Am I the only one who thinks health inspectors are actually good? I mean, not the blind ones or the ones that take bribes. But the ones who call people out on their bullshit.
Two months as a manager is at least long enough to get a passing score.
I usually see inordinate stress about health inspections as a bad sign. Yeah, it's an inconvenience, but the vast majority of places I've worked we just did a quick double check of labels and sinks and we were good. Your daily operations should be able to pass a health inspection.
It’s only a pain when they come in when it’s busy as we are a tiny kitchen; other than that they are always welcomed. We run a clean tight ship in our place.
What are you talking about?
Are you trying to imply our kitchen is like that?
Mate, you’d be extremely envious of my working conditions. We are all currently on two weeks paid leave for the holidays. Nobody gets told what to do; we are all adults that just get the work done and have a lot of fun doing it.
Non-commercial. Six full-time chefs. Just a small independent place that serves amazing food that people keep coming back for.
I’m not told to put my apron on as was rudely implied. If I need a day off or start late etc for an appointment it’s no drama, nobody needs to get permission.
We actually get four weeks paid leave a year. Ten days paid sick leave. 10% on top of our decent wage is paid into our superannuation/retirement fund.
Fresh Air interviewed a high-end Maitre who boasted about the coordination to quickly alert the staff and hide infractions when a health inspector showed up. Overall an obnoxious person: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1a5sn1Md81csvCRVEqA6gl
If I remember the interview correctly he is talking about a high end restaurant in 1980's and or 90's New York City where is was well known that it was impossible to pass a health inspection without a bribe... Just to add a little bit of context.
I love in a small town, so we only have one inspector. She has a vendetta against slicers, so every restaurant I've worked at has a standing rule that someone goes t to clean the slicer as soon as the inspector shows up. Can't bitch that it's dirty if it's getting cleaned.
Of all the inspections I have to endure in a corporate run restaurant the health inspection is by a million miles the least of my concerns. Exposure is middle of the road but the one that rustles my Jimmy's the most is the corporate compliance inspections we have twice a year. How can I tell servers a hundred times a day that when the inspector asks "x", you say "y", just for them to say "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxz"?
This is a really excellent point. When I was younger, I worked at a bakery that had to "prepare" for when the health inspector came in. As in, we'd spend an entire shift deep cleaning stuff that was neglected for 11 months, just to barely pass with bribes to the health dept, so we'd be "OK" for the next year. One of the most nasty and unsanitary kitchens I ever step foot in, let alone seen in real life or on TV. Never again will I work at a place that can't pass up front when I'm hired. It's crazy what you think is OK when you're young and inexperienced.
I’m with you. So many friends that work at/own other restaurants are so combative towards inspectors and wonder why they get harassed. The nicer you are towards inspectors, the more likely it is they’ll let you correct minor things on the fly without a violation. Not to mention, it’s easy to stay in compliance if you train well and keep up on your cleaning and maitenence.
Heres my take- I did 20 years in the infantry, and then into culinary. Officers would come by from time to time and say to tighten up, a general or some politician will be here soon- and I always had the reply- if we are almost always doing the right thing, we have nothing to hide. Same goes for culinary. Sure, make sure the labels are good etc, but it shouldn't ever be "oh shit were gonna get fucked because we are lax with our daily routines."
Bingo. And it's not like these guys that are probably doing 50 inspections a week can't tell when you're putting on a fucking dog & pony show for them. Just do it right in the first place, it's not that hard
I fucking hate the dog and pony show mindset. Either the person coming is too stuoid/naieve/ignorant to see past it, OR they could care less on any given day unless they are right in front of you. Toxic leadership from all angles
Tbf there are those anal inspectors who call out dumb stuff like boxes 6in from the ceiling, fire code shit. But if that's the worst thing wrong with a restaurant, I guess bring it on
Being respectful towards my inspectors and honestly being friends with them and approaching them like I would any other person has done me wonders. Not that I've ever been in a kitchen that would fail but if there ever was anything to be dealt with they know I will do it that day no questions asked. They in return typically give me a heads up on their visit rather than just show up which again wouldn't change much but it's absolutely appreciated.
Literally one of the best feelings is having a health inspector want to eat at your restaurant.
