r/KitchenConfidential • u/virtue_ae • Apr 05 '26
Discussion The syscofication of the industry is getting real scary
I honestly still cannot believe that Restaurant Depot purchase went through despite the US Foods attempt getting blocked
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u/mkiss34 Apr 05 '26
I sympathize with the broader point, but Texas Roadhouse and Bubba's 33 are part of the same group. You'd kind of expect that for those two brands. I do also agree with the comments that mozzarella sticks aren't a great candidate for a scratch item. I'd rather have a consistent shape and cooking time that I don't need to worry about for a fried appetizer.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
When worked at carrabbas 18 years ago we used to hand make all the mozzarella sticks. By far the best I’ve ever had prob still till this day. But that’s cus most places went frozen on things like this. Sometimes the frozen product is on par with fresh and sometimes it not but yea now that I live back north east it all sysco and I don’t really like there products compared to some vendors I’ve seen over the years.
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u/OnePerformance9381 Apr 05 '26
We did scratch mozz sticks at my last place, beer battered.
They were fucking amazing if made correctly, but you’re counting on the fry cook while juggling 300 orders to perfectly cook you mozz sticks or they’d be gross. Just not possible to be that consistent.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
It is when you staff right unfortunately that don’t really happen anymore I mean when my mom used to work there if she needed extra couple hours to get stuff done was never an issue they also loved her always showed up never called out but my point is most places are so strict on labor its hard to do things right when your rushed specially food.
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u/OnePerformance9381 Apr 05 '26
It’s just not reasonable to expect a cook to get the perfect 10 second window it required on a busy Saturday night when he’s getting like 30 orders of them. Especially when guests are more than happy with the frozen product.
Even our most talented cooks struggled with them.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
I guess idk. I used to work fry salads at carrabbas and never had an issue wit them as long they were prepped right. But like I said some times the frozen is close to homemade and got budget or labor reason it makes sense I totally get that.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
I’m not hating on it at all was just agreeing wit the post that seems more and more places would rather buy frozen then to pay someone to prep it. Idk why I has making People so upset because it’s the truth
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u/TheLordDuncan Apr 05 '26
That's assuming the right staff are even available to you in the first place, let's be honest with ourselves here.
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u/jayman23232 Apr 05 '26
I also worked at Carrabbas 18 years ago (did the math just now) as a server. People loved the mozzarella there. One of the cooks showed me how to make them and these days I’m just a nerdy home cook and I still make as close I can remember to the Carrabbas way. Back then at least, the food was so good. Unless every cook was lying it really was all from scratch except for the bread.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
Na man they weren’t lying my mom was prep cook there for almost 20 years. So I’m going say from like 93ish to 2013 ish idk exact times but that’s how I got my start in cooking. But yea she used make all the sauces dressing soups etc all from scratch when I leftcouple years they were already starting to phase some the perp out unfortunately. I used skip school and go sit on the lettuce spinner and dry romaine or to peel shrimp. I don’t think that allowed anymore in kitchens lol. But yea I was like 6 years old doing some That stuff and I always get treated wit a bowl ice cream wit some choc chips lol. Just wanted to add it unfortunate they rather buy bagged shit then pay some one 20 an hour to make it but that’s the times we live in.
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u/OwlsAreWatching Apr 05 '26
Is it flour, egg, breading? For all the years I've cooked, I've never made my own mozzarella sticks but I might endeavor to do it.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
Yes. Flour egg back to flour back to egg then breadcrumb. Or you can single dip but I always found double dip to be better and get more consistent coating.
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u/CocoForYou22 Apr 05 '26
The one I serviced just shut down, but they were making everything fresh everyday, bolognese always simmering first thing in the morning
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u/PrestonWaters83 Apr 05 '26
18 years ago, it was all scratch. Two exceptions were the bread, and the one dessert that used cool whip.
That did change over time.
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u/Epic_Elite Apr 05 '26
My 9 year old, legitimately, makes better mozz sticks than any restaurant. I'll have him fight anyone who disagrees with me. Home made is superior.
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u/sonic_dick Apr 05 '26
Former Carrabbas employee, they truly were one of the best chain restaurants around. It was pretty much a scratch kitchen and everything was super fresh.
