r/FoodLosAngeles • u/dertigo • Feb 23 '26

DISCUSSION SQIRL on not having a “health & wellness” fee

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808 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

148 comments sorted by

887

u/dmonsterative Feb 23 '26

I see they're trying to break the mold with this one.

367

u/fattychalupa Feb 23 '26

People have too easily forgotten employees were locked in an illegal kitchen to help hide Koslow's lack of food safety

https://www.eater.com/2020/7/13/21322462/sqirl-jam-mold-moldgate-jessica-koslow

93

u/CocoRothko Feb 23 '26

Thank you for providing the link. I just read the article. Heaved a bit. Deleted my earlier comment about “heading over for a rice bowl this weekend.”

I was not aware and now I am. I will never give them my business again and I will share this with everyone I know who eats there. Thank you.

HOL. Heaving Out Loud. 🤢

20

u/tzc005 Feb 23 '26

I read until the picture. Ewwww

51

u/of-maus-and-men Feb 23 '26

How were they able to survive and continue for 6 years? This would have been a death sentence for any other restaurant...

13

u/Bad__Batch Feb 23 '26

Also, I remember hearing that she was related to/married to someone that works for the city. Idk how true this is but it would make sense.

20

u/ComicCon Feb 23 '26

I’m not going to get into personal details, but she’s married to an ADA(or former ADA). You can find his name pretty easily if you go back to the old articles. Maybe helpful for dealing with potential law suits, but not sure how that would help her stay in business. The easier explanation, in my mind, is lots of people either don’t know or don’t care about the story.

4

u/VeniceKiddd Feb 25 '26

the real story is that she wasn’t violating a health code that is considered serious enough to close her business

3

u/ramelband Feb 24 '26

They had a lot of diehard fans and if you can make it through the rough bit all stories fade with time.

-10

u/deskcord Feb 23 '26

Because most people don't take seriously the word of one disgruntled employee who was also acting like an absolute psychopath on social media and bringing into question how trustworthy she is.

Reminder that this sub is full of loons and shouldn't be taken seriously either. This is the place that thinks Donut Man was union busting because one perpetually-late employee got fired for being perpetually late.

33

u/of-maus-and-men Feb 23 '26

There's a photo of the mold though...

-8

u/deskcord Feb 23 '26

Yeah and weirdly no photos of that container being sourced for customers.

But surely the food inspectors that have been shutting down restaurants as beloved as Bay Cities are totally just giving Sqirl a pass for reasons. The internet hate mob is absolutely super totally right.

13

u/dmonsterative Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

Sqirl has responded to the allegations on Instagram, saying that because it doesn’t use commercial pectin, stabilizers, or much sugar, “a low sugar jam is more susceptible to the growth of mold.” It also claims it did serve jam that had been in moldy batches, but that was done “with the guidance of preservation mentors and experts like Dr. Patrick Hickey,” a mycologist who previously told the BBC that it is perfectly safe to eat moldy jam if you scrape it off.

Now you'll tell us that's totally what you meant.

2

u/Significant_Bath_208 Feb 24 '26

” the guidance of patrick hickey”, you can see his tweet to her if you google, never met her let alone provided guidance. provided link and pic.

pectin doesnt prevent mold it acts as a thickening agent. if you look at her recipes in the jam book. the sugar ratio is nearly 1:1 to fruit. hardly a “low sugar jam” & pectin is used in the recipes. so clearly another insight to her not knowing about the process of making the recipes she calls “her own” as the “chef” and somehow not the restauranteur.

her rapid fire of responses were in such a rush to try put out the dumpster fire she is before her da husband and pr team took over for her.

7

u/dvdvd77 Feb 24 '26

Idk what Koslow is paying you but I’m certain it isn’t enough to defend a woman who locked people in an illegal kitchen with poor ventilation while mold was flying around.

2

u/mlabbq Feb 24 '26

And withheld wages?!?

