‘I just had to speak up’: LongHorn cook says he complained about roaches for months, and when nothing changed, he started filming

A LongHorn Steakhouse cook in metro Atlanta said he spent months raising concerns about the kitchen where he worked. When he said those complaints went nowhere, he started recording what he saw.

Sean Headley filmed inside the Camp Creek Parkway restaurant in East Point. The clips, later featured on TikTok at @fox5_atlanta, have drawn 367,600 views and more than 880 comments, and appeared to show roaches on the floor and food and trash scattered through the kitchen. Headley told Fox 5 the original videos circulated widely in less than 24 hours.

Headley said he started at the location in April and took his concerns to managers and to LongHorn’s corporate office more than once. In one of the recordings, he said, “There’s no way I should work under these conditions, bro.” He later told reporter Larry Spruill that he felt he had no other option. “I just had to speak up after a while,” he said.

LongHorn said the conditions were unacceptable and installed a new leader

Headley described the kitchen as a place with “a lot of inhumane conditions.” He told Fox 5, “It’s really the work environment and the conditions that we were working in. There was a lot of ways we couldn’t work under these conditions.”

He said he asked managers whether staff could get “the tools to succeed.” He claimed some coworkers treated him like a “goody two-shoes” for raising the issue. “There’s a lot of roaches in there,” he said. “It was just a lot of health conditions I couldn’t work with, sir.”

Fox 5’s report showed additional clips that appeared to include dirty fryer oil, debris being swept from the floor, and food stored in ways Headley said did not look safe. Complex reported that other footage appeared to show a cooked steak sitting on a shelf near the walk-in cooler.

LongHorn Steakhouse did not dispute that the videos showed serious problems. In a statement shared by Fox 5 and attributed to the company, LongHorn said, “The conditions shown are unacceptable and have been addressed. We continue to take the necessary steps to ensure a safe experience for our guests and team members and recently placed a new leader in the restaurant to ensure our strict standards are maintained.”

Spruill said he checked the restaurant’s latest health inspection from August 25 and that the location received an A score. He said he also contacted the health department and had not heard back at the time of the live report. LongHorn’s troubles go beyond the kitchen, as one diner felt shortchanged by a steak order that didn’t match what he received. 

Headley said he wants more health inspector visits, “not just for Longhorn, but all Darden restaurants.” Darden Restaurants is LongHorn’s parent company. He also said the air conditioning at the restaurant needed to be fixed.

This was not the first Georgia LongHorn outlet to face questions about food safety. The chain’s Cobb Parkway restaurant in Atlanta scored a 61 on a routine inspection in December 2025, reports Atlanta News First. Inspectors there found shrimp, cheese, and butter held at unsafe temperatures, uncovered pans of raw steak in a cooler, and undercooked salmon plated for a takeout order. LongHorn said at the time that it was retraining employees and reinforcing safety procedures.

Complex also reported that a LongHorn in Fairview Heights, Illinois, faced a Shigella outbreak in 2024 that sickened nearly 100 people, led to hospitalizations, and prompted lawsuits. That restaurant temporarily closed for deep cleaning and employee testing. 

Viewers reacting to the Fox 5 Atlanta post offered mixed takes. One commenter questioned why the employee filmed the mess instead of cleaning it, writing, “So the employee was complaining, how dirty it was instead of doing their job and cleaning it up?” Another suggested the scene was not unique, writing, “this literally almost all fastfoods too.”

A third commenter praised Headley and said more workers should speak up. They wrote, “That is a good employee who wants to succeed. It doesn’t wanna make people work in horrible conditions. Nor does he want people to eat food made in those conditions. We need more people like him.” One person claimed, “The employee is now fired!”

Others focused on the A grade. One commenter wrote, “They received an “A” because employers know when they are getting inspected and make the employees clean like crazy. Every restaurant is the same.” Another asked, “I honestly don’t know how anyone can afford to or would eat out????”