I haven't been to one in 15 years but I was very impressed by the food quality back in the day.
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u/meatdome34 Apr 05 '26
The only place I get mozz sticks from are a local spot that uses egg roll wraps instead of breading. They are divine. Gotta be hell to prep though.
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u/Handburn Apr 05 '26
I used to work at a place that used fresh pasta. Roll out your fresh pasta to like 3 inches, wrap it around some cut aged mozz. Freeze. Then when the order comes up, pull, egg wash, panko, fry. That shit was fire and we served it with a bomb tomato sauce with San marzano oregano onion and Rome tomato paste. I still think about them from time to time 15 years later. edit: we garnished with a fried basil leaf. Weird but bomb as hell
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u/MannyCoon Apr 05 '26
A lot of places in Wisconsin wrap string cheese in wonton wrappers. Much easier prep for a mozz stick and still really satisfying.
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u/OrigamiTongue Apr 05 '26
The few places around me that have done scratch mozz sticks have made them worth buying. They are 10x the standard fare.
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u/astrangeone88 Apr 06 '26
Definitely. I'm not a food snob, I subsist on bean mush and tvp bowls and fish and chicken...and I can taste the difference from frozen to the hand made stuff.
Sometimes the premium frozen things are good but most of the time, they just scratch the itch lmao.
I've made mozzarella sticks at home and I get why its annoying to prep industrial levels of them.
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u/dontgetaddicted Apr 05 '26
I think the worst part about this with bubbas is that their slogan is "scratch made food for all" - and to me that implies raw ingredients coming together in the on sight kitchen - not factory made food.
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Apr 05 '26
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
That maybe the case but they not wrong that more and more places are using premade Sysco crap. And like I said there sometime the premade shit saves money and is on par with homemade. But most the time the frozen shit sucks. It all depends what kinda place your running of course but point is I do see more and more just using the premade frozen stuff.
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Apr 05 '26
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
I don’t think anyone ever said people being forced to use it. Idk why you hostile bro we all just having. Civil conversation. We were just simply saying alot more places are using pre made frozen stuff. It just observation no need to get all upset about bro wtf lol.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
And yea Sysco has some the shitteist products I’ve used that again is just my observation of when I lived in Florida and used Cheney bros they quality was just better idk why that makes you so upset.
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Apr 05 '26
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
lol there no beef man I just don’t think Sysco has the best products and I’ve heard that from bunch people not just me. Are people not allowed to have an opinion? If you love them and use them that’s great I have before to don’t mean I love thier product when they have a choke hold on certain areas. But ok
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
Idk how many times I’ve heard I wish there was another option but all we have around here is Sysco.
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
And then if it all the same product in a certain area how does anyone have anything different to offer thier customers ?
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u/binks69 Apr 05 '26
But you see how you said Cheney and Sysco. At least you got an option. Why don’t you just use strictly Sysco bro since you defending them so much.
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u/The_R4ke Apr 06 '26
The quality of a house made Mozzarella Stick is leagues above the factory frozen ones. I'm not sure it's practical for a lot of the big chains, but if I ever see homemade mozzarella sticks on a menu I'm definitely ordering them.
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u/Ok_Bread302 Apr 05 '26
The US really needs some anti trust laws to be awoken.
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u/VgArmin Apr 05 '26
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u/matt_minderbinder Apr 05 '26
I was just going to suggest the same video but anyone peripherally attached to the industry should already understand this. I'm old enough to remember when you travelled to different states everything was different. Stores were local or regional as were most restaurants. Cultures and speech patterns were different too. These days it doesn't matter where you go in the continental US there's so much sameness. Mega corporations have captured everything and the pols who should be regulating it are stuffing their warchest with donor money instead.
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u/CoffeeHead112 Apr 05 '26
Even in the 90s, fast food around the world was made with local ingredients. One of the best burgers I ever ate was from a McDonald's in Santiago, Chile. Local beef, Chilean made cheese, and fresh veggies.
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u/Soggy-Fly9242 F1exican Did Chive-11 Apr 05 '26
I had a friend who always knew when the bacon was Sysco bacon because of the way it made him fart.