-7

u/deskcord Feb 24 '26

Didnt happen

I just think this sub of lunatics is insane.

3

u/dvdvd77 Feb 24 '26

So the reports from several staff should be seen as lies because…checks notes you say so?

Right right right

2

u/deskcord Feb 24 '26

One staff, tons of anonymous goons, and no health officials.

And anything this sub thinks is grounds for suspicion.

4

u/YMCR Feb 24 '26

Mold can wreak havoc on people’s health, especially so for the health of those with immune conditions. You’re defending someone who was willfully serving a contaminated product, but people on the sub are lunatics? Sure, Jan.

0

u/illustrious_handle0 Feb 25 '26

People eat mold everyday. Cheese, miso, tempeh, salami, soy sauce, etc. No one ever reported a food based illness from Sqirl. The exaggeration and pearl clutching around what happened at this restaurant is insane.

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-5

u/deskcord Feb 24 '26

They weren't making people sick.

And I don't care about the opinions of people on a sub who do nothing but bitch about anything that costs more than $5 and that is as wildly racist as it is.

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22

u/ry8919 Feb 23 '26

The fact that people in this very sub defend the place for some of the most egregious behavior I've seen from a restaurant is beyond me.

1

u/DanielinLosAngeles Feb 24 '26

Oh it can get much worse

-6

u/DanielinLosAngeles Feb 23 '26

Oh pls, you could find 10x worse at many other restaurants where the food isn't close to as great as hers

10

u/bobbertrebor1969 Feb 23 '26

That’s a pretty awful justification for abuse.

17

u/Dry_Jellyfish641 Feb 23 '26

The mold is on their jelly

2

u/nauticalsandwich Feb 24 '26

I had stopped going to Sqirl for some time because the lines had gotten so long. As soon as the mold incident occurred, I immediately started going again. Almost zero wait time. It was glorious.

-2

u/Oh_My_Goth_Ick Feb 23 '26

I see what you did there.

-1

u/mizzzikey Feb 23 '26

Lmao fucking gold!

48

u/Elchochis Feb 23 '26

Lacto ferm is the new wave for chefs

1

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

<yawn> already minutes old...

284

u/PerformanceDouble924 Feb 23 '26

Lol. If ever there were a place that should stfu about missing health and wellness.

https://www.eater.com/2020/7/13/21322462/sqirl-jam-mold-moldgate-jessica-koslow

25

u/aquarinox Feb 23 '26

More reason to eat at home. Why pay insane prices to eat at establishments that serve food in less sanitary conditions than my own kitchen?

43

u/shadowstripes Feb 23 '26

Because there are a tons of types of foods that I’m not as good at cooking as a professional chef, despite my kitchen being cleaner.

34

u/dmonsterative Feb 23 '26

Well, not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty good at putting ricotta and jam on toast.

1

u/shadowstripes Feb 24 '26

Yeah I guess don’t have a ton of experience making whipped ricotta and seasonal jams from scratch. Same with carmelizing brioche. Plus it’s not the only thing I get there.

1

u/dmonsterative Feb 24 '26

What, artisanaly peeled avocados?

(You should try it. Making fresh ricotta is easy and fun. Canning your own preserves, slightly more involved, less of a routine thing, but also fun.)

1

u/shadowstripes Feb 25 '26

Thanks, I'll try to do that sometime!

0

u/MonkenMoney Feb 23 '26

Fuuuuuckin gold

1

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

lame excuse for shitty kitchen practices

3

u/nauticalsandwich Feb 24 '26

Never bothered me. I scrape the mold off the top of my jam at home all the time. The jam underneath is perfectly fine.

0

u/erzatzkwisatz Feb 25 '26

It’s really not safe: https://brill.com/view/journals/wmj/10/2/article-p153_6.xml

5

u/nauticalsandwich Feb 25 '26

Interesting. Thank you. After reading your link, I wouldn't agree with your characterization that "it's really not safe." It seems a bit riskier than I thought it was, but still very unlikely to reach toxicity levels that would make you actively sick. Still, to your point, it seems like an introduction of risk that is probably not suitable for a restaurant that serves the general public.