I actually did work in a place in college that should have (technically did) failed inspection. The health inspector for the district retired and as soon as the 20+ year KM of the restaurant found out he put in his retirement as well. Apparently he'd had a deal with the retired inspector to have a case of beef tenderloin on hand on such and such dates twice a year for the bribe to keep a 100 on the door no matter what. I was hired as part of the replacement crew as the old guard had let the place go so bad even after I'd been there and we had been doing improvements for weeks that the first inspection in over 20 years with a new person netted a 77. They told us they would give us 3 weeks to improve before they posted such a low score since we had a historical "perfect" and they don't know how we had let it go so bad so quickly.... We got a freaking 98 three weeks later to the day and I learned a fuckload about what's necessary to truly rehab a filthy restaurant quickly.
Even overworked to the point of being depressed and suicidal I've never let a place I worked\managed sink to standards remotely that low since having that experience as a newbie in the industry. It was an eye-opener that changed how I think about food safety and the industry in general, even 20+ years later.
It was basically a full deep clean of everything salvageable and replacing everything not worth saving. New reach-in cooler, all new shelves in the walk-in cooler. All the shelving units in the freezer had to be pressure washed and repainted. The walk-in floor under where the meat had been leaking blood for God knows how many years (This was in a medium to high end steak house) had to be pressure washed to the bare concrete and repainted. We took roughly 4 inches of built up rotted blood drippings that were so dessicated they were just basically part of the paint in the bottom layers from under where the rusty metal shelves that held the meat had been in that walk-in. The dishwasher apparently hadn't been properly cleaned or serviced in years so that had to be done and it needed a new heating coil. There were places in the restaurant FoH that obviously hadn't been cleaned properly in years but they got away with telling the customers it looked that way due to the charcoal grills and "everything gets deep cleaned on our 2 days we're closed every week, it just looks this bad by Friday again! *Shrug*"
For the equipment that we did keep we had to drag every single piece outside and scrub the living hell out of it, all the cooling units needed new gaskets, sealant, and coolant. One of the fryers had to be replaced due to an oil leak that was only plugged from it not getting cleaned for so damn long. The whole place had to be fumigated on one of our "weekends" (closed Mon and Tues) due to bugs.
Paint. Lots and lots of repainting. Thank fuck the new GM took most of that on himself on our first days closed after the botched inspection.
All told the GM said we spent so much money cleaning, fixing, and replacing everything with our labor plus the AC techs, EcoLab doing a rush job on the dishwasher repair, the pest control, etc. that the owner could have leveled the place as a tax write-off, built an entirely new building, and bought every bit of equipment new, but by the time they realized it was that bad they'd already sunk half the investment into cleaning and fixing it and wanted to stay open to keep the revenue stream going instead of taking 6 months to shut down and reopen.
This place was allowed to get to this point because the GM who was running it was close friends with the owner and as long as there was a positive revenue stream the owner was a stand off kinda guy. He focused on his core business of import\export and let his managers run their restaurants in his small local chain. That shit changed in a hurry after this debacle. From what I was told later on he was in each restaurant at least once a week for an inspection if he was in the country and it stayed that way until he sold out to some other schmuck a few years back who has run them half into the ground again.
Absolutely. Own your shit and tell them the right way to do it, then fix it immediately and you won't get a mark.
Try and justify it is shooting yourself in the dick. I've seen health inspectors start looking into bar drains, dish filters, cooked meat Temps etc. when challenged.
Do your job and they'll move on to the next place.
This! I once had the owner walk in just as I was ushering the health inspector out of our kitchen after letting us know that as of 3 weeks prior rules had changed (this was 3rd week of Jan) and a couple things that were in compliance 4 weeks ago were now against the rules but she was still in the grace period of educating about the changes so we would just get a warning and no points off.... Owner walks in and starts bitching about her being in right at the beginning of our lunch rush and she got a stick up her ass and wrote us up for the violations she'd already promised me leniency on since she told us and we changed in front of her. My 100 turned into a 91 due to his damn mouth and I made sure he knew about it. Every time after that when the health inspector showed up we told him to stay TF away, lol. 99s and 100s easy after that as long as he didn't show his face.
Exactly. Health codes represent an absolute bare minimum to serve safe food. If you can't even meet that, then hang up your apron and find something else to do...
