Is there signficance to restaurant health inspection reports?
What do you think of restaurant health inspections? What do you think of the Post Register publishing the inspection results? Do the published inspection results cause you to change your eating locations?
These inspections apparently only occur at restaurants once every six months. On one hand, that can cause the report to provide an extremely limited window into the eatery’s operations. On the other hand, who knows what happens in that restaurant the rest of the year?
I had a boss who used to run a restaurant, and he paid close attention to the inspection reports. He said there is no reason for eateries to be failing as much as they do locally. One of the biggest reasons they fail is because they are trying to operate cheaply, turning their refrigerator temperatures up or hanging onto old food. He said he never failed an inspection ever, so is he just a neat-freak or is this the kind of person we want to run our eatery?
How bad does it have to get for a restaurant to be shut down for health inspection violations? Do they ever get shut down? Does anyone recall an area restaurant getting shut down for health violations? Does Idaho code provide enough teeth to shut down the really bad eateries?
Why does the Post Register seem to publish health inspection reports so late? For example, in last Friday’s report, there is an inspection report dated June 15, which is three months old! Why does the Post Register publish seemingly incomplete reports? For example, there are usually a few entries each week that admit violations, but do not provide details.
I’m sure our good friends at the PR will help us understand this, but I think the reason could be resistance from our department of health and welfare. Two summers ago when I started IFz, I wondered why the PR seemed to publish the reports late, and wondered if I could publish them quicker, and just for Idaho Falls eateries. I called around the Department of Health and Welfare, finally found the right person, and wow she was incredibly rude and standoffish to my request.
It turns out these “public health inspection reports” can only be obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIA)! I do not understand why the public must go through such hoops to get information for which we already paid. However the intense attitude I got from this public employee shed light on why the PR may not be able to publish these reports in as timely a manner as the public would like. I wonder if it is the same reason why some reports are published without violation details? Why are our area health inspection reports being so closely guarded?
One suggestion I have to improve the PR’s health inspection reports is to publish “roundups” each quarter. The PR should publish cumulative inspections for area restaurants, so we can see which restaurants got the most violations in their last four inspections (covering the past two years). I think this would help us get a clearer picture of those eateries that we all need to avoid.
What do you think about these inspections, these reports being published, and do they ever influence your eatery patronage?
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I think if the PR published roundups then they should do an award of some sort (if in name only) to the eateries that had the fewest violations. This would be nice to hold up to the public that the place took good care of their business for two years.
I’d like to see some sort of rationale behind their classification system because I just don’t get what constitutes a critical violation vs a non critical violation.
Recently I saw that a restaurant got a critical violation because there was an employee with a baby back in the kitchen. Meanwhile in a different review it was considered a non critical violation that the inspector actually saw a mouse, A MOUSE, running around the kitchen. I just don’t get it. If they are changing the babies diaper on the food prep table then okay I see a problem but beyond that I don’t see how a baby is that bad. I used to work in a restaurant and it wasn’t uncommon for off shift employees to come in with their kids / babies and walk them through the kitchen. They weren’t playing in the food.
I too have wondered what they base their criteria on. One person explained to me that it was how close to the food and prep area that determined what category the violation was put. I guess this makes sense in a way.
I like your idea Joe of the cumulative reports so that we could see a 2-year consensus at a glance.
I wonder if they ever inspect the workers for cleanliness, disease, etc. That makes me wonder also. Do the workers ever have to present a clean bill of health? There are some illnesses that shouldn’t affect their job, but there are many that should. Just a thought.
I would like to see cumulative OSHA reports as well. I really don’t want to eat someplace that mistreats it’s workers.
These reports are very important to my family and I. We rarely eat out as it is, because most restaraunts are disgusting, dirty and generally not good for your health. But I think it’s important to give this information to the public and hopefully the restaraunts will notice this and make more of an effort to keep their establishment cleaner, the cold foods colder & the hot foods hotter, and generally healthier for the public. I believe alot of it has to do with management. All to often (unless its your higher end restaraunts), they’ve got younger kids as manager’s and assistant managers and more often then not, their more lienent on cleanliness and with running a tight ship. At fast food joints, most all of the workers are high schoolers or the younger college crowd and so many kids growing up these days just don’t have a very good work ethic. Some do, but the majority don’t. Kids hate cleaning as it is, and when it involves restrooms and cleaning floors, greasy counters, etc. they do a half- ___ job. Their not very thorough and usually just do a quick once over so they can finish as quickly as possible. I usually judge a restaraunt by the cleanliness of their bathrooms. If their bathrooms are disqusting, I’ll never come back to that restaraunt again. I think these inspections are crucial and I applaud the PR for making a point to post them.
