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How safe is that restaurant food? by Ahmad Safi
Source of Article: http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2009/jan/04/how-safe-restaurant-food/ Nearly a thousand people each day eat food from
the cleanest kitchen in Though Heartland, and a
handful of other mostly chain restaurants in A News-Press review of thousands of health
documents for more than 150 restaurants and bars and grills in St. Joseph has
found serious violations, such as prescription drugs being seized from a
Mexican restaurant, roaches and houseflies living in a kitchen refrigerator
at a Chinese buffet, and inspectors being forced to denature discarded foods
with bleach so the restaurateurs don’t reuse the food. At any time, anyone who sells food in There are just more than 300 establishments in An inspector’s bad review can shut down an
establishment. But that depends on how many so-called “critical violations”
are amassed during the inspection. There are nearly 300 ways a food establishment
can get in trouble with the Health Department, and about 125 of those are
considered critical violations. “(But) really, it could be as few as one. If you
have an infestation of any type of pest — mice, rats, roaches, flies even —
you’re going to get closed,” said Rick Messa, one
of the city’s two health inspectors. A News-Press review of food safety records found
four common critical violations: slime in the ice machine, an employee
leaving an open personal drink in the kitchen, a dirty slicer and temperature
violations — food not holding cold or hot enough. Mr. Messa said each
violation carries a real risk for food-borne illness. Mold or slime grows best in a moist climate,
such as in a restaurant’s unclean ice bin. An open drink in the kitchen, with each sip by
an employee, transfers bacteria from his or her mouth to hand, which may then
get into food. An unclean slicer is the perfect laboratory for
bacteria. It takes just four hours for bacteria to grow into a danger area on
any food-contact surface. And the most likely source for a food outbreak
is the temperature that food is cooked, cooled and stored. Foods must be kept
below 41 degrees or above 140 degrees to prevent bacterial growth. Mr. Messa said these
violations and other less common ones are “90 percent of the time due to
laziness.” While Heartland’s kitchen tops the list as the
brass ring in clean dining, one establishment that has had its difficulties
is Village Steakhouse & Buffet. Like many buffets in town, Village has a fat
inspection file at the Health Department. The restaurant was closed twice this past year —
once for “gross unsanitary conditions” and the other time to correct cooling unit problems, according to food
safety inspections. Owner and Manager Erich Uhlhorn
said in the current tough economic times, locally owned establishments like
his are especially hurt. “I think we just let ourselves get a little bit
lax (in 2008),” said Mr. Uhlhorn, who adds he is
eyeing a nearly $10,000 cooler unit to bring his restaurant infrastructure up
to Health Department standards. “This is my livelihood, and only a fool plays
fast and loose with that.” Mr. Uhlhorn said he
also is considering having his staff go through a food safety class, free
in-service training that the Health Department says it tells many restaurants
about, but few take them up on. Inspectors also say good restaurant managers are
directly related to the cleanliness at any given restaurant. Captain D’s on
the Up until 2008, Captain D’s never had a critical
violation (“one of the cleanest fast-food restaurants”), according to health
records dating to 2005. But after a grease fire in June, caused when a
kitchen employee became distracted on the phone, the restaurant began to rack
up critical violations. Ryan Seippel, a
Captain D’s employee since the early 1990s who took over managerial duties in
December 2007, said he feels targeted by the Health Department. “He (Mr. Messa) comes
in, tells me what is wrong and goes away,” said Mr. Seippel,
outside the restaurant around noon on Tuesday. “I’ve got one person in the
(kitchen) right now. I don’t have a large crew like Cheddar’s.” Health inspection records show that franchise
and chain restaurants such as Cheddar’s, Mr. Messa said that
usually is because nationally owned restaurants have accountability to
someone above. “Where if you’re local, the only responsibility
you have is to yourself. And sometimes they don’t have the resources or the
money available to do some of the things some of the national chains can do,”
he said. “So, for example, to them, replacing a refrigerator unit is a lot
more costly, and sometimes they’re reluctant to do that, until we force them
to do it.” |
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