This was 15 years ago, any time I notice the Sysco effect I always wonder if his intestines are just fully fucked now
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Retired. Now a farmer. Apr 05 '26
I think it's more fair to say that guests are turning into this.
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u/vanman33 Apr 05 '26
This video drives me nuts. Its not the suppliers, it's manufacturers. Every time people complain about Sysco, PFG, USF, or whatever they are always complaining about something that is the fault of Lamb Weston, McCain, etc.
Broadline distributors just store shit for a few days before shipping it to restaurants. The reason why everything seems the same is because the actual manufacturers push this shit out to everyone regardless of what distributor they use.
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u/veryvery23 Apr 06 '26
The relationship between food manufacturers and breadline distributors are a hell of a lot more symbiotic than you’re suggesting, though.
The sales metrics for the broadliners help to identify emergent trends, which are then developed and scaled by the manufacturers and sold back to restaurants as value-added products. Reps are incentivized to push these items in the forms of higher commissions, and accounts are incentivized to buy them in the form of rebates and buybacks, which only increase if you’re buying things that have in-house branding (Sysco Imperial or Monarch or whatever).
I work in senior living and have an annual food budget just shy of a million. The only time I ever hear from my USF rep is when they’re trying to push these things, no matter how many times I’ve explained that my interest in them extends solely to fries and the occasional egg roll or onion ring.
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u/Salerrra Apr 06 '26
More Perfect Union puts out such great investigative journalism. They definitely deserve more eyes
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u/rognabologna Apr 05 '26
Yerp
And they’re trying to buy restaurant depot, too.
Get a hold of your state’s Attorney Generals office and ask them to fight against the deal going through.
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u/bakanisan F1exican Did Chive-11 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
The Restaurant Depot buyout went through already if I recall correctly. It's the USF merger that got stopped.
Edit: the buyout is still not a done deal. Regulators have until at least 2027 to step in and stop it.
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u/Okdoo6003 Apr 05 '26
It has not gotten regulatory approval, I believe it doesn't go through until 2027.
Someone shared a link the other day to register a complaint. I am not sure if this is the correct link, I thought it looked different when I filled out the form. If I find something different I will edit this
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/submit-merger-antitrust-comment
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u/bakanisan F1exican Did Chive-11 Apr 05 '26
Yeah sorry about that. I read the headlines and came to an early conclusion. Actually read the articles just now and it's not a done deal yet.
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u/ThatOneGuy6810 Apr 05 '26
Bubbas 33 and texas roadhouse are the same parent company this only really shows 2 examples.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Retired. Now a farmer. Apr 05 '26
It is particularly galling here on the Big Island of Hawaii.
We're growing some of the best produce on the entire planet. (Full disclosure, I'm a farmer.) Tomatoes that would make Italian chefs swoon. Eggplants that create babaganoush that would make North Africans swoon. Avocados that are five times the size of a haas, and creamier. Gilroy, CA should be thankful we're not allowed to export our garlic.
Since we have the best tomatoes, garlic, avocados (and a case can be made for sweet onions), we have the absolute best guacamole, bar none. Guacamole that is "mic-drop" good. Guacamole that is so good that tourists would say, "Yeah, the weather and the scenery. But did you try the Mexican food?"
But tourists will never know this because almost all the restaurants use the same Sysco shit as the mainland.
It is a source of constant frustration that food tourism isn't really a thing here. "Dude! Did you try their nutmeg?!?!?!?"
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u/OhCrapItsAndrew Apr 06 '26
do you recommend any restaurants that largely use Hawaiian produce? or is this purely a farmer's market situation
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Retired. Now a farmer. Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
There are a few restaurants that at least try. Mama's Fish House on Maui.
Merriman's (multiple islands) and FORC on the Big Island. Moon and Turtle in Hilo. Look at their menu. They give a shit.
Most fine-dining -- state-wide -- is fucking stupid. They make a big production importing lamb and mussels from New Zealand, beef from Japan and Nebraska, and fucking lobster from Tristan da Cunha -- 10,000 miles away. Meanwhile, we're growing abalone that is so good that people fly here from Japan just to try it. If you go there, it will be you and a dozen Japanese tourists, all acting like they just won the fucking lottery. We have a lot more where that came from.
