The food court at this Sam's Club is dangerous. The cashier handles money and touches the cash register, then grabs food and drinks without washing hands or changing gloves. They seem to think that if they are wearing gloves, all is well. Other employees in the food court wear gloves and touch their faces, hair, dirty surfaces, then touch the pizzas, dogs, and food they are making. They don't realize that gloves are no cleaner than what they touch; no better than bare hands.
I have complained to management more than ten times, to no avail. I have complained to corporate three times, and yet there has been no change. I have complained to the county health department, but apparently they have done nothing. I love Sam's hot dogs, but given the poor sanitation, I will not eat them.
The main issue here is the lack of training and followup. People will do as they are taught if there is oversight that confirms compliance. That is obviously not happening at this Sam's Club. I worked in food businesses for almost sixty years, and have never seen such disregard for proper sanitary practices once the issues are pointed out. Any establishment can get lax from time to time, but when a customer complains about dirty hands, that should be the equivalent of alarm bells going off to get them back on track. At Sam's Club, they only care while the complaint is being made. Once they dutifully smile and say they will take care of it, they think they have taken care of the problem, and nothing changes.
Today was a good example of what happens with each complaint: I pointed out to the manager that their food court was still not in compliance with sanitary practices. The manager smiled, said "thank you, I will take care of it", then made a phone call and kept working. When I was finished shopping, I checked the food court again, and nothing had changed. I went to the manager and said "just letting you know that nothing has changed in the food court, they're still handling food with unsanitary hands". She was not pleasant when she said "I addressed the issue". I said "but they are still serving contaminated food". She repeated "I addressed the issue". She turned away, making it clear that she was done with me.
Long story short: don't eat at Sam's food court. If you do, at least watch how they handle your food, and if you see that unsanitary hands are about to touch the food you will put in your mouth, ask them to change their gloves. And when they say that their gloves are clean (yes, they have said that to me several times), remind them what they have touched with those gloves and ask if they would put that in their own mouths. read more