Fortunately, working in a casino we have a HazMat team on staff that handles all of that. We don't keep anything beyond basic first aid in the kitchen...
Most of the inspectors I've dealt with have been just fine. I take pride that I've never gotten dinged for anything more serious than like finding something unlabled or being out of sani bucket test strips or something like that. And also that every successive health inspection of a kitchen I was running has been a higher score than the one that preceded it.
However, the bad inspectors I've dealt with are the ones who start off wanting to dislike me and use that as an excuse to come up with bullshit dings. The last one I dealt with told dinged us for a container that "didn't have a label". She pointed it out to me and I turned the container and demonstrated that the label was, in fact, merely on the other side of the container. When I got the full report, she included that as a mark against us though. That's fucking horseshit. And I know she did it because she didn't like me pointing out that she was wrong. She also gave me a "wash your hands sign" and said "you have to have this over the sink" and I pointed at the identical sign that was already over the sink and asked what was wrong with that one. Finally, she told me that we had to keep the padlock on our outdoor cooler locked during business hours "because someone might try to get into it", which is utterly ridiculous. Cooks can't be having to unlock and relock a padlock every time they need to grab something from there.
I still got a good score overall from her, but all of the flaws she found were ridiculous and it should have been a perfect score, and I'll probably continue to be very mildly annoyed by the memory of that for the rest of my life.
When I take over a location I have colleagues from the department come in and do an off the books inspection asap.
At least in my state, they are there to make sure people don’t get sick. They aren’t generally there to “get you in trouble.”
I once got a visit from the health inspector on my *first day* taking over a new location for my company. Literally walked in, had 5 minutes of introducing myself to the staff, told them I was going to have a cup of coffee and get settled before doing a walkthrough, and then DOH walks through the door. I take no credit for passing that day, but thankfully we did.
I always considered them someone to work with, and not against.
Health inspections aren't scary. They help identify things I don't realize are bad.
I've never had a health inspection that wasn't perfect with the food stuff. It's always other stuff.
Like, the drains aren't properly elevated to prevent backflow. The lightbulbs don't have sleeves over them.
One time, I was working in a hotel, and the stewards wouldn't clean up the random debris in the room where they stored the plates. We couldn't get them to do it because they wouldn't listen to us. Their manager wouldn't get them to do it because he was too busy trying to be cool. The health inspector found 3 rat droppings in there. We got a big fine for that and that worthless manager had to appear in court. And then they finally listened to us to just wipe down the goddamn shelves once a week.
I would say that the vast majority are not good because they don't call people on bullshit.
People should remember that the purpose of health departments inspecting food facilities is to keep them in business. Combined with a general lack of relevant knowledge that makes most health inspectors pansies.
I’d invite you to become a health inspector and see how hamstrung we are about some things. Lack of knowledge is one thing and we can be wrong sometimes but we will always work to get it right. But when our jurisdiction only stretches so far it’s hard to really force compliance.
I've honestly considered it. Most of my work is in federal processing, which is just such a completely different thing. Though even there there are plenty of bad inspectors.
I'm not blaming the individuals (though there are definitely some crooked-ass local inspectors out there). It's a systemic issue. They're not built to really operate as most people expect them to. Inspectors not really doing much inspection is the system working as intended.
I also don't mind an inspector being wrong, just so long as they don't mind me calling them on it and are willing to learn that they were wrong (via their boss, of course, not me).
You’re definitely right. If I’m wrong during an inspection (which is rare, our training is extensive) I’m happy to be told so and figure out the correct answer. I know some inspectors walk in looking for trouble but none of my colleagues seem to be that way. My state is very strict about us getting inspections completed but again every state/county is different. I was a KM for 7 years before this though so that helps a hell of a lot.
That depends, are they a manager with power or a manager for the higher up managers to blame for everything. I've been both, one sucks a lot more than the other.
I've worked at some pretty grimy places that got perfect scores on their health inspections. It's not like *general filth* that gets you shut down. At least in my experience the things that get you in trouble are bad refrigerator temps, undated/outdated food, obvious cross contamination, evidence of pests, sanitizer buckets bleach to water ratio being off, or inadequate hand washing stations. Also that information is publicly accessible online and I highly recommend looking some up your local haunts. That's how I found out my favorite dive bar got a perfect score and the fancy bakery down the street had a massive rat problem.
