The unsanitary cooking environment of a delivery-only restaurant in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, has been exposed online. [Captured from Threads]
The unsanitary cooking environment of a delivery-only restaurant in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, has been exposed online. [Captured from Threads]

Concerns among consumers are growing after the unsanitary cooking conditions at a delivery-only restaurant in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, were made public.

A post went viral on Threads on Friday after a user described a restaurant as "the dirtiest I've ever seen while working delivery part-time."

The user, identified only as A, said they run their own small business while also working part-time as a delivery driver. "I run a business myself, but this was truly the dirtiest delivery restaurant I've ever seen," A wrote. "The owner hadn't washed their hair, was wearing slippers and had no hat on."

A said the area around the gas burners was coated entirely in yellow grease, the rice cooker lid was left open and the rice had turned yellow. "The air conditioner was caked in grease, and the fan — which should have been white — had turned black," A added.

"The worst part was inside the store," A continued. "There was trash everywhere — you'd wonder whether this was really a place that makes food. In the very back, there was a folding cot that had turned black."

A short video of about five seconds that A filmed inside the restaurant showed a pile of white papers — apparently order slips — scattered across a table, with delivery boxes, food ingredients and packaging materials strewn across the floor. The man who appeared to be the owner was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, shorts and bare feet in slippers, busily packaging food.

A said the restaurant was located in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, and questioned whether the owner would feed their own family the same way. "The bags had phrases like 'made for families' printed on them — I wonder if they'd really feed their own family like this," A wrote.

Commenters reacted with dismay. "Delivery-only places are particularly bad," one wrote. "That's why I always skip delivery-only restaurants no matter how good the reviews are." Others said the owner appeared to have "no concept of hygiene whatsoever," expressed frustration at being lumped in with such operators as fellow small-business owners, and predicted that inspections would change nothing: "You can't fix that — they only pretend to clean up when inspectors show up."

A said they reported the business through the Safety Sinmungo, a government safety reporting platform.

As criticism of delivery-only restaurants spread online, some owners of such establishments pushed back, posting photos and videos of their own clean kitchens. "We're a delivery-only place too, and we clean every single day," one wrote. Others said they work hard to avoid exactly this kind of suspicion, and urged people not to paint the entire industry with the same brush.

Suspected violations of food hygiene regulations can be reported to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's hotline for substandard or illegal food products at 1399.


betterj@heraldcorp.com