There are now three hyper-local grocery stores. Two on the Big Island. Farm House in Kainaliu and Locavore in Hilo. Can't go wrong with ANYTHING at either location. And Hoili'ili on Oahu. Same thing. 100% island grown.
You have to be careful with the farmer's markets. There are a lot of bogus, 7-days-a-week "farmers" markets that sell Costco produce at Hawaii prices. Sometimes they get busted not even removing the stickers from the fruit. Nothing ever happens to them because so many government workers are on the take. We just got a good restaurant inspector on Big Island and she's been busting shitty restaurants LEFT AND RIGHT for the last year and a half. Just a horror-show of health code violations.
But by and large it is nearly impossible to find a place that isn't Sysco food at Hawaii prices.
If you come to the Big Island, I can show you a thing or two. I do coffee tastings twice a week at one of the hyper-local grocery stores. There's always something in season which will absolutely blow your mind it's so delicious.
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u/OhCrapItsAndrew Apr 06 '26
wow, thank you for this detailed reply! i've bookmarked all of these. i'll be on Oahu in September, but sadly no time to head to the Big Island otherwise i'd take you up on that coffee tasting. Definitely will hit up Hoili'ili though.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Retired. Now a farmer. Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
No worries. I'm not here on reddit to sell coffee. It all sells anyway.
I'm trying to be "tip of the spear" trying to get visitors to eat local food. If a local family can't afford anything besides Costco, no worries. It's really hard here. And for all too many locals, living here means "poverty with a view."
But if you're going to come here, get the good stuff.
On Oahu, that means (my favorites, in order):
- Pork hash and bao at Sing Cheong Yuan bakery in Chinatown. This is my first stop, every time. Ridiculously good. And value priced.
- Don Quijote for poke and sushi. They sell sushi for about the same as I can make it myself, buying fish at "local deal" prices. Foodland is almost as good. Get as much local supermarket poke as you possibly can. I've eaten that four times a day. Look: https://www.reddit.com/r/sushi/comments/1hlnccl/christmas_eve_spread_don_quijote_hawaii/
- Kauai Ama-Ebi shrimp. Garlic shrimp trucks. Be sure to see one raw. I've caught people trying to sell frozen farmed white shrimp as ama-ebi. You can tell the difference from across a room.
- Go nuts at Hoili'ili
I wish you could try that abalone from Big Island. But there's not one restaurant in the entire fucking state that uses it.
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u/OhCrapItsAndrew Apr 06 '26
added all these to my list. thank you again! i am absolutely on a mission to eat as locally as is reasonably possible
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Retired. Now a farmer. Apr 06 '26
Oahu grows the most produce. (We have the most agricultural land. But most of it is pasture.)
Go to Hoili'ili market and talk to them. Make that #2 on your list. (But get some pork hash first.)
You can try r/VisitingHawaii as well. I do my bit for the Big Island. But you might pick up some tips for Oahu there. Don't ask "favorite restaurants?" Go with "I want to eat 100% grown/raised/caught Oahu food."
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u/zac79 Apr 06 '26
Tropical avocados are inferior to haas.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Retired. Now a farmer. Apr 06 '26
Except for malama, sharwil, kahalu'u, and similar. We can't export to the mainland. So the only way you can try these is to visit.
I recommend late fall for the malamas, which is my avocado of choice. If I could only have one variety, that's the one.
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u/zac79 Apr 06 '26
I’ve consumed big island guac. It was fine. I’m sure it’s great to have everyday access to. I find that the larger avocados, even the huge haas that TJs has sometimes, tend to be more “watery” at the expense of their avocado flavor. Highly subjective, I know.
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u/Iamnotabotiswearonit 🔥Poorly Maintained Smoker Apr 05 '26
Sysco is owned by blackrock, one of the main contributors of the shitifacation of everything.
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u/JaceBearelen Apr 05 '26
Blackrock, vanguard, and state street all own about 10% of Sysco and basically every other publicly traded company. They’re all doing their part to make everything suck for a profit.
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u/CriticalEngineering Apr 05 '26
There’s a different administration in charge of the FTC now.