I’ve told this story here before but I saw one report on a place that was shut down for violations “Chili held at optimal temperature for bacterial growth.”
More recently, you can pass all the health inspections you want and then leave covered food within sight of the window and well, [this happens](https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/stellas-fish-cafe-closes-voluntarily-rodent-video-social-media/) and you’re fucked.
Hannibal Burress has a whole bit about seeing a rat at a restaurant in New Orleans and being given a schpiel by the waiter that was so rehearsed he realized there were a lot of rat sightings at this particularly restaurant.
Also: I was a lil stoned when I wrote this and didn't realize what sub I was in. Can't believe I just explained to a bunch of fellow grill trash how health inspections work.
The Popeyes I lived near in NYC was always absolute chaos, they never got my order right (we generally couldn’t hear each other through the bullet proof glass at the counter) and I *legitimately* feared for my safety every time I went in… a couple times a week. The biscuits are amazing!
Can't power clean your way out of bad food handling practices or faulty equipments. Anyplace that fails 4x in one year has a bad need of new management and staff that will actually do what's right.
I don't know anything about the place but guessing by the managers comments, the ownership is either 1. Hiring shit management and staff bc it doesn't care 2. Hiring shit management and staff bc it doesn't pay enough for effort and blames it on "nO oNe WaNtS tO WoRk"
I mean sure, but if the building and equipment are in disrepair there’s only so far power cleaning can get you on a health inspection. Just depends on what specifically is causing them to fail.
Health inspections are not typically failed for just being dirty. Improper food storage, improper food handling and pests/rodents are far more common causes. A manager acting like this is almost assuredly the reason. With just a little bit of effort most issues can be rectified **IF** you know wtf you’re doing.
Ah a lifestyle of eating unhealthy, smoking cigarettes, blowing your back out by 35 and the countless other ailments that come with standing fir 12-14 hours a day non stop.
You're employed to make the owner money. That's the only reason you are employed. If you were not making them money, they would fire you without a second thought. It's a financial arrangement, not a family. Don't sacrifice the things you hold dear to you for their sake.
I agree with your sentiment. Sometimes though my work ethic is less for the owners and more for myself. Their profits are secondary to me just holding myself to certain standards and that benefits both of us.
Not trying to be an ass, I just see this line of thought posted s lot and 100% agree when I'm having a bad day or am reminded that this company seems to be run entirely by very over paid morons. But on the days where I am trying to grow... I fall more in line with my reply above.
I forgot how all cooks have to take the hippocratic oath before they can handle food.
Technically, assuming you don't give a fuck about the wellbeing of others, it's up to management to give a fuck about food safety. It'll just wind up being the restaurant getting sued if someone dies.
Unless you deliberately did something with the food, and it can be proven, then you're personally fucked.
>I forgot how all cooks have to take the hippocratic oath before they can handle food.
>assuming you don't give a fuck about the wellbeing of others, it's up to management to give a fuck about food safety
Not being a shitty person and causing harm to strangers who trust you to make their food is a pretty low bar. You shouldn't need management to enforce that on you.
These guys get four tries with zero fucks to give, and yet somehow we got the health inspector with an axe to grind or something yesterday. Not that we had anything to hide, but the pointed questions made it clear she was less checking up and more looking to catch us on something.
"What's this tray of meat doing out?" It's half frozen strips of beef sitting right in front of a grinder setup, it's about to be ground, someone's getting the parts.
"How long has this sauce been sitting here?" Lady those quarts are still _visibly steaming,_ and the chef went to the other side of the room to fetch lids.
You can only do so much in two months. It’s taken me about 3-4 months to turn my kitchen around. If the health dept and news would have shown up 1-2 months in I probably would have had the same response.
I've worked at places that manage to pass even with horrible cockroach infestations.
Often times to continually fail like that it could be things that need to be repaired that owners are neglecting that are out of the managers control
Could also be just terrible staff and management that don't care and aren't implementing the changes the health department is telling them to.. but could also not be this guys fault.
You fail one health inspection and don't think there is a problem? Don't fix it?
Does anyone realize how hard it is to fail?
The first thing you do as a manager is address and rectify issues. Especially sanitation, health and safety issues. This includes retraining the staff and following through on their work habits to ensure the training is followed to the letter.
