These Behind-The-Scenes Restaurant Kitchen Photos Will Give You Trust Issues

The saying “ignorance is bliss” has never seemed scarier than it does right now. Blissfully ignorant customers at one restaurant in Richmond, Virginia hadn’t an inkling of the chaos happening in the kitchen. And honestly, we’re not sure if that’s a bad thing or a blessing. A former employee of Richmond’s My Noodle & Bar shared photos of the restaurant’s resident kitchen opossums, and um, we just decided we’re never eating out again.

On November 17th, Sammi Lanzetta (who goes by “Shambles Lanzetta” on Facebook) posted a series of photos on the social media site, capturing the kitchen opossums in action — one of whom apparently lived in a small storage container for “quite some time…”, the post’s corresponding Imgur upload read.

We’ve really never felt the need to form an opinion about opossums up until right now. But we feel comfortable saying that we don’t really like them, especially when they’re roaming around a restaurant kitchen.

As if the opossums weren’t concerning enough, the photo set also revealed shocking sanitation issues in back of My Noodle & Bar. Gross food storage practices, grease galore, mold, mildew, and “one of many” dead cockroaches has made us distrust every restaurant from here on out.

Where is Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares show when you need it?

“There was like an opossum running around and we were like, ‘Oh cute, but also gross,’” Lanzetta, a former Noodle employee, told local news station WWBT. “We eventually captured the opossum and let it back outside.”

The restaurant’s owner said that although an opossum did make its way into the restaurant, “It never got into the kitchen.” However, the Richmond Health Department did find that the kitchen pipes were leaking, causing minor flooding and mildew issues.

After some minor renovations, the owner has asked the Health Department to return to do a final inspection. But with photos as gory as these, it may be hard to pull the people of Richmond back through My Noodle & Bar’s doors.