Less people would eat out if they really knew what was going on behind the counter of most of their favorite restaraunts. The filth, the bugs, the cleanliness of the workers, and the way the food is handled & stored. I think alot of people do know, they just choose to ignore it.
Our family loves to cook together. We also take one night of the week to go through our cookbooks and pick out a new recipe. Our kids actually love eating their vegatables and by trying different recipes and alternate ways to cook them it’s made it so much easier to introduce new foods to them. Plus kids love to help you cook. They have a blast and they learn to eat healthy at the same time, which are good habits they’ll keep for the rest of their lives.
Plus it adds more quality “family time” in the evenings. Instead of the wife in the kitchen while I’m on the couch watching tv and the kids are running around playing, we’re all in there having fun and spending time together. Granted there have been times when it’s taken longer to clean up afterwards then the shopping, cooking & eating combined. But’s its well worth it. Plus it tastes so much better when you actually know what you’re eating and who handled your food.
Aside from our personal preference, these inspection reports make all the difference in the world and they certainly influence which restaraunts we do eat at when we eat out.
Good post Joe!
As important to me as how clean the restaurant may be is how clean the workers are. Lets face facts - for the most part your not going to get the highest quality of workers in the food industry. Those with the skills can and do work elsewhere. Those without work fast food and chain restaurant food.
And much of the reason they don’t have the skills is just a snippet of their life in general and carries over to everything including their personal hygiene. Again, I’m not talking about all of them. But I work in a job where I get to see lots of the dregs of society - the addicts, the semi homeless, etc. And you would be amazed at how many of them work in the food industry. Which is why I’ve been very heistant to eat at both The Olive Garden and Ruby River since I know who some of the employees are. I turned around and left the Olive Garden a few weeks ago when I recognized the greeter from my job as being a hardcore meth addict who lives in squalor.
Joe, I think this would be an excellent question of the week, asking “Does the PR publication of health inspection reports influence where you choose to dine out?” -yes, no, or depends on the infraction. And yeah, I was pretty grossed out by the mouse thing.
Well said Guest/comment 6!
I think restaurant inspections should be published daily just like the police news of record. The public has a right to know since these inspections are crucial to their health and well being. Sometimes the only thing standing between you as a customer and a case of hepatitis or salmonella may be a surprise inspection by the health department.
There’s no reason they cannot be published online within minutes of the inspector returning to the office, or even from the field if the inspectors are given laptops.
There are no technological or bandwidth reasons at least, there may be bureaucratic red tape reasons.
Do we see all the inspection reports in the PR or just a few of them?
They say they publish them in the order received, so I guess they publish each one they get, where they take eatery advertising they probably have to be fair to all of them.
“I wonder if they ever inspect the workers for cleanliness, disease, etc. That makes me wonder also. Do the workers ever have to present a clean bill of health? There are some illnesses that shouldn’t affect their job, but there are many that should. Just a thought.”
I have to admit, that one made my chuckle a bit… Servers, for instance, make about 3.50/hour plus tips. Around here tips could be 5.00 on a hundred dollar total. Sometimes servers have to pay money to serve a table because they are required to tip a small percentage to the supporting workers (bussers, bar, etc). So that means on that table they got… a whopping $2.00. I can’t imagine any restaurant saying to such employees: Go pay for a medical exam to let us know if you are healthy.
^ there are of course standards for cleanliness in any restaurant. If there are any violations (such as a lack of hair nets) they are pounced upon by management.
Pounced upon…..literally!
So looking over this week’s health reports in the PR, I like Puerto Vallarta, they had 3 critical and 3 noncritical violations. “Excess flies in the kitchen” seems like it should be critical but it’s not, though I think this is a concern to consumers.
I also like the Hong Kong, but they got 9 violations this time! 4 critical (though one was for a toothpick in an employee’s mouth?!?!), a non-critical violation was “evidence of mice (turds) in the back room”, yuck!
Sol Rio, another favorite restaurant of mine (I love the Mexican food), had several violations that indicate they are not taking safety seriously (no trained food safety manager on duty, fridge not keeping food cold enough, cooked food not date-marked, uncleanable cutting boards, no chlorine test strips in the house, kitchen floors excessively dirty). I think I might skip that next time.
Los Albertos had a cook cracking eggs with bare hands then handling burrito without changing gloves! Isn’t that the place with the really awesome and cheap breakfast burritos? Dairy Queen also had excessive flies. Starlite skating rink (that place is still open?!?) had a sink wrapped in duct tape and a garbage bag, definitely not a great sign of their standards.
Then there were numerous places that had violations, but no details provided. I am wondering if the PR is editing those themselves for space, and why they would choose some to edit and not others?