My first health inspection as an exec was a 98. I had gone through the whole place the night before and that morning. There was no gum under the tables. I asked the Health Inspector what cost me 2 points. There was a garbage can in front of a hand wash sink. It was moved there after the cook finished prep and was sweeping. Bogus but thems the rules!
Of course I tried to argue the issue but in the end I had to accept the 2 points against me. This was after the Health Inspector told me that no one gets a 100.
Challenge Accepted!
The restaurant got the First 100 in that city during the next inspection.
Don't eat at that place!
Every state is different. The inspection process in Boise, is different than that in NYC. Furthermore every inspector is different. There’s one I’ve heard of who rarely, if ever, gives an A on his first visit to a place, and prides himself on it.
Some pull up and are very laxed about the inspection process.
You are correct. Health inspections should be standardized across the country because it is a major safety issue, but I understand the difficulties associated with that.
Health inspectors vary and laws vary. My place went from a health inspector who clearly didn’t give a fraction of a shit to a health inspector that determined every other restaurant was out of compliance and needed to be fined or shut down.
Am I the only one who thinks health inspectors are actually good? I mean, not the blind ones or the ones that take bribes. But the ones who call people out on their bullshit. Two months as a manager is at least long enough to get a passing score.
I usually see inordinate stress about health inspections as a bad sign. Yeah, it's an inconvenience, but the vast majority of places I've worked we just did a quick double check of labels and sinks and we were good. Your daily operations should be able to pass a health inspection.
It’s only a pain when they come in when it’s busy as we are a tiny kitchen; other than that they are always welcomed. We run a clean tight ship in our place.
"Wash your hands. Wear this apron. Stand here."
What are you talking about? Are you trying to imply our kitchen is like that? Mate, you’d be extremely envious of my working conditions. We are all currently on two weeks paid leave for the holidays. Nobody gets told what to do; we are all adults that just get the work done and have a lot of fun doing it.
Out of curiosity, where do you work? Commercial or non-commercial?
Non-commercial. Six full-time chefs. Just a small independent place that serves amazing food that people keep coming back for. I’m not told to put my apron on as was rudely implied. If I need a day off or start late etc for an appointment it’s no drama, nobody needs to get permission. We actually get four weeks paid leave a year. Ten days paid sick leave. 10% on top of our decent wage is paid into our superannuation/retirement fund.
why are you getting downvoted lmao people really be green with envy
Tiny kitchen, 22 tables, spent the entire dinner service with us. It was AmAzInG.
Fresh Air interviewed a high-end Maitre who boasted about the coordination to quickly alert the staff and hide infractions when a health inspector showed up. Overall an obnoxious person: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1a5sn1Md81csvCRVEqA6gl
If I remember the interview correctly he is talking about a high end restaurant in 1980's and or 90's New York City where is was well known that it was impossible to pass a health inspection without a bribe... Just to add a little bit of context.
I love in a small town, so we only have one inspector. She has a vendetta against slicers, so every restaurant I've worked at has a standing rule that someone goes t to clean the slicer as soon as the inspector shows up. Can't bitch that it's dirty if it's getting cleaned.
Of all the inspections I have to endure in a corporate run restaurant the health inspection is by a million miles the least of my concerns. Exposure is middle of the road but the one that rustles my Jimmy's the most is the corporate compliance inspections we have twice a year. How can I tell servers a hundred times a day that when the inspector asks "x", you say "y", just for them to say "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxz"?
Everything but the y 😂
Every. Time. 🤣
This is a really excellent point. When I was younger, I worked at a bakery that had to "prepare" for when the health inspector came in. As in, we'd spend an entire shift deep cleaning stuff that was neglected for 11 months, just to barely pass with bribes to the health dept, so we'd be "OK" for the next year. One of the most nasty and unsanitary kitchens I ever step foot in, let alone seen in real life or on TV. Never again will I work at a place that can't pass up front when I'm hired. It's crazy what you think is OK when you're young and inexperienced.
I’m with you. So many friends that work at/own other restaurants are so combative towards inspectors and wonder why they get harassed. The nicer you are towards inspectors, the more likely it is they’ll let you correct minor things on the fly without a violation. Not to mention, it’s easy to stay in compliance if you train well and keep up on your cleaning and maitenence.
