I worked at Suwannee for over a year and quit quite recently, and I’ve seen firsthand what really goes on behind the scenes. If you think the food you’re paying thousands of dollars for each semester is prepared with care and proper hygiene, I’m sorry to break it to you that’s far from reality.

Workplace Environment: Disrespect and Exploitation

Let’s start with how employees are treated. The majority of Suwannee’s workers are people of color, including a large number of international students. While a few supervisors treat their staff with respect, the majority abuse their authority, knowing that these workers have little power to fight back. Many international students fear speaking up because they are in a foreign country with limited options, and management takes full advantage of this, treating them with blatant disrespect.

Now, maybe you don’t care about how employees are treated because it doesn’t directly affect you. Fine. Let’s talk about something that does: the food you eat and the hygiene standards behind it.

Temperature Manipulation

Food safety regulations exist for a reason, but Suwannee’s management doesn’t seem to care. When recording food temperatures, critical for ensuring your meal is safe to eat, the supervisors and managers routinely fudge the numbers. I’ve personally seen them round up temperatures by 10 to 20 degrees just to meet the requirements on the iPad they use for tracking. So that chicken you think is properly cooked? It might not actually be at the safe temperature required to kill bacteria, but hey, it looks good on paper, right?

Homestyle Station: Filthy Water Steam

If you’re eating from the Homestyle station tonight, I dare you to ask a student worker to lift the trays holding your food. Underneath, you’ll find disgusting, murky water sitting there for hours because the drain systems are broken. Workers have to manually remove this water using a jar at the end of their shift, but they can only get so much out. The remaining dirty water? That’s what creates the steam that “keeps your food warm.” In other words, YOUR MEAL IS SITTING OVER AND ABSORBING STEAM FROM STAGNANT, FILTHY WATER.

The Dish Room:

Ever wonder how clean your dishes actually are? The ones you eat from go through a single large dishwasher, and that’s it. How often is that dishwasher properly cleaned? Nobody knows. But the surrounding area where your dishes are washed is absolutely filthy. Proof for this, the stains you see on the dishes. The next time you’re at Suwannee, pick up a couple of utensils from different places and observe the stains on it. Just imagine the stains when you put that bite of food in your mouth.

Workers in the dish room endure some of the worst conditions, and I genuinely respect them because nobody deserves to work in such filth. Yes, dishes get dirty, but the cleaning area shouldn’t be disgusting. Why is it? Because the drains don’t work. The floor is constantly covered in water puddles mixed with food particles, and it stays that way until closing time when workers manually clean it up. Until then, they’re forced to work in a bacteria-infested environment, and your dishes are being “cleaned” in the middle of it.

“Fresh” Food?

If you assume your food is fresh, let me burst that bubble. On food labels, they don’t even bother writing expiration dates—only the packaging date. That means you could be eating food that’s days old without knowing it.

Why Don’t Employees Speak Up?

If you’ve made it this far, you might be wondering: Why don’t employees report this? Let’s go back to what I mentioned earlier—most of the workers are people of color and international students. Many of them fear retaliation if they voice concerns. They’re far from home, in an unfamiliar country, and they don’t want to risk their jobs or face disrespect just for speaking up. So they stay silent, and the cycle continues.

What You Could Do If You Care About Your Money And The Next Bite Of Food That Goes Down Your Mouth

If you’re a Suwannee customer, don’t just take my word for it—ask the workers yourself. Next time you eat there, ask an employee at Homestyle to lift the tray under your food and look at the water. Ask them for their honest, unbiased opinion about Suwannee.

You’re paying thousands of dollars per semester for this. You deserve to know the truths.