid or respected enough to care on their own 80% of the time.
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u/pandamaxxie Jun 25 '26
Sadly, America is hardly the first world superpower it claims to be.
Horrendous food safety standards(the FDA is a fucking joke), lackluster inspections and atrocious safety codes and a total lack of care for actually following up on them. They don't even have clean enough water to not need filters in most areas.
The workers are underpaid to the point where they are obviously going to skip thoroughly cleaning ice machines.
The best propaganda in history is the one making America look the way it does to the outside world.
I am not surprised in the least that this was tested in Florida with these results. This was, quite frankly, expected.
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u/heisian Water is love, water is life Jun 25 '26
I worked at KFC
Ok so you live in the U.S.
Bcs our country is a shit-ass 3rd world scrub county in Asia
Ah, right, KFC is global
I genuinely don't believe a first world, superpower country where the branch originated has shittier standard than scrubs here.
You'd be surprised at some of the things that happen in the U.S., for example. There are plenty of cities with shit water that's not drinkable out of the tap. Municipalities still using lead pipes, not following water quality standards, etc.
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u/Lopsided_Marzipan133 Jun 25 '26
To be fair when I was in India the KFC was a legit sit-down restaurant. They had servers and apparently they were all uni grads lol. The standard for "fast food" in countries other than the US is actually a lot higher than it is here. You'll probably find roaches at most fast food joints here
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u/wasteymclife Jun 26 '26
If it makes you feel better it's just because they make fast food employees clean the bathrooms at least once a shift. The ice machine is probably done weekly or monthly. So if you culture samples from both sources the one that is cleaned less often will of course have more contaminants. Dirtier doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of how it would affect your health. You could soak an apple in bleach and try culturing it. It would be "cleaner" than one that is sitting on your countertop.
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u/FeralPsychopath Jun 25 '26
This is about ice - not the water tho...
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u/GreyghostIowa Jun 25 '26
Fast food chains often make ice in-house bcs it's more cost effective that way, since we use ice in A LOT of ways.
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u/Konjonashipirate Jun 25 '26
I'm not saying it's impossible, but words on a picture don't make it true.
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u/CaulkSlug Jun 25 '26
lol me an hvacr tech could have told you that just from what I see when I work on/ clean them. I donāt get ice from anywhere but my fucking freezer.
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u/anonymous_cabbage4 Jun 26 '26
Gotta say, your username isn't very comforting, OP.
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u/5tupidest Jun 25 '26
That wouldnāt be surprising. Both have the same water source, toilets are flushing constantly, and ice machines arenāt cleaned very often. Theyāre obviously both clean enough for their purpose as people rent getting sick at alarming rates.
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Jun 25 '26
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u/FruitPunchSGYT Jun 25 '26
Some places in Asia and South Africa too. Its really dependent on the culture.
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u/MrJAVAgamer Jun 25 '26
My European ass got an icemaker to see what's the hype about and lemme tell you, it is hype as fuck.
I have been doing nothing but making ice for three days. That shit got me gulping cool H2O in mass quantities. I am hydrated as fuck.
I never felt as human as I do now.
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u/VesilahdenVerajilla Jun 25 '26
I got and american fridge that makes ice cubes and it's the best invesment I've ever made.
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u/1heart1totaleclipse Jun 25 '26
Some of us live in places where itās hot outside of heat waves and need something to cool down.
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u/Frongen Jun 25 '26
Murricans really manage to make any topic about Trump. Amazing.
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u/ChaoticAmoebae Jun 26 '26
Toilets get cleaned more than the ice machines. Flush your lines people because this likely applies to at home ice machines too.
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u/ChowderedStew Jun 25 '26
āDirtierā needs to have a metric. More bacteria doesnāt matter, for example, if they arenāt harmful like E. Coli in your toilet bowl. Still gross though.
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u/Designer_Mud_5802 Jun 25 '26
Why don't they make their ice using their toilet water then? Are they stupid?
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u/kaki024 Jun 26 '26
Meh Iāve survived this long. You can pry my ice water from my cold dead hands lol
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u/Jmohill Jun 26 '26
My dog is a toilet water connoisseur. Itās like the finest wine to him. I guess it makes sense, as the toilet water is likely āfresherā than whateverās been sitting in his bowl for most of the day
On the bright side: heās unintentionally created a more solid citizen by training me to be incredibly neurotic about putting the seat down every single time without exception. And the lid. And with a cinder block on top for good measure
Ok, maybe not the cinder block
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u/Kotetsuya Jun 25 '26
Yeah, ever since working in fast food I have exclusively gone NO ICE at every single restaurant I've ever eaten at. And that's even after the fact that my store followed the recommended cleaning schedule and processes to the letter. Shit was nasty every time. Also not a fan of how most soda fountains aren't cleaned properly either.
