Walked into a diner in Gary, Indiana and saw a flat top that hadn't been cleaned since the 80s

I was passing through last week and the cook was scraping this black crust off the griddle with a paint scraper. The seasoning was probably an inch thick in some spots. Anyone else run into a kitchen that just refuses to scrub down their flat top?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon_wood721mo ago

That grill had enough seasoning for a whole other menu.

ruby_sanchez451mo ago

That cook with a paint scraper is the wildest thing I've read all week. An inch of carbonized grease is basically a biohazard waiting to happen, I can't believe health inspectors don't shut that down the second they walk in. I've seen those crusty griddles in a few old school diners but never that thick, the black stuff flakes off into the food and nobody notices until they bite into a chunk of burnt seasoning. Someone should have told that cook to just burn it off with some ice cubes and scrape it down right, it's not that hard to keep a surface clean if you spend five minutes on it after the rush.