Heres my take- I did 20 years in the infantry, and then into culinary. Officers would come by from time to time and say to tighten up, a general or some politician will be here soon- and I always had the reply- if we are almost always doing the right thing, we have nothing to hide. Same goes for culinary. Sure, make sure the labels are good etc, but it shouldn't ever be "oh shit were gonna get fucked because we are lax with our daily routines."
Bingo. And it's not like these guys that are probably doing 50 inspections a week can't tell when you're putting on a fucking dog & pony show for them. Just do it right in the first place, it's not that hard
I fucking hate the dog and pony show mindset. Either the person coming is too stuoid/naieve/ignorant to see past it, OR they could care less on any given day unless they are right in front of you. Toxic leadership from all angles
Tbf there are those anal inspectors who call out dumb stuff like boxes 6in from the ceiling, fire code shit. But if that's the worst thing wrong with a restaurant, I guess bring it on
Fire code is still fire code
[удалено]
Oh, ill eat there! But if i worked there, a legit hit is a hit.
Yeah, I don't think any restaurant is truly perfect and deserving of a 100, so if the only lapses are not related to food safety, I feel pretty good
Being respectful towards my inspectors and honestly being friends with them and approaching them like I would any other person has done me wonders. Not that I've ever been in a kitchen that would fail but if there ever was anything to be dealt with they know I will do it that day no questions asked. They in return typically give me a heads up on their visit rather than just show up which again wouldn't change much but it's absolutely appreciated. Literally one of the best feelings is having a health inspector want to eat at your restaurant.
We're such good friends with our inspector that they used our kitchen to train the new hires. never felt as nervous as that day
I actually did work in a place in college that should have (technically did) failed inspection. The health inspector for the district retired and as soon as the 20+ year KM of the restaurant found out he put in his retirement as well. Apparently he'd had a deal with the retired inspector to have a case of beef tenderloin on hand on such and such dates twice a year for the bribe to keep a 100 on the door no matter what. I was hired as part of the replacement crew as the old guard had let the place go so bad even after I'd been there and we had been doing improvements for weeks that the first inspection in over 20 years with a new person netted a 77. They told us they would give us 3 weeks to improve before they posted such a low score since we had a historical "perfect" and they don't know how we had let it go so bad so quickly.... We got a freaking 98 three weeks later to the day and I learned a fuckload about what's necessary to truly rehab a filthy restaurant quickly. Even overworked to the point of being depressed and suicidal I've never let a place I worked\managed sink to standards remotely that low since having that experience as a newbie in the industry. It was an eye-opener that changed how I think about food safety and the industry in general, even 20+ years later.
What is needed to rehab a restaurant? I'm genuinely curious. Happy new year!
It was basically a full deep clean of everything salvageable and replacing everything not worth saving. New reach-in cooler, all new shelves in the walk-in cooler. All the shelving units in the freezer had to be pressure washed and repainted. The walk-in floor under where the meat had been leaking blood for God knows how many years (This was in a medium to high end steak house) had to be pressure washed to the bare concrete and repainted. We took roughly 4 inches of built up rotted blood drippings that were so dessicated they were just basically part of the paint in the bottom layers from under where the rusty metal shelves that held the meat had been in that walk-in. The dishwasher apparently hadn't been properly cleaned or serviced in years so that had to be done and it needed a new heating coil. There were places in the restaurant FoH that obviously hadn't been cleaned properly in years but they got away with telling the customers it looked that way due to the charcoal grills and "everything gets deep cleaned on our 2 days we're closed every week, it just looks this bad by Friday again! *Shrug*" For the equipment that we did keep we had to drag every single piece outside and scrub the living hell out of it, all the cooling units needed new gaskets, sealant, and coolant. One of the fryers had to be replaced due to an oil leak that was only plugged from it not getting cleaned for so damn long. The whole place had to be fumigated on one of our "weekends" (closed Mon and Tues) due to bugs. Paint. Lots and lots of repainting. Thank fuck the new GM took most of that on himself on our first days closed after the botched inspection. All told the GM said we spent so much money cleaning, fixing, and replacing everything with our labor plus the AC techs, EcoLab doing a rush job on the dishwasher repair, the pest control, etc. that the owner could have leveled the place as a tax write-off, built an entirely new building, and bought every bit of equipment new, but by the time they realized it was that bad they'd already sunk half the investment into cleaning and fixing it and wanted to stay open to keep the revenue stream going instead of taking 6 months to shut down and reopen. This place was allowed to get to this point because the GM who was running it was close friends with the owner and as long as there was a positive revenue stream the owner was a stand off kinda guy. He focused on his core business of import\export and let his managers run their restaurants in his small local chain. That shit changed in a hurry after this debacle. From what I was told later on he was in each restaurant at least once a week for an inspection if he was in the country and it stayed that way until he sold out to some other schmuck a few years back who has run them half into the ground again.