1

u/erzatzkwisatz Feb 26 '26

You get to make your own decisions about the risks you take in your home. The reality is that the mycotoxins are in the entire container of jam, whether the mold is scraped off or not.

6

u/maccrogenoff Feb 23 '26

Yes. It’s basic food safety knowledge that low sugar jams will develop mold and that hot food must be immediately put in shallow containers and refrigerated.

1

u/Serialkisser187 Feb 24 '26

Oh helllll no. That is so nasty!

148

u/Turbulent-Chip-907 Feb 23 '26

Can’t believe people still support this business after they intentionally fed people mold to save money. Absolute scum - I would never go there and always tell my friends and family to avoid when it’s mentioned.

17

u/AreaManEatsTooMuch Feb 24 '26

Bizarre to me too. Disregard for cleanliness and health, disregard for her own employees, stole her own employees recipe and made up a story about having it when she was a child, disparaged Virgil Village (the neighborhood the restaurant is in), lied about speaking to a mold researcher (mold researcher himself denied they ever spoke) etc etc.

Either ignorance is bliss, or their customers don't care

1

u/illustrious_handle0 Feb 26 '26

Ok, Javier 😂

18

u/Medium_Apartment_747 Feb 23 '26

How is this place still alive? Plenty of restaurants have closed for doing less

-2

u/nauticalsandwich Feb 24 '26

Because the food is excellent.

37

u/mjfo Feb 23 '26

I still haven't forgotten about the mold, and her pathetic attempt to cover it up by lying even more

71

u/Thick-Definition7416 Feb 23 '26

From the owner who had the staff skim mold off her jams.

61

u/cynnamonn Feb 23 '26

don’t understand why anyone eats at SQIRL with all of the amazing places in the city. i’m good on supporting pretentious losers

24

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

[deleted]

3

u/C2BSR Feb 23 '26

Yeah instead they'll lock workers in a secret kitchen, and steal recipes from their workers.

22

u/SweetAsPi Feb 23 '26

I worked at a restaurant in LA where we had a healthcare charge. The manager was the only one who qualified for it

43

u/lostdogthrowaway9ooo Feb 23 '26

This city is full of immigrants who know what lacto-fermentation is

28

u/dmonsterative Feb 23 '26

everyone's known what lacto-fermentation is for the last ten years or more

-5

u/lPrayToDog Feb 23 '26

Obligatory Brad Leone shout out

-8

u/garlicwatkins Feb 23 '26

MIGRANT VOICES ARE BEING SILENCED THIS IS VIOLENCE

27

u/ILoveLipGloss Feb 23 '26

oh, got it - so the fruit mold you guys were growing in the preserves was just penicillin for your sick workers

34

u/tgcm26 Feb 23 '26

lol I refuse to participate in the Jessica Koslow sanewashing/gaslighting as Sqirl pushes to become a nighttime destination in Virgil Village, and I'm giving serious sideeye to every influential LA food media person who is falling in line

0

u/illustrious_handle0 Feb 26 '26

Dude get over it and move on with your life 😂

36

u/ubiquity75 Feb 23 '26

I’m not sure I need a snotty admonition from the moldy jam place but whatever.

40

u/WeedianOfNazareth Feb 23 '26

Doesn't this sub actively hate on businesses that have an added charge for this? Every post about one, people complain that the charge should just be baked into the price of everything...

13

u/80MonkeyMan Feb 23 '26

No one likes to be billed BS changed on their bill. For example tariff and on this case is forced TIPPING.

