A Dunkin’ employee has taken to TikTok in order to air out a bunch of alleged secrets about the chain—or at least the store she was employed at.
In a viral clip that has garnered nearly 800,000 views, user Alaska (@aj.unhinged) makes a list of several gripes with the chain that sparked hundreds of commenters from various users. Many comments were from either current or former Dunkin’ employees who had strong opinions about the chain’s operational procedures themselves.
@aj.unhinged Dunkin donuts is so mid anyway #fastfoodsecrets #dunkindonuts #staledonuts #midcoffee #FAKECOLDFOAM #FAKECOLDBREW #dunkinsecrets #grossfastfood #igotfiredforthis ♬ no one – senia
The short clip is bombarded with multiple text overlays delineating the various food handling practices, how she and her co-workers handle rats being captured in the store when customers are present, and the alleged truth about the sweet cold foam.
“The milks and donuts are always left out for at LEAST 12 hours a day,” Alaska writes.
She continues, “‘Sweet cold foam’ is just whipped cream…”
The TikToker also alleges that the fast food joint cooks meat and eggs on the same surface.
“If you’re a vegetarian and/or vegan just to lyk the meat and eggs are cooked on the same dirty azz paper we never change it,” she shares.
Additionally, Alaska claims Dunkin’ leaves its cooked bacon out for the entire day. “The snakin bacon is mass cooked at 5am and left out all day, we don’t reheat it when you buy it,” she wrote.
She also notes that they never wear gloves and calls out the latte portion sizes. “And a latte is an ENTIRE CUP OF MILK WITH A TEEN TINY SHOT OF ESPRESSO,” she said.
Alaska continues, “the managers make 18 year olds open the stores at 4am bc they’re lazy… When there’s mice caught in the traps while a customers in the store we cough loud so they don’t [hear] it.”
There were some Dunkin’ employees who remarked that this was by no means an accurate representation of what working at their own location was like.
“The dunkin i work at is NOT like this are yall okay?” one commenter said.
Another penned, “Idk about y’all Dunkin’s but mine is not like this like at allllll”
Some also didn’t think it was that big of a deal that she mentioned the employees at her store don’t wear gloves. “To be fair the glove thing isnt bad as long as ur hands r consistently being washed,” one user wrote.
Another TikToker even said that baristas aren’t supposed to be wearing gloves but rather washing their hands every 30 minutes or so while at work. “As a barista ur not supposed to wear gloves you need to be washing ur hands every 30 mins or after touching smth gross or cross contamination…,” they said.
Health inspections are conducted on a store by store basis and guidelines vary from region to region, which means that individual cases of a franchise restaurant failing these inspections or being found unsanitary are heavily contingent upon local laws and regulations. There are approximately 12,900 Dunkin’ locations in 42 different countries worldwide.
There have been some documented incidents of Dunkin’ stores being found in violation of health codes, like one reported on by the Queens Chronicle in 2011, and another in Manhattan in 2017 that effectively shut the location’s doors for a period of time before it re-opened after getting up to code.
Update: Despite a hashtag included on the post stating “I got fired for this,” Alaska clarified she quit in her comments section.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Dunkin’ via email for further comment.
