No one wants to get sick from food at a restaurant. The consequences of unclean food handling for customers can include nausea, abdominal cramps, weakness, fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and even death.

When it comes to clean and dirty restaurant kitchens and unsafe food, Bill Jardine has seen it all.

He has visited hundreds of kitchens in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia to train employees on how to use certain products. He also owned and ran a Buffalo Township restaurant with his name on it for 34 years.

Now he teaches catering management and commercial food analysis in the Hospitality Management Program at Butler County Community College.

“Today most good restaurants and operators are conscious of the way customers perceive things. If the staff is neat and clean, you have more confidence than if the place is in disorder or disarray.”

While patrons usually don't see restaurant kitchens, there are clues to whether the restaurant meal is safe or not.

Jardine described what a customer can check for at a restaurant.

What does it look like?

He said, “What's the appearance and level of cleanliness?

“There are two kinds of dirt, dirty dirt and clean dirt.

“Dirty dirt, like dust on table legs, is what should have been cleaned up along the way or a long time ago. Clean dirt is what just happened that they haven't had a chance to clean up yet.

“Something like dust on the table legs says that things are not as clean as they should be,” he said.

If there are dirty dishes on the tables and the floor is not clean when the restaurant is not busy, this is a problem. A dirty dining room may indicate that the staff is not making and serving food in a clean and careful way.

Are workers clean?

All staff should be neat and have clean hands and nails.

Ignoring hygiene issues like these can be big issues when serving people.

“One thing that bugs me is when wait staff are flipping their hair back,” said Jardine. “If they are serving food, they should have their hair back or have a head covering. If hair is falling down over the shoulders, it could be touching the food.”

“The restrooms should be clean,” Jardine said.

And he added, “You can never wash your hands enough.”

Are there dirty clothes?

“If the staff wears dirty aprons, it's an indicator of what's going on in the kitchen, especially if you see the cook or chef coming out with a dirty apron,” said Jardine.

“They can have some things on the apron, for example, flour or tomato sauce, but there is no excuse for a filthy apron.

“They should change them more often and be more careful about how they are cooking.”

Are gloves needed?

“I think there should be more gloves,” said Jardine. “When staff is actually handling food, they should be wearing gloves 100 percent. In a good kitchen gloves are readily available and should be changed often.”

The gloves are not to protect the food worker's hands. The gloves are to keep the food safe to eat.

“As soon as the person is finished preparing food, they should not do anything else with their gloves. As soon as they touch something else, like the cash register, with their gloves, that's contamination,” he said.

How clean are tables?

“Staff shouldn't be allowed to wipe tables and chairs with the same cloth. A wet cloth is for tables and a dry cloth is for chairs. And, there are good products to use to clean instead of simply a rinsed cloth.”

Specific people should bus the tables. He does not like to see the same people waiting on tables and then bussing tables.

Are inspections tough?

“There are flagrant violations sometimes,” Jardine said. “There are not enough state inspectors to take care of all of them.”

Regulations are not the same everywhere. In his experience, the rules in Allegheny County are much stricter than those in Butler County.

The frequency of inspector visits sometimes depends on the particular restaurant's history of violations. Restaurants with few serious violations receive fewer visits.

“I don't think there's enough concern about food safety in restaurants. Now at least one person at a restaurant has to have the ServSafe certificate. This has helped a lot.”

ServSafe is a program of the National Restaurant Association. It helps restaurants protect customers and is regarded as a necessary part of good business in commercial food preparation.

During the BC3 Hospitality Management program, all students get food safety training and achieve their ServSafe certificate.