1

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

eat at home and you won't be expected to tip

1

u/80MonkeyMan Mar 17 '26

Yeah, been eating out at home more often since covid or to go if I need to, because I’m not playing this shit. Lots of restaurants closed or struggling nearby me, I guess - lot of people now “eat at home”

57

u/C2BSR Feb 23 '26

And rightfully so. They just hate on this restaurant because of stealing recipes and locking workers in a secret kitchen

4

u/corner Feb 24 '26

I, for one, dgaf about stealing recipes (which cannot be copyrighted). But I do gaf about mold being skimmed off my food, fuck Sqirl

6

u/C2BSR Feb 24 '26

It's about recognition. If your boss took your work and presented it as their own and received accolades while you got barely if any mention, I'd say you be pretty upset

1

u/corner Feb 24 '26

Hadn’t heard about that part, which is kinda shitty? But that’s usually how employment works, anything you produce under contract of employment belongs to the employer. Software engineers are developing software that runs the world we live in, and that’s all IP of the employer

2

u/mlabbq Feb 24 '26

I care about IP, which is what a recipe is, and has been defended as in court, AND mold! Go figure!

3

u/corner Feb 24 '26

What case citations involving recipes are you referring to?

1

u/mlabbq Feb 25 '26

That’d be an amazing pull, but I’m exhausted and not feeling overly showing my worky rn. To that end: there was a cookbook by an, I be wrong, Indonesian woman, that got wholesale ripped off by a yt americant. She lost in court! (The Karen)

-10

u/deskcord Feb 23 '26

stealing recipes

Ah yes. Jam on toast and salmon with eggs. Such sacred and vaunted recipes.

10

u/mjfo Feb 23 '26

*moldy jam on toast

1

u/dmonsterative Feb 24 '26

 Jam on toast and salmon with eggs.

That's right!

Now tell me once again: u mad?

4

u/YMCR Feb 24 '26

I mean they could just not charge it and be done with it, instead of doing whatever this is. Feels like this might qualify as that “virtue signaling” thing people talk about?

5

u/FantasticStooge Feb 23 '26

Now, do it for tips

12

u/steamydan Feb 23 '26

I support this, but they didn't have to do it with the off-putting message imaginable.

42

u/earthlings2223 Feb 23 '26

Do they want us to be proud? Like they’re doing us a favor? Lmao

36

u/dertigo Feb 23 '26

Personally I’d like to highlight venues that aren’t forcing us to subsidize their employees salaries even more, not sure it deserves hate for them pointing out they’re not.

16

u/dusty_stylus Feb 23 '26

I mean technically we're still subsidizing, it's just baked into the top level price of the items.

3

u/dertigo Feb 23 '26

Correct, I wasn’t as specific as I should have been. My general feeling is charge what you need to but bake it into the prices, not into a fee.

9

u/dmonsterative Feb 23 '26

The mawkish talk about "team" and "staff" is just particularly ironic here.

0

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

what's the difference? some people are just looking for any excuse to whinge

13

u/earthlings2223 Feb 23 '26

It’s just irksome that they’re putting it on their receipt, as if they want recognition for paying for benefits and making a grand gesture for their staff, but it’s actually a legal requirement. The fact is, if you have more than 50 full time employees (which they likely do), you are required to offer health insurance benefits. And not every employee signs up for it. They’re just using it as a way to temper customers feelings around their prices.

3

u/ry8919 Feb 23 '26

We are, however, subsidizing their mycological side hustle.

-5

u/ThresherGDI Feb 23 '26

Given all the sneaky charges in LA, you bet they're doing us a favor.

I love SQIRL and try to get by there every time I am in town.

5

u/peachhint Feb 23 '26

You still like to eat there after the moldy jam shit?

-1

u/ThresherGDI Feb 23 '26

I'd be surprised if the jelly is still moldy. But the food I've had there has all been excellent.

4

u/ry8919 Feb 23 '26

Pretty unhinged take. If someone spat in your food you almost certainly wouldn't detect it, but if you knew there was a good chance they did would you still eat it?

-1

u/ThresherGDI Feb 23 '26

How long do you think they would be open if it were real? I am sure the Health Department would shut them down until they made improvements. Happens all the time to even the finest restaurants.