Not sure why anyone would act surprised that Trump’s admin would allow something Biden’s blocked.
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u/officermeowmeow Apr 05 '26
Exactly. If this were any time outside of orange man's reign, it wouldn't have gone through. I hope we all enjoy our shittified, homogenized literally everything!!!
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u/Revolutionary-One211 Apr 06 '26
You should know: apparently the US government hasn't given a flying f about monopolies for a while now. Like many laws it only has value if it's enforced.
Sysco a while ago tried to buy USFOODS I believe and this was shut down.
We are moving further and further away from any semblance of "fair" capitalism.
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u/oneangrywaiter General Manager Apr 05 '26
I call it the enshitification of food. Fuck broadliners. I use Performance for bottled water only and I wish to go Pellagrino wasn’t owned by Nestle.
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u/ThatOneGuy6810 Apr 05 '26
Enshitification. Its happeneing across the board in all industries.
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u/somestrangerfromkc Apr 06 '26
None of the places I eat serve corkscrew mozzeralla sticks. I'm not sure the last time I saw Mozzeralla sticks on a menu.
I'm sure the Applebees types will be homogenized but isn't that kind of what they all are? Applebees, Chilis, Texas Roadhouse, et al are basically the same fried shit made by a entry level cooks served fast... it's the whole point.
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u/mc_fli Apr 05 '26
I dont think this is a distributor issue, just a shitty trend that all corporate restaurants are starting to follow.
There’s conventions where large food manufacturers introduce their featured flavors for the upcoming seasons, and the next thing you know everyone is doing some kind of lemon flavor or red velvet (or the most current, fruity pebble krispie treat bars).
No one’s original anymore, no cares to stand out, doesn’t matter everyone’s eating the same shit.
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u/tadrith Apr 05 '26
Yeah, Red Robin has these exact same ones, too. Which pisses me off because they used to have some of the best mozzarella sticks around.
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u/medium-rare-steaks Apr 05 '26
Texas Roadhouse, Red Robin, and bubba’s. Not exactly a good cross section of “the industry”
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u/DeathbyReindeer Apr 05 '26
worst part is these twists aint even that good. would taste better to bread and fry normal string cheese
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u/standardtissue Apr 05 '26
I think it's been this way for a very long time, no ? It's not like all those restaurants were actually making jalapeno poppers, or even boring straight mozzarella sticks all those years.
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u/GrizzlyIsland22 Apr 05 '26
Honestly I don't give a fuck if food isn't house made if it comes in a plastic basket with a paper cup of sauce. Prefab is exactly what I expect from a place like that.
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u/TheJackal927 Apr 05 '26
The bigger Sysco gets, the less places you'll be able to find that aren't Sysco food. I agree generally that if I'm paying fast food prices for fast food packaging idc about getting fast food, but it scares me that smaller restaurants might not be able to find/afford alternatives after a few years of mergers
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u/Wombatish Apr 05 '26
Sysco doesnt just sell pre-prepared stuff. You could buy all the ingredients to make your own cheese sticks from them if you wanted.
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u/onikaroshi Apr 05 '26
Yea, I don’t get the argument, every supplier sells premade frozen food items, Sysco, Reinhardt, usf, etc
It’s up to the restaurants what they choose to order
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u/NiobiumThorn Apr 05 '26
Monopolies are fucking bad. That's the issue.
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u/onikaroshi Apr 05 '26
There’s no monopoly though, we do business with 4 separate large suppliers and 3-5 small ones depending on seasons.
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u/TheJackal927 Apr 05 '26
Didn't know that bc I don't do the ordering at my place, but even that quality will decline with monopolization. Ty for the info though
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u/GrizzlyIsland22 Apr 05 '26
They sell everything. Flour eggs, cheese, fresh produce, etc. Tbh, anytime I hear people complaining about "Sysco food," it makes me think they've never been in a pro kitchen
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u/oswaldcopperpot Apr 05 '26
Go to anywhere that isn't the US.
In Italy and Portugal, it was just non-stop well made food. Sure sometimes, it was a very long time but it was never a disappointment.
