It's true, sanitation should be the first priority before anything else. How will customers be attracted if the entire place is rubbish and especially the toilet area? As a customer, I myself wouldn't patronize such place. No offense, its just a fact.

Restaurants have a natural challenge that just comes with the territory: cleanliness and food safety. It seems not a day goes by without another horror story in the news about contaminated food products. Restaurants get routinely shut down by the Health Department. Even if things don't get that bad for your business, all it takes is for a delivery person to see a puddle of muck on the floor in your kitchen for a bad word-of-mouth campaign to start circulating about your establishment. The media reports cases of food poisoning on a daily basis in spite of the fact that the fast food business is flourishing.

It seems fast food has become the American way and the public will go blindly forth ordering with the expectation that the food has been prepared in sanitary conditions. From bug problems to breeding bacteria, fast food restaurants especially have countless issues behind their counters. The rules are put into place and enforced by management, inspectors, the Food and Drug Administration, and so forth, are there as the minimum defense, and just the beginning. If you are the manager, awareness on your part isn't enough; you have to be vigilant in ensuring that every employee knows and follows the rules to the letter.

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Najala Greene
hollywood restaurant

One trend that I've noticed over the past couple of years and think is horrible is that most restaurant and other bathrooms local to me have REMOVED ALL HOOKS in the stalls. I suppose it's to prevent the theft of your pocketbook or your jacket, but what the heck am I supposed to do with all this stuff while hovering over the not-so-great toilet? It's not like I want to put it on the floor or any other surface in the stall. Yuck!
The other thing I hate in restaurant bathrooms is when you just can't get hot water to wash your hands with. I hate to find that out after I've already eaten, I have to assume that the wait staff is not washing their hands with hot water. Ewwwwwwwwwwww!

Nice people = nice restrooms

I will never give my money to a retailer or restaurant who does not provide restrooms for its patrons. Any businessperson who cares so little for their customers doesn't deserve to have any.

Years ago, I left a full carriage of merchandise at the register because the owner of a candy store refused to let my desperate three year old use the rest rooms, saying that she was "too young to be potty trained" and that that it was me who wanted to use the rest room! Well, they lost about $80 in business that day, several thousand dollars in business from me in the years that have followed, and tens of thousands or more from all the people I have warned away from their store.

Interestingly enough, the day that my desperate child needed a restroom, I went to a food wholesaler across the street from the candy store and begged to use the restroom. They led me and my child to an immaculately clean restroom and were gracious about letting her use it, although it was apparent that we were not restauranteurs buying a large quantity of product.

In fact, we bought nothing from them that day. But I remembered their graciousness and have not only bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of wholesale foods from them, I have steered many customers their way, saying that they are good people, and care about their customers. They are no longer across the street from the candy store. They have recently opened a huge building and delivery complex from which they send out hundreds of trucks full of food to nearly every restaurant in the region. They are known as both good to their customers and good to their employees. And yes, the new building has immaculate restrooms.