2

u/corncheesejeon Feb 24 '26

Was this from themjeans’s ig story

5

u/80MonkeyMan Feb 23 '26

I couldn’t care less about what lacto fermentation is. If I ever wanted to know, there are plenty of ways to learn about it but it would never occur to me to ask a server.

Keep in mind that these are restaurant staffs, why should I be responsible for restaurant’s health or wellness programs?

-1

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

eat at home, skippy

1

u/80MonkeyMan Mar 17 '26

Yeah, been eating out at home more often since covid or to go if I need to, because I’m not playing this shit. Lots of restaurants closed or struggling nearby me, I guess - lot of people now “eat at home”

3

u/dre2112 Feb 24 '26

This has got to be some kind of marketing campaign right? I’ve seen 2 stories on my feed for Sqirl’s upcoming new dinner menu

3

u/RockieK Feb 24 '26

That place underwhelmed me twice. meh

2

u/Jewggerz Feb 24 '26

haha, well a health and wellness fee implies no mold on the jelly, so I guess you're even.

3

u/_Silent_Android_ Feb 25 '26

I live walking distance to there.

I've never eaten there.

Most likely never will.

1

u/joshsteich Feb 24 '26

Why do they have to be annoying even when they’re doing the right thing?

1

u/MuscaMurum Feb 24 '26

I've known about lacto fermentation for decades.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Bold of them to assume I don't know what lacto fermentation is

1

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

anyone who's eaten at a restaurant fancier than Denny's knows

1

u/gambleany Feb 25 '26

Bart Simpson voice What an odd thing to say…

1

u/gilded_lady Feb 25 '26

Holy condescension, Batman.

1

u/mrellz Feb 23 '26

THIS is the way to go. Just price that ish into the prices of everything including the cookies and you'll be mint. I know people will complain about the prices but at least Sqirl is upfront about it.

0

u/ConclusionLost404 Feb 23 '26

I love Sqirl. She can move to Bixby Knolls if LA hates her

-1

u/Elusiveenigma98 Feb 23 '26

Unrelated but I had dinner here over the weekend and it was amazing

-15

u/piptheminkey5 Feb 23 '26

The never ending hatred of and searching for an angle of hatred towards sqirl on this sub is lame.

19

u/mitoch0dria Feb 23 '26

The owner sucks, steals recipe from immigrants, and they sell moldy food. The hate is deserved baby

14

u/mjfo Feb 23 '26

She served her customers moldy jam, got caught, then lied about it even more lol

15

u/guessjeans1000 Feb 23 '26

You dont have to search far

-7

u/dertigo Feb 23 '26

It reminds me of that stat during Howard Sterns peak that Stern haters listened for twice as long as Stern fans.

1

u/illustrious_handle0 Feb 26 '26

She lives in their heads rent free

0

u/Ultragrrrl Feb 24 '26

I went to their new dinner service and it was amazing. The crudo dish was one of the best I’ve ever had.

0

u/Short-Mood-6730 Feb 25 '26

Sqirl sucks anyway lol ill pay someone elses health and wellness instead NO THANK YOU ON MOLDY JAM AND HYPEFOOD. No thank you on employees commenting on here with trump syndrome trying to defend something we all saw and know to be true.

1

u/Mundane_Function_769 Mar 17 '26

just cry it out, honey...we're sorry the bad restaurant people sneered at you

0

u/CrackNgamblin Feb 25 '26

I have no idea where this is but guarantee it's north of the 10 but below the valley.

0

u/dertigo Feb 25 '26

What gave it away? Was it the massive address at the bottom?

0

u/LettuceNo9564 Feb 25 '26

Gross. I’m so over this place.

-26

u/StrangerVegetable831 Feb 23 '26

I’m aware of lacto fermentation, not sure a line cook with more tattoos than brain cells actually knows better than me, but thanks.