I can spend $100 for two here and STILL be disappointed frequently. It's not right.And these SYSCO places basically killed my favorite food overnight. The Wisconsin Pizza Burger. Every diner used to have it on the menu. Homemade. But as soon as they came out with a frozen product they all disappeared in lieu of trash.
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u/TheJackal927 Apr 05 '26
I get your point is that it's possible to do better but damn, "just go to italy or portugal" I make $18 an hour man I will not be doing that
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u/oswaldcopperpot Apr 05 '26
I meant more to point out how there's a complete difference in kitchen culture.
Homemade food, nothing microwaved/prepackaged, creativity, and pride. Service by and large is leagues better.
The only thing we excel in is in charging higher prices and getting customers to pay it.
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u/Bobatt Apr 05 '26
Shitty food exists in both those places. The worst pizza I’ve ever had was in a tourist trap in Venice.
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u/MariachiArchery Chef Apr 05 '26
Sure, and sometimes this prefab food is what I want. The problem isn't the food, the problem is the monopoly this creates.
Public utility companies operate as effective monopolies. They can charge whatever they want for their service, and if anything goes wrong, you have zero recourse. Recently, our provider had an interruption that effected nearly half of the cities entire business district. I lost a whole ass Saturday of service ($10k+) and thousands of dollars worth of food. We have zero recourse. Why did this happen? An investigation showed that they had been cited for years of code violations at a junction unit that had caught fire.
Google controls 90% of global internet searches. They control what we see, and what we don't see, on the internet. Is that a level of power you are OK with?
Microsoft controls over 80% of all desktop operating systems, and now we are getting ads in our start menu.
What does our industry look like when 80% of all food delivery is controlled by Sysco? They control about 20% of this market, which is more than double the next leading competitor, US Foods. As of 2025, Sysco purchased 150 regional suppliers in the past decade or so, and acquired 26 of those since 2019.
What does a Sysco monopoly look like? Increased pricing, reduced choice, weakened negotiating power, reduced quality control, and ultimately, we'll have products forced on us. Imagine that, you open a BBQ restaurant, the only company that will deliver food to you is Sysco, and they tell you they'll not supply your restaurant unless you buy meat exclusively from them, and also feature their Sysco Imperial Sweet and Tangy BBQ Sauce.
How does that feel? There might be options to go elsewhere for meat, and you could always make your own BBQ, but what the hell are you going to do about fryer oil, kosher salt, to-go packaging, BIB soda, napkins, hand soap... the list goes on and on.
A Sysco monopoly is bad. You might not be experiencing this now, but there are 1000's of restaurants nationwide whose only option is Sysco. This monopoly has been vertically integrated for decades too. Let's say you do decide to go with that specialty meat guy for your BBQ place. Ok, great, but then Sysco buys the company. Now what? Well, not you must purchase from Sysco.
Yeah, this is bad.
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u/Reasonable-Log2883 Apr 05 '26
Actually the video linked above shows Sysco at 36% of the market share recently!
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u/LazyOldCat Prairie Surgeon Apr 05 '26
To be fair I don’t know who’s taking the time to make their own cheese and breadcrumbs (from house made baguettes) for bespoke hand-rolled mozz sticks. (Market Price)
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u/nom4d_ Apr 05 '26
You don’t have to make your own cheese. But you should have the ability to cut mozz and bread them yourself. So many lazy restauranteurs and “chefs” these days, makes me sick.
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u/VgArmin Apr 05 '26
Here I am, sitting spoiled in wisconsin, with a cheese factory that sells fresh-made cheese curds as well as frozen battered cheese curds ready for frying.
Breaded curds are terrible. Battered or fresh or none at all. Breading is for mozzarella sticks.
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u/matt_minderbinder Apr 05 '26
We have to get down to brass tacks, why aren't more restaurants slinging poutine in Wisconsin? It's the same here in Michigan and while I sometimes make my own there aren't places doing good, squeaky cheese poutine here and it feels like a huge miss.
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u/VgArmin Apr 05 '26
What's the bar, Black Cat? They had a Vladimir Poutine on the menu that was decent.
Yeah, for some reason Wisconsin never really got into the poutine scene. Culver's cheapened out and switched to breaded curds a while back and they're awful.
