Dirty Kitchens

I am a fan of Kitchen Nightmares.  I find it quite interesting and informative especially since we are running a restaurant of our own.  One of the things that is typical on the show is the amount of filth that is discovered in the establishments being visited.  Lots of nastiness and lots of rotten food.  The scary thing is people are eating there.  We just moved in to our third location.  The first was the old bakery that we renovated.  It was so caked in grease I had to pressure wash the walls, ceilings and floors.  We sprayed degreaser on the ceiling and then used a squeegee on it, grease would drip like crazy and a white streak would be left on the ceiling while the rest of the ceiling remained a lovely brown color.  Disgusting.  The next place was cleaner but still had some issues and then the place we just moved into, wow.  I was shoveling grease off of the hood exhaust duct system.  It was nasty beyond belief.  I cleaned an ansul fire suppression system the other day that was likewise caked in grease so bad that the stainless steel system looked as if it were bronze.  That is just gross and that is all there is to it.  I took on a 4 burner stove today and ended up working on it for some time because it was completely caked in grease.  It was left by the last outfit and was in serious need of a cleaning.  We are planning to start using it and don't want to use it in the condition it was in. So I cleaned and while I cleaned I thought about establishments and wondered about how clean our restaurants really are?  How does a place that is filthy pass a health inspection?  I think we hope the place is clean and that our food is being prepared in a healthy environment.  I do wonder though how many places out there just don't care.  I don't like dirty kitchens and can only hope that it is the majority of food establishments that keep them clean.  Our experience moving in to places indicates that story may be different.  Let's hope not.