tl;dr - bar tender dropped a lemon on the ground. it rolled to a pretty high traffic part of the restaurant where all the guests walk in to pass by the bar. It got picked up and put it back in the bowl without being washed. It was one of the lemons used to peel to put in peoples drinks. He didn't wash it or the other bar fruit it touched.
I'm not usually one to complain about a place but this was particularly egregious and I feel like people should know about it because it's a public health thing.
Went there for food/drinks the other night. I don't go there often but I do like the place.
I watched the bar tender drop a lemon. It was from the basket for peeling to garnish drinks.
The lemon fell, rolled in the area that is highest trafficked from people that have been walking around Gaslamp. That's a lotta feces and urine on people's shoes. It's also worth noting a few years ago we even had a hepatitis outbreak due to how absolutely disgusting our sidewalks are.
A server picked it up, handed it to the bar tender, and the bartender looked back and forth to see if anyone was watching and put it back in the fruit basket without cleaning.
I told our server who flagged down a manager. They acknowledged that it was gross, but also they didn't wash the fruit either. So the other bar fruit didn't get washed and it took a long time for them to remove the offending lemon and I'm pretty sure it got used in a drink.
After there was a hepatitis outbreak due to filthy sidewalks in SD I think that's wildly unacceptable. I'm still kind of grossed out by it a few days later.
And fwiw - i've worked in restaurants/bars before. I know bar fruit is gross and I assume some risk from it just constantly getting handled by people. But that was pretty revolting.
I did talk to the manager and mentioned they needed to wash the fruit. It didn't seem to change anything.
If they want to follow up I check my DMs here.
Bar tender at Lou and Mickeys did something gross
SanDiegan