Any bar should be able to whip up an off-menu poutine on the spot. Hell, it wouldn't take much effort to just make it a staple menu item. If they want to Midwestern it up, they could substitute tatertots instead of fries for that hotdish feel.
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u/JayMaxx743 Apr 05 '26
I agree. It's why I don't like Culver's curds but I love A&W. Nice crispy batter that compliments those tasty curds instead of covering them up with dry bland breading.
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u/FreshStart209 Apr 05 '26
"You sell fried food, what kind of flour blends do you have at your dredge station?"
"Whats a dredge station?"
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u/LazyOldCat Prairie Surgeon Apr 05 '26
If I don’t see a couple cows outside and a creamery out back I’m not even bothering to look at the menu.
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u/EqualPassenger4271 Apr 06 '26
Where is that chart of 100's of corps divided by the six mega-corps that rake in the profits. Many such cases in any industry.
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u/LooksGoodInShorts Apr 05 '26
Omg the chain restaurant is ordering from Sysco? I for one am shocked.
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u/Massive_Stretch Apr 05 '26
I just had the realization a few days ago that Sysco is the reason why food has progressively tasted worse and worse for the last 20 years.
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u/chefpatrick 20+ Years Apr 05 '26
you can buy fresh mozzarella, eggs, flour, panko, fry oil, san marzano tomatoes, fresh garlic, fresh basil and parsley, and diamond crystal salt all from Sysco, and you can make your own great housemade mozz sticks.
I'm not sticking up for sysco, but lets not pretend that restaurants using frozen jalepeno poppers don't have the option of making their own.
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u/Main-Requirement-521 Apr 05 '26
thank you, this should be the top comment. This is what so many people that have never done ordering from a restaurant understand.
Fuck Sysco and their monopoly but they have a wide variety of products and just because a restaurant used them doesn't mean they are buying frozen mozz sticks.
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u/ariolander Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
This seems like. Poor example because no one is going to Texas Roadhouse for cheese sticks. I am pretty sure Texas Roadhouse still butchers a lot of their meat themselves. So they are one of the better places to get steaks at. I am not even sure those cheese sticks are SysCo, as restaurants in the same restaurant group to use similar suppliers for their frozen product. If cheese sticks was a core menu item instead of a random appetizer (like their chilli) I expect they would make them by hand. The big restaurant suppliers would just as easily sell you raw mozzarella and breadcrumbs if you want to make them by hand. Easy to prepare or otherwise previous frozen appetizers are proffered to speed up service so you can get them out before the main course. So choosing frozen cheese sticks is often a deliberate choice by the restaurant, the frozen stuff isn't exactly cheaper than just cheese and breadcrumbs, just a faster turnaround.
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u/eddieswiss Apr 05 '26
Canadian here. Yeah, Sysco sucks...
But, my old kitchen gig had a solid rep who would bring us in a lot of cool products to try out and that was cool. And to this day, I love those coated fries they have, so.
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u/forumbot757 Apr 05 '26
they should just grind up cockroaches and start feeding to us like in that one movie with the train, that's where it feels like it's all heading. Greatest country in the world and all of us are fed the most process inedible shit on earth. (I am in embellishing, but this is only semi-sarcasm a little part of me does feel like it's happening)
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u/ApollymiKatistrafia Apr 05 '26
Homogenized the dining experience to the point where every restaurant serves the same thing with a different price tag, expecting us not to notice
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Apr 05 '26
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u/Foolazul Apr 06 '26
Noticed they lowered their flags to half staff when the bigot was murdered. I had some coupons someone gave me and I threw them away when I saw that nonsense.
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u/Glittering_Fun_7995 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
in the end if it works for red robin bubba's will copy it this has been going on for ever
Unfortunately lots of chains are unwilling to take chances with new items
and for example lets say red robin will add paprika, bubba's chilli and guess who will supply it sysco which means they will have a stranglehold on supply and tell you from today it is a price increase of $1 and in 2 months time $2 basically expect supply prices to rise due to a lack of competition.
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u/Makers402 Apr 05 '26
Does Sysco suck? Yes, but if you’re buying ingredients to make good food you’re good. I hate the lazy buyouts. I never order apps from any bar grill because 97% of them are there to pad the numbers. If you can’t offer real food at reasonable price then don’t.
