Mojo In The Morning

They Purposely Contaminated Mojo

8 min
Apr 10, 20269 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

The Mojo in the Morning show discusses instances where restaurant servers may have intentionally contaminated or tampered with customer food as retaliation for perceived difficult behavior. Hosts and callers share personal anecdotes of alleged food tampering incidents, including cross-contamination with gluten, excessive spice, and foreign objects.

Insights
  • Food service workers may retaliate against customers perceived as difficult or demanding by intentionally contaminating orders, creating serious health and legal risks
  • Customers with dietary restrictions face a dilemma: disclosing allergies risks retaliation, while staying silent risks health consequences
  • The casual discussion of food tampering reveals a cultural acceptance of retaliatory behavior in service industries despite severe legal and safety implications
  • Customers often rationalize accepting potentially contaminated food rather than risk confrontation with service workers
Trends
Growing tension between dietary accommodation requests and service worker resentmentNormalization of food tampering anecdotes in casual media discourseCustomer anxiety about disclosing allergies due to perceived server judgmentLegal liability gaps in food safety enforcement at casual dining establishmentsService industry worker burnout manifesting as intentional customer harm
Companies
Don Pablo's
Mexican restaurant chain where caller Andrew worked as a waiter and intentionally over-spiced a customer's food
Applebee's
Casual dining chain where caller Shay's husband allegedly received mashed potatoes with pennies mixed in
Hard Rock Cafe
Restaurant where caller Tara worked as server and allegedly added debris scraped from prep tables to customer salad
iHeart Radio
Podcast distribution platform mentioned for accessing the Puja Bhajjo podcast
Apple Podcast
Podcast platform mentioned for accessing the Puja Bhajjo podcast
People
Mojo
Primary host discussing gluten allergy incident at restaurant and soliciting caller stories
Shannon
Co-host discussing dietary restrictions and responding to caller anecdotes
Chelsea
Mojo's companion who disputed his theory about intentional food contamination
Andrew
College-era waiter who intentionally over-spiced enchiladas with ghost peppers for a customer
Pat
First-time caller who shared story about restaurant worker spitting in customer's soda
Alex
Caller who experienced gluten sensitivity reaction from soup with flour thickener at chain restaurant
Shay
Caller whose husband received mashed potatoes with pennies at Applebee's
Tara
Former Hard Rock Cafe server who admitted to adding prep table debris to customer's salad
Wes
Person with shellfish allergy mentioned by Shannon as experiencing severe allergic reactions
Bianca
Person referenced for experiencing eye swelling similar to Wes's allergic reaction
Quotes
"I am convinced that the guy contaminated me because he thought I was one of the annoying gluten guys."
MojoEarly segment
"Would you rather gluten or their spit? Honestly, I won't get sick from their spit."
ShannonMid-segment
"What if she would have choked or something happened to her? Yeah. What if she died, Andrew?"
MojoAndrew's story
"I have no problem with your spit, with your saliva. If I don't know about it, I'm fine with it."
ShannonMid-segment
"No gloss, no filter, just stories, spoken without fear."
Podcast intro/outroOpening and closing
Full Transcript
No gloss, no filter, just stories, spoken without fear. Varsan, who is not generous, cannot be an artist. The world will be at peace only when it is ruled by poets and philosophers. Listen to my weekly podcast, the puja bhajjo on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come for the honesty, stay for the fire. Alright, it's Mojo on the morning show. We went out for dinner and you have a lot of allergies, Shannon. And I don't know about you because I've not known. No, just picky. Oh, you just picky? Alright, so you're not like allergic or anything or try to eat certain ways? Nope. So, I have a gluten allergy and I don't want to have a gluten allergy. I am not a California gluten guy. Like I'm not like one of those people that does the whole, I have a gluten allergy because I want to, you know, eat, you know, whatever. I'd love to eat as much gluten as possible. Like if it was up to me, I would glutenize myself as much as I could. I loved being able to eat as much pizza and bread and all that stuff. But I end up finding myself and kids, I apologize on this one. I have to sit on the toilet the whole time if I have a gluten allergy. Like I have to run. Even if it's cross contamination, right? Cross contamination. I get sick as a freaking dog. So, long story short, went to a restaurant. We were out and I said something to the waiter. And when I said it to him, it must have come across like I was one of those guys that wants to be in a gluten diet because, or gluten free diet because I'm kind of like, snowty. Yeah. And he goes, oh, okay. And he kind of like, and, well, he took my order when he took my order. He's like, okay, whatever. I am convinced that the guy contaminated me because he thought I was one of the annoying gluten guys. And so I got so sick that day eating or that, you know, that night eating so sick to the point that I said to Chelsea, I think he did it on purpose. And Chelsea said, there's no way he would do that on purpose. They made, they screwed up in the kitchen. I go, no, Chelsea, he gave me a look and the look was like, I'm going to get you. And it got me thinking, are there any waiters or waitresses that have ever purposely done something to a customer because you thought that they were a pain in the ass? Because I think the guy glutenized me. I love that you say glutenized. Is that even allowed? I don't even know. But I think, I think that, I don't know. I guess I would call it, if it's not glutenized, I guess I would poison you. Poison me. Yes. Would you rather gluten or their spit? Honestly, I won't get sick from