Kevin Hansen ordered a steak at a Texas Roadhouse in West Bend, Milwaukee and bit into it. After three bites, he noticed something odd. A foreign object. It wasn’t a prize, or a coupon for a free drink. It was human facial hair, placed in his steak by cook Ryan Kropp. Hansen wasn’t the only victim of Koop’s follicle-spreading-spree. According to the criminal complaint, later that night Kropp placed hair in a second steak, turned to a co-worker, and announced, “These are my pubes.” The cook was charged with a felony count of putting a foreign object in food, punishable by a max of 3.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Beware ye, consumer, of the wrath of the underpaid restaurant staff.
(Thanks to Jay!)
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I doubt that many businesses do background checks on applicants for low-/un-skilled, high-turnover jobs unless there’s some law that states that they have to (and even then…). It would just be too much time and expense.
@arch05: The dude is a freakish misfit and paying him more won’t change that.
yep, that seems to be common whenever they are talking about someone doing something disgusting. Because being low paid means it’s ok to cause a health risk or tamper with someones food…perhaps it’s that kind of attitude that prevents them from getting a better paid job? @lorddave:
@h0mi: Damn! You beat me to the “Waiting” punchline.
@Chris Walters: hahahahh! but seriously, EW! this is the sickest thing ive read yet on this site.
@Spaztrick:
I scanned the comments looking for the reference.
In any case, if you’ve ever seen the movie, the main point is “Don’t fuck with the people who handle your food” I worked at a Ponderosa for two years, and it’s crazy what the cooks will think up if you piss someone off who’s working the floor.
My favorite trick was when one of the cooks ran a steak through the dishwasher after the customer told the server she would have been better off having sex for money. She served him the dishwasher steak and reported the sexual harassment to management after he ate it.
This is why I don’t eat out. I used to work in a diner and the cooks would always drop food on the floor (which was covered in grease, dirt, and crumbs) and then say, “Well, the grill will cook the germs off, so it’s alright”.
i worked at taco bell when i was in high school. we goofed off to make time go by quicker but i can honestly say we never messed with peoples food. even the rude customers who treated us like crap. i dont think its fair to put all people in the food industry in the same category as this disgusting pig. there are idiots in every industry. thank god this man got caught.
When I was a cook in a restaurant, the motto was “It’s nothing 550 degrees won’t kill.” I am now much pickier about where I’ll eat out.
And to everyone who’s calling the headline overly dramatic, pubic hair is technically any hair that doesn’t come in until puberty so, yeah, his nasty goatee-steak qualifies as pubic too.
and either way I don’t want someones hair in my food, I don’t really care what part of their body it comes from, I prefer hair-free meat.@Captain Sassypants:
I hope he gets to eat pubes for dinner on a daily basis in prison for the next 3.5 years.
well, depending on the sexual promiscuity of this so-called “cook”, the texas roadhouse could re-package this as a new and improved “surf and turf”.
ugh. i can’t believe i just made that joke.
I’ll be honest, even if someone is under-paid, there’s no reason for them to act like an emo and try to get back by doing something to a customer or their products. What would they have accomplished? If a person at ooooh say burger king were pissed one day, and decided to spit in someone’s burger., i’m posisitve the person wouldn’t even realized their burger has an extra toping ( or 2,depending on the worker) and will of course not bother them because of that, and only when they DO know will it bother them.
@statnut:
Really? Never would have guessed it. I mean, your post seemed sooo sincere.
As wrong as this is, this is why I never dine out anymore with the friends of mine who insist on “sending things back” if they aren’t exactly freaking perfect.
I used to have a friend who would complain and send back EVERYTHING. I’m not sure what her goal is, but I’m sure several things she got back were a little more “well done” than she asked for.
Cooks should not assume that all people that send food back are out to get a meal for free. That is up to the manager to decide and that is why there is a manager. What right does a cook have to be judge and jury to decide this. Food tampering is a severe criminal act. I have learned to treat people as you would like to be treated yourself. Maybe this cook would like hair in his food.
I feel sorry for this customer I imagine he gets sick every time he thinks about this. If this cook has a sick enough mind to do this he may have a STD. This costumer runs the risk of contracting it.
To set the record straight Kevin was the one that got the pubic hair in his food not a facial hair. Read the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinal report on 2/28/08 go to JSONLINE.com to read this.
We refer to this chain as the Texas Blowhouse. Took a kids soccer team to one, got chili that was still frozen and a variety of other very nasty things, and half the team got sick. It was awful.
Hey! A followup. He pled guilty just two days ago.
See [www.examiner.com]
Sentencing is on August 12th.
Let’s hope he gets, say, at least one of the 3 years possible sentence.
I worked in restaurants as a kid and learned very young to never be a jerk to those who are feeding you.