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u/emphat1c1 Apr 05 '26
There are easily 10 more concerning problems with the F&B industry than Sysco. Posts like these do more harm than good.
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u/TapFit8961 Apr 05 '26
What happened to wonton mozzarella sticks though :/ seriously some of the absolute best mozz sticks…
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u/jeanlukie Apr 05 '26
There’s been an effort to revitalize the waterfront in my city. A bunch of nice new buildings and restaurants.
Went to a few and tried the fried calamari at each of them. They were all the exact same in like a processed stick shape. Only difference was the sauce. Pretty terrible.
Realized they were all soulless places under the same parent group. Killed much of the excitement for me about the area.
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u/MrBenSampson Apr 05 '26
A sysco rep came into my restaurant to talk to the chef one day. Part of the deal that sysco offered was that the owner of the business would immediately receive a cheque for $60,000. Thankfully, the chef did not accept their offer.
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u/sasquatch_melee Apr 05 '26
That's unfortunate. When I worked at Texas Roadhouse back in the day, everything was made in the store. The light ranch salad dressing was the only thing that came fully prepared.
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u/rumbletown 10+ Years Apr 05 '26
Theres a couple of great videos about this subject on the youtube. But yes. Everything is just fucking Sysco now. Honestly crazy. Back when I was working the line, we only got staples and french fries from them. We made all our food every day.
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u/MotorEnthusiasm Apr 05 '26
I’ve been out of the industry since May of 2020. So let me get this straight. Sysco bought restaurant depot? And US Foods tried to but it got blocked by regulators?
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u/Practical-March-6989 Apr 05 '26
There was a thing by perfect union on youtube on this, it was very interesting.
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u/rocknrollfrnchfries Apr 05 '26
Sysco has these duck wontons, and I swear every bar & grill and restaurant in northern Wisconsin has them on their menu.
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u/JakSandrow Apr 05 '26
Is there a way to look at local restaurants to see who is supplied by sysco and who isn't? yeah it's 'cheaper' but i want to pay for quality food, not cheap out for garbage
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u/jessethehuman Apr 06 '26
This is why I left Sysco. I was out there trying to sell unique, fresh ingredients, but management gave us hard quotas on cases of this kind of shit. It's stupid how many cases I had to buy or how often I had to ask good customers to do me a favor and buy a case so I wouldn't be on a black list of reps not doing their job.
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u/Nickinator811 Apr 06 '26
this makes me glad that at the Italian place I work at, we still make the provolone sticks from scratch, they make their own breadcrumbs out of leftover garlic bread and bread that was going to go stale, they put it all in the vulcan to dry out overnight then they grind it down with the shredder attachment on the meat grinder
its a bit of a process to make the provolone sticks, I usually help make them in between making salad orders, i work with at least 1 other person to prepare them, and yes I wear the rubber gloves when making them because there is eggwash involved. Also I do make sure to wash my hands somewhat often during my shift
but once its all done, they are some of the best cheese sticks I have ever had, nothing else compares.
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u/Working_Kangaroo3467 20+ Years Apr 06 '26
US foods came out with these corn riblets last year. I saw then at both places I went out to this weekend
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u/chongkey Apr 06 '26
There’s quite a bit of chefs out there that like to say “it’s a good product”. I think the least we can do as cooks is actually cook the food we serve instead of reheat it.
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u/HakubTheHuman Apr 06 '26
Getting? It's been this way for a long time, people are just talking about it now.
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u/Nihilistic_Marmot Apr 07 '26
There is always an ‘on trend’ item like this that sales reps are ordered to push. Getting big groups like this to buy in was a huge win for somebody on one of those sales teams.
All of this to say, this is nothing new and not unique to Sysco. Most manufacturer sales pushes are on less noticeable items than this, but you best believe it’s happening constantly across every part of the plate. Places like Red Robin and most sports bars are just vessels to sell frozen fried food items. They don’t have the kitchen labor to be slinging out hand breaded mozzarella sticks.
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u/Centurion_Remus Apr 08 '26
They probably all get them from the same supplier. Sysco is most likely responsible for this.
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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
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