A viral video showing roaches, trash, food debris, and other troubling conditions inside a Georgia LongHorn Steakhouse has pushed the restaurant chain to publicly address what happened.
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The footage came from the LongHorn Steakhouse on Camp Creek Parkway in East Point, Georgia, where employee Sean Headley documented conditions inside the kitchen. According to FOX 5 Atlanta, Headley said he had worked at the restaurant since April and decided to record what he was seeing after raising concerns about the work environment.Video from inside the LongHorn Steakhouse showed food waste and trash across parts of the kitchen floor, along with roaches. A steak could also be seen sitting on a shelf alongside packages.
“There is no way I should work under these conditions, bro,” Headley says in the video.
At another point, Headley focuses the camera on a roach on the floor.
“Look what I almost swept up. Look at him!”
Headley told FOX 5 Atlanta that he had raised concerns with management and LongHorn’s corporate offices before speaking publicly. He said the conditions ultimately pushed him to share what was happening inside the restaurant.
“The work environment and the conditions that we were working in, there was a lot of inhumane conditions,” he claimed.
“It was just a lot of, a lot of health conditions I couldn’t work with… I just had to speak up after a while.”
LongHorn Steakhouse has since acknowledged that the conditions captured in the viral video did not meet the company’s standards.
“The conditions shown in that video were unacceptable and have been addressed,” a LongHorn Steakhouse representative told PEOPLE. “We recently placed new leadership in the restaurant to help ensure our strict standards are upheld, and our most recent health inspection reflected a score of 99.”
The LongHorn Steakhouse viral video also brought new attention to the restaurant’s recent inspection history. According to PEOPLE, citing records from the Georgia Department of Public Health, the East Point location received a score of 78 during a September 11 inspection.
The inspection documented several issues, including an employee moving from handling soiled equipment to clean items without washing their hands. Inspectors also reported uncovered salads “subjected to contamination” inside a cooler and expired cartons of half and half.
Additional findings included “soiled” cooler gaskets and an “accumulation of food residue” inside a reach-in cooler. Inspectors also documented “black soiled debris” inside ice bin lids and a “large amount of water draining onto floor surface to drain.”
The restaurant received another inspection on September 14 and earned a score of 99. Inspectors reported “soiled” cooler shelving during that visit, which was cleaned while the inspection was underway.
Fulton County Department of Health planned to revisit the restaurant after the footage began circulating. However, Headley described the practices he witnessed as routine rather than an isolated occurrence.
The inspection turnaround from 78 to 99 shows that the restaurant addressed the violations cited by health officials, but Headley has said he wants the attention surrounding the LongHorn Steakhouse viral video to lead to more frequent inspections and broader improvements in working conditions.