their spit. You wouldn't even know. I wouldn't even realize it. That's my biggest fear is that I send something back and someone spits in it or rubs it somewhere. I know that's why, unless something is very, very wrong, I will just eat it. I have no problem with your spit, with your saliva. If I don't know about it, like if I don't know that there is spit in there, I'm fine with it. I'm good with it. Yeah. 844-MOJO-LIVE or text 9-5-5-0-0. Has anybody ever had that where they went out to a restaurant, they ate out with friends and family, and they thought that they purposely got poisoned by the server that was taking care of it? I always hate telling them that I have an allergy. Wes actually has a shellfish allergy, but it's like, I always try to say it very nicely. I know I'm being a burden. Look, I have the weirdest allergy. It's avocado. I know this is not a Mexican restaurant. However, a lot of people use avocado oil, so I have to tell you that just in case. You guys could die. You've- I'm not a fan of flax. I bet you, I'm sure that Wes with shellfish is horrible. He gets really itchy. His eyes get super swollen, kind of like what happened to Bianca. His eyes get super swollen. He gets very red and itchy. My sister's throat closes from her shellfish. That's me with avocado. Yeah. What's up, Andrew? Hi. Hey, everybody. Happy Friday. Hey. What's going on? Have you ever had a waiter do this to you? No, I got a story. I was a waiter. Oh, my God. What you do? But yeah, so back in college, I worked at a Mexican place in Don Pablo since I don't even know if it's the right year. Oh, my God. I miss Don Pablo. Yeah. And there's one in Kent, I believe. I worked at the one in Grand Rapids, and there was a girl that had come to her that we mutually knew friends or whatever, and we hadn't had a party. Well, she was with one of her friends and stole my roommate's PlayStation. It felt like a mini PlayStation. So a week later, here she is sitting at my table, and she didn't know I'd actually do that, but we all worked at this restaurant. So she ordered enchiladas and burritos, and we went back to the cooks and said, make this one real hot. Oh, my God. And so they stashed those peppers and chilies and ghost pepper all throughout it. And I waited until her water was gone and then I served it to her and then she walked away. What if she would have choked or something happened to her? Yeah. What if she died, Andrew? Would you have felt bad? Yeah. I mean, that was $21. That was $45. Yeah, I felt terrible down, but back then it was quite good. Yeah, back then you were being, what's going on? How are you doing, Pat? How are you? Hi, good. First time long time. Yeah. Well, I have a friend that worked at a restaurant. This was years ago, but she had a problematic customer and she's spitting her soda. Oh, geez. So when she, yeah, she spit her soda right on top of the ice and everything and the bubbles from her spit, which has never disappeared. And the lady cook manager, all the time. She didn't think the bubbles were the carbonation from the pop that was there. You know the difference. Really? Right. Yeah, those bubbles never went away. And by the way, let me give you, let me give you a better first time long time because Kev's not here today, but here we go one more time. First time long time. Pat's on the phone. The spitting color. We love you, Pat. Take care of yourself. Hold on. Alex, you had an incident happen to you just yesterday like I had. Exactly. I used to say that I'm gluten sensitive because I get the same reaction and I get really thick where it feels like your stomach was punched and cramped and it just hurt so bad. Wow. And I told the server that was helping me, it was like a chain restaurant. Like I have a gluten sensitivity. If you don't have gluten free bread, that's fine. I'll go with the soup and salad. But what they didn't tell me is the soup that I thought that I would normally not have beaten it as a thickener. It has flour in it. Oh, yeah. It's awful. Yeah. And were you on the can the whole time? I have the opposite reaction where it feels like I just need it out of my body. So it comes up. Yeah. I actually get that or I get arthritis or something like that from there. So hold on a second. Shay, what happened to you, Shay? In college, my husband now, but he got served pennies and mashed potatoes at Applebee's. Pennies. What did he do that made him get, they put pennies in there. So I guess we were a little annoying because we were in college and we had just, it was the Applebee's by central and we were probably a little too drunk. And yeah, we were a little annoying and they, so he got a steak dinner and there was mashed potatoes, green beans, steak. And then when they came up, when they came out with the food handed it to him, he dipped into his mashed potatoes and there was like pennies all in it. Again. I thought maybe. You are in, they're in such legal trouble with that. I thought you were like bad tippers or something like that. It's crazy how many people, hold on Tara, you gave a customer extra seasoning in their salad and are we to say that an extra seasoning was like human seasoning? No. So I worked at Hardrock at Bay as a server and we had just really a whole customer and so we decided we wanted to give her some special seasoning. We went into the prep tables and they had two prep tables and we took a scraper and scraped in between the two prep tables. All of like the debris and like, oh Jesus. Oh my God. So the best salad is, it was the best salad you've ever eaten. That's probably the best thing that they had on the buffet that day. I'll be honest with you. It is a buffet. You're eating so much food. It doesn't make a difference. So all right. Thank you for the call. Appreciate it. No gloss. No filter. Just stories. Spoken without fear. A person who is not generous cannot be an artist. The world will be at peace only when it is ruled by poets and philosophers. Listen to my weekly podcast, the Pooja Bhachow on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Come for the honesty. Stay for the fire.