A former cook at a metro Atlanta LongHorn Steakhouse recorded a kitchen floor scattered with food and trash, along with what local reporters described as roaches crawling through the workspace.
Sean Headley said the conditions at the Camp Creek Parkway restaurant in East Point were not a one-off mess. He told two Atlanta television stations that he had complained about conditions to management and, in one account, to the company’s corporate office before taking the footage public.
The timing gave the video another wrinkle. WSB-TV reported that the restaurant received a 90 — an “A” — during an Aug. 25 health inspection, only days after Headley said he recorded the footage.
LongHorn called the conditions shown in the video “unacceptable” and said they had been addressed. The Fulton County Board of Health, meanwhile, told WSB-TV it planned to send inspectors back.
Behind The Line
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Headley began working at the East Point LongHorn in April.
The footage he recorded shows food debris and trash spread across sections of the kitchen floor. FOX 5 Atlanta reported that the videos also showed roaches crawling on the floor.
Headley told FOX 5 that he had repeatedly raised concerns with managers and the corporate office.
“Really, the work environment and the conditions that we were working in, there were a lot of inhumane conditions,” he said.
His account to WSB-TV went further.
Headley said he saw servers picking at food from plates that were later delivered to customers. He claimed the employees ate from the plates in front of a manager and dipped food into sauce.
He also described confronting coworkers about cleaning the kitchen. According to Headley, they responded that the restaurant was too busy making money to stop and clean.
Those claims are Headley’s account of what he witnessed; neither station reported independently observing those particular interactions.
On The Record
LongHorn Steakhouse and parent company Darden Restaurants pushed back on the idea that the footage reflected current conditions.
A company spokesperson told WSB-TV that although the video had been recorded earlier, “the conditions shown are unacceptable and have been addressed.”
The company said it had taken steps to maintain a safe environment and recently installed a new leader at the restaurant. WSB-TV also reported that LongHorn said the location receives regular pest-control treatments and has a professional cleaning crew each night.
Headley told FOX 5 he wanted more frequent health inspections, not only at the East Point restaurant but across Darden properties.
The company did not agree with his broader characterization of the restaurant, but it did not dispute that the conditions visible in the footage were unacceptable.
The A On Paper
The most recent inspection created an unusual contrast with the images spreading online.
WSB-TV reported that the Georgia Department of Public Health inspected the Camp Creek Parkway location on Aug. 25 and awarded it a score of 90, enough for an “A.” Inspection scores over the preceding two years ranged from 88 to 91.
FOX 5 also reported that the Aug. 25 inspection resulted in an A.
That does not establish what the kitchen looked like on the day Headley recorded his footage. There is also a wrinkle in the dates provided by the former employee and the company.
Headley initially said he was still employed by LongHorn when he spoke with WSB-TV. LongHorn’s spokesperson told the station that his final clock-in was Aug. 13 and lasted three hours.
Headley later told WSB-TV that his last day was Aug. 19 and that he recorded the video that day.
Another Look
Whatever the precise recording date, the video prompted a fresh response from local health officials.
The Fulton County Board of Health told WSB-TV that the restaurant had recently been inspected but would be revisited “in light of this information.”
The agency did not give the station a date for that inspection or say whether the video would result in any enforcement action.
Headley said changing the conditions was the reason he posted the footage.
“I just want to see a better environment,” he told WSB-TV.
By Thursday evening, the video had drawn more than half a million views on Instagram, according to the station. One longtime customer interviewed outside the restaurant said she had eaten there for nearly a decade without complaints but did not plan to return soon after seeing the footage.