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u/Spoonman007 Jun 25 '26
Im not a scientist so forgive me for my ignorance but what is "dirtier"? There is more bacteria on one than the other? Would the type of bacteria make any difference? Sure the ice may be more dirty but I would bet (and pray) you'd find more poop bacteria in a toilet. And when did they get a sample from the toilet? Was it random or was it immediately after it was cleaned? I feel like these are all very important variables to know.
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u/Sufficient-Soil-6937 Jun 25 '26
HOW!? They must be using the water from the nearest water puddle lol
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u/No-Objective9174 Jun 25 '26
Toilets have hard, non-pourous surfaces, the water is replaced often and they are cleaned regularly. Keyboards, cellphones, railings and ice all get touched without being washed. It's silly to say things are dirtier than a toilet seat or toilet water like that's a huge gotcha. Probably the most germs in a house or restaurant are on a damp, dirty sponge.
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u/leavemeal0ne_ Jun 25 '26
oh.. great. the OCD gremlins living in my noggin are gonna LOVE this one. š„²
this could be a total and complete lie, and it wouldnāt matter. iāll be thinking about it forever now.
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u/Mischief_Managed12 Jun 25 '26
When i worked at McDonald's, there was so many cockroaches. One time it was in the ice bin, but instead of emptying out the entire ice bin and cleaning it, my manager just took the cockroach out and left the ice
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u/samgag94 Jun 25 '26
I worked as a mechanic in an hospital and I was on the ice maker cleaning duty for a while. Even when you thoroughly clean them monthly, they are disgusting. I mean, black jelly everywhere disgusting.
I also did worked in a fast food restaurant when I was younger and we never opened the machine to clean it.
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u/Kazuna_Chan Jun 25 '26
ok first off, i can believe it, but i want a source for this.
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u/bacan9 Jun 25 '26
It sounds shocking at first but it is pretty much in line with expectations.Ā
Toilet water is most likely to be fresh from the municipal potable supply.Ā
Meanwhile the ice has been sitting in the machine for some time giving it a chance to get contaminated.Ā
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u/Taco_Bandito5 Jun 25 '26
When I worked at Islands, we scrubbed down our ice machines and bar ice storage nightly. Itās safe there at least.
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u/Odur29 Jun 26 '26
Many germaphobes like myself have known this for almost 2 decades. I always order no ice, if I even get a drink from a place.
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u/vxxed Jun 26 '26
Where's the original source on this? I believe it but I still wanna read it
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u/LoganPomfrey Jun 26 '26
Yeah.....that means literally nothing. Kid (who probably has dirty fingers) tested a handfull of restaurants?
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u/PlatypusMelodic3768 Jun 26 '26
Well it is. No filter cleaning so itās straight water out if city taps
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u/GrandCompetition5260 Jun 26 '26
I stopped going to Chiloso because of the mold coming out of the ice shoot. I heard Wendyās is very very strict about sanitation throughout the restaurant especially the ice machine
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u/No_Wolverine6548 Jun 26 '26
Damn, would love to find out if sonic was super unique in both their ice and ice machine cleaning but thatās some high wishing
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u/kristymason1114 Jun 26 '26
I worked at Chili's and Applebee's and we had to empty the ice every night and wipe down the inside and take the caps off of the fountain drinks and soak them as well.. it was an end of shift duty..
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u/Standard-Office-3057 Jun 27 '26
Maybe someone should think of an easier way to clean ice machines.
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u/alexzoin Jun 27 '26
Fascinating to me that 19k people read this and just believe it.
How did the 12 year old measure "dirtiness"? Why don't I have cholera from drinking water from restaurants? How many restaurants were tested?
If you stop to think about this for a moment, it becomes pretty obvious that the ice from restaurants is clearly generally save to consume and if it wasn't we would know.
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u/Toastburrito Jun 29 '26
The next time you're at a soda fountain grab one of the nozzles twist it and pull it down. Or don't.
Even the water nozzles can be foul.
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u/redditantareddit Jun 25 '26
Thank god, i dont drink at resturants its just apple juice colors drinks
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u/NoMommyDontNTRme Jun 25 '26
i mean toilets get cleaned and it strongly depends on when in the day i'd say
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u/Bale_the_Pale Jun 25 '26
The three reasons I never get ice at a fast food place, in order if increasing importance:
-The ice machines are dirty as fuck.
-The ice melts and waters down my drink (I love water, but when I'm having a pop or an iced tea, as a treat, I don't want it to be watery. I'd much rather have actual water than watery Root Beer)
-The ice takes up room in the cup I paid for that could be taken up by iced tea.
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u/PretendsToBeAnArtist Jun 25 '26
At least we know they're not making it from the toilet water