Texas Woman Goes To Chipotle. Then The Employee Sweats In Her Bowl. What Would You Do?

Restaurant work is hard and sometimes hot, and that can impact everyone in the vicinity—as one Texas woman discovered to her utter dismay.

In a TikTok captioned “I don’t think I’ll be able to go to Chipotle for a while,” Steph (@yourlocalhotmessmom) explained what happened on her most recent trip to the burrito store. It’s a sweaty and unpleasant story.

Just The Sofritas, Please

“I went to the Chipotle in North Round Rock,” Steph says, then pauses for a small gag. “I walked up and this guy [is] sweating, just dripping on his face,” she alleges while making the universal gesture for sweat running down a face with both of her hands.

“You know what? It’s fine,” she decides. She proceeds to order, and as he’s building her bowl, she’s watching him continue to sweat buckets. In particular, she’s watching as a droplet of sweat is dangling off of the tip of his nose.

So now it’s a race against time. And since he’s asked her three times what protein she wants (as a vegan, she wants sofritas, not steak), she’s losing the race against the clock and the trembling droplet.

Then, bloop. The sweat droplet loses the fight against gravity and ends up in her bowl.

He’s unfazed, but she’s horrified.

How Do You Say ‘No Thank You’ To A Stranger’s Sweat?

Aghast, she interrupts him. “‘I’m so sorry, your sweat just dropped in my bowl,'” she recalls informing him.

The Chipotle worker then interrupted her with a huge sigh, turned around, and slammed the bowl into the trash can, she recounts.

At that moment, she says another worker came up, apologized, and asked what she could get for Steph.

She says she responded, “You know what? Actually I’m good.” Then she went to get lunch at Ike’s.

“Ike’s is always the answer,” she quips into the camera, while holding a massive sandwich in both hands.

But It Wasn’t Even Hot Outside

Immediately, residents in the Round Rock area stumbled upon the video. They demanded to know which Chipotle it was and cross-referenced the weather in an attempt to solve the sweat question.

“Girl it was 55° and raining today. Why was he sweating? Did they have the heater on?” asked one viewer.  Then, there’s the user who couldn’t help but introduce another level of horror to the chat. “Now imagine not being able to see this because you did an online order…” contributed Urmyokazu (@urmyokazu).

While multiple folks commented on the superiority of Ike’s to Chipotle. “Ike’s is immediately the answer. Chipotle doesn’t care about you anyways,” said Grandmaster fLex (@bigtex.lex).

What’s The Rule On Bodily Fluids?

According to Reddit, this isn’t the first time a Chipotle employee has been spotted sweating into food. “This is the second time i’ve been to my local chipotle and seen the same man who was making the chicken with sweat dripping off his nose into the food,” wrote u/kind_amphibian_4349. Instead of sympathy, that post garnered replies like the one from u/Cshupe.1, who said, “Every restaurant I’ve worked at is scary.”

While FDA rules about sweat in a commercial kitchen are explicit, “Food must not be ‘adulterated’ with a foreign substance (sweat falling under this category).” However sweat also goes to worker safety—specifically the temperature of a kitchen. Here, the focus is on preventing worker illness and complications related to heat stress, per OSHA. In short, sweat is considered a potential contaminant that should not be in food. However, excessive sweating can also be a sign of worker distress.

So dine at your own risk, or eat at Ike’s. Apparently, it’s the answer we don’t know we need.

BroBible reached out to Steph via TikTok direct message, and with a comment on her post. We reached to Chipotle via their media email. We will update this article if either reply.