When booking a hotel room, there are lots of free perks included in the price that are so enticing to travelers. We all love free and fast WiFi, free parking, discounts on attractions, and a hotel pool, but perhaps one of the most beloved perks is the free breakfast. Ah, how we love going down to the dining hall in the morning, grabbing a plate, and filling it with all sorts of delectable and filling goodies. Sometimes there’s muffins and croissants, or cereal and yogurt, or even the hot breakfast buffet. Scrambled eggs and sausages and pancakes, oh my! Get in our bellies! But according to one ex-hotel worker, those hot breakfast buffets shouldn’t be your first choice. In fact, she says you should avoid a hot hotel breakfast altogether.
Brandi Augustus posted a video to her TikTok account where she says over ominous music, “if your hotel serves a hot continental breakfast, eggs, waffles, stuff like that, don’t eat that s***!” Saying that both corporate and management at hotel chains don’t focus on hygiene or cleanliness, she said she was trained to only use one paper towel to clean all of the kitchen equipment. One! She also revealed the waffle batter isn’t made fresh daily. “That waffle batter gets reused until it starts to smell like beer,” she stated in her video, which has been liked more than 222,000 times. So what should you eat instead? Think cold.
Pre-packaged cold items are your best bet
@brandiaugustus
Don’t eat the free breakfast! #hotelhacks #nightaudit #hotel
♬ Playmate at a scary scene – Kohrogi
If you want to stick to your budget by reserving a hotel room that includes a free breakfast, some in the industry suggest you stick to the cold continental breakfast rather than the hot breakfast buffet. Tasting Table made a list of the best and worst breakfast items to grab at the hotel breakfast, and naturally, the waffle station and the breakfast sausages were on the worst list, mostly because of the lack of hygienic handling and the possibility of cross contamination (COVID-19 is still a thing, people!). So they suggest pre-packaged items like single-serve yogurts. At a lot of hotels that cater to business travelers rushing off to early meetings, you might also find cellophane-wrapped bagels, muffins, and croissants, which ensure that fewer hands have touched them and they have a longer shelf life. We also must give major props to the hotels that offer to-go cups for their coffee and tea machines.
Carey Polis writes for Condé Nast Traveller that depending on where you are in the world, the hotel breakfast is also a great opportunity to try local dishes and cuisines, like pita with za’atar in the Middle East, or rice porridge with scallions and cilantro in Vietnam. If all else fails, Brandi Augustus suggests in her viral TikTok that DoubleTree Hotels may have a greater standard of hygiene and cleanliness for their breakfasts, so if you must have your scrambled eggs, pony up and book a room there.