We see lots of cases where food is not being kept cold enough, and my old boss said when you see those violations it is a sign that the owner is trying to be cheap and pinch pennies despite risking customer safety.
Another big problems seems to be moldy ice containers, I don’t think there’s a way for consumers to check that though. Maybe it’s best to get our drinks without ice in restaurants?
This latest report just confirms why I rarely eat out.
This week’s report had Jaker’s with three violations related to not keeping food cold enough. Again, I’ve been told restaurants who get these violation types are typically cutting corners to pinch a few pennies at customers’ expense. Jaker’s is a quality place so it’s disturbing to see them do those tricks.
Schlotzky’s Deli had six violations, three related to not keeping food cold enough, one related to not date-labeling sliced meats, and for slime in their ice machine. ewwww! They also had excessive buildup of lint and dirt/greese on ceiling tiles and vents.
I once dated a man who worked at a nice Italian restaurant (the place just couldn’t make it here but was successful elsewhere in Idaho) and I told him how much I truly loved the parmesan-topped breadsticks, which were fresh made daily on the premises.
He said he also loved them, but could no longer eat them, as he kept seeing the staff who made them come in with dirt under their nails…yet by the time they finished kneading the dough, gee whiz, nails all clean, now!
He said that for the most part, if you were able to see what happens in the kitchens of these places, you’d NEVER eat out.
Knowing that, I still eat out regularly, but I try to avoid those places that consistently have critical violations, or seem dirty, or give me any other excuse. I don’t always read the reviews but they are interesting.
You’re exactly right Nemesis….most peole think, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. I’ve worked in too many resteraunts over the years that I know first hand that most places are simply disgusting. Kitchens aren’t cleaned properly, food isn’t stored correctly and employees are just plain disgusting and unclean. It’s usually not the chefs or cooks that are the dirty ones, but the sous chefs and prep workers that actually get all your food prepared and ready to cook. At most places these people are paid no more than minimum wage and they’re the dirtiest. It’s hard to find people to peel 200 lbs of potatoes a night or shell 400 lbs of shrimp, let alone clean all the produce, and basically do the “dirty work” for the chef or cooks. And that’s your higher end restaraunts! Now think of your fast food places and chain restaraunts. People really have no clue what their eating when they eat out and the filth that surrounds their food. But hey…most of your food is cooked well anyways, so don’t worry.
Since we are talking about gross out stories let me tell you one about the Burger King on N Yellowstone. I worked there for a while as a teen, this was many many years ago as in clear back in the 80’s. I would only hope these nowadays would be critical violations.
We used those refillable ketchup bottles. When they got low we put in more ketchup. When they got low again we put in more ketchup. Who knows how long that process had repeated itself but I’m suspecting years because we got a new manager who apparently had seen this before. She went out and emptied the ketchup bottles. In the bottom of every single one of them was some sort of mutant fungus that once was ketchup. I never knew til then that ketchup could mold but this certainly had and had gone well beyond that. Needless to say I’m always wary now of using the refillable type of ketchup / mustard bottles when out.
Another night from the same place. There was this grill that was used in the cooking process and I mananged to slice every finger on both hands. I was bleeding from every finger and the manager gave me some gel and some funky bandaids that could only be best described as mini condoms to slide over my fingers. Apparently there was concern that normal bandaids would come off. So back to work I go with every finger covered in a mini condoms. And I’m making the food, not dealing with money or taking orders mind you. We get busy and the orders come flying and I’m back there whipping out food as fast as I possibly can. My mind is totally focused on getting that food made, getting those burgers grilled, and getting it out. So I don’t notice til the rush is over that six of my mini condoms are gone and I’m oozing gel and blood onto things. Amazingly we had no complaints about the food.
Later on I worked in another restaurant. You hear about those horror stories about what the cooks will do to your food if your a jerk to the waitress or complain about the food. Its all true.
You’re absolutely right Guest. Never….I repeat NEVER send your food back if something is wrong with it or not to your liking. If it isn’t cooked correctly, you’re better off talking to the manager and telling them to adjust your check accordingly. They’ll usually try to bring you out a new dish of whatever you were having, but just tell them you don’t have the time and you’d rather just have it adjusted on your check. Better safe than sorry!
(and that’s just nasty about the mini condoms! imagine the surprise some people got when they bit into their burgers? ugh!!!)
I think the Post Register should publish a semi-annual scorecard of bad actors so people will know to stay away. My wife got food poisoning from BJs Bayou and this involved a serious short-term illness. They denied having anything to do with it. The County Health Dept. did nothing with our complaints. We will never eat there again. People should know!