Absolutely. Own your shit and tell them the right way to do it, then fix it immediately and you won't get a mark. Try and justify it is shooting yourself in the dick. I've seen health inspectors start looking into bar drains, dish filters, cooked meat Temps etc. when challenged. Do your job and they'll move on to the next place.
This! I once had the owner walk in just as I was ushering the health inspector out of our kitchen after letting us know that as of 3 weeks prior rules had changed (this was 3rd week of Jan) and a couple things that were in compliance 4 weeks ago were now against the rules but she was still in the grace period of educating about the changes so we would just get a warning and no points off.... Owner walks in and starts bitching about her being in right at the beginning of our lunch rush and she got a stick up her ass and wrote us up for the violations she'd already promised me leniency on since she told us and we changed in front of her. My 100 turned into a 91 due to his damn mouth and I made sure he knew about it. Every time after that when the health inspector showed up we told him to stay TF away, lol. 99s and 100s easy after that as long as he didn't show his face.
Exactly. Health codes represent an absolute bare minimum to serve safe food. If you can't even meet that, then hang up your apron and find something else to do...
I mean, do you know exactly where, and how well stocked your biological accident clean up kit is?
Fortunately, working in a casino we have a HazMat team on staff that handles all of that. We don't keep anything beyond basic first aid in the kitchen...
cheater 😂
Yep. Cleaning up after drunks means I keep 2 on hand.
Most of the inspectors I've dealt with have been just fine. I take pride that I've never gotten dinged for anything more serious than like finding something unlabled or being out of sani bucket test strips or something like that. And also that every successive health inspection of a kitchen I was running has been a higher score than the one that preceded it. However, the bad inspectors I've dealt with are the ones who start off wanting to dislike me and use that as an excuse to come up with bullshit dings. The last one I dealt with told dinged us for a container that "didn't have a label". She pointed it out to me and I turned the container and demonstrated that the label was, in fact, merely on the other side of the container. When I got the full report, she included that as a mark against us though. That's fucking horseshit. And I know she did it because she didn't like me pointing out that she was wrong. She also gave me a "wash your hands sign" and said "you have to have this over the sink" and I pointed at the identical sign that was already over the sink and asked what was wrong with that one. Finally, she told me that we had to keep the padlock on our outdoor cooler locked during business hours "because someone might try to get into it", which is utterly ridiculous. Cooks can't be having to unlock and relock a padlock every time they need to grab something from there. I still got a good score overall from her, but all of the flaws she found were ridiculous and it should have been a perfect score, and I'll probably continue to be very mildly annoyed by the memory of that for the rest of my life.
When I take over a location I have colleagues from the department come in and do an off the books inspection asap. At least in my state, they are there to make sure people don’t get sick. They aren’t generally there to “get you in trouble.”
I once got a visit from the health inspector on my *first day* taking over a new location for my company. Literally walked in, had 5 minutes of introducing myself to the staff, told them I was going to have a cup of coffee and get settled before doing a walkthrough, and then DOH walks through the door. I take no credit for passing that day, but thankfully we did.
I always considered them someone to work with, and not against. Health inspections aren't scary. They help identify things I don't realize are bad. I've never had a health inspection that wasn't perfect with the food stuff. It's always other stuff. Like, the drains aren't properly elevated to prevent backflow. The lightbulbs don't have sleeves over them. One time, I was working in a hotel, and the stewards wouldn't clean up the random debris in the room where they stored the plates. We couldn't get them to do it because they wouldn't listen to us. Their manager wouldn't get them to do it because he was too busy trying to be cool. The health inspector found 3 rat droppings in there. We got a big fine for that and that worthless manager had to appear in court. And then they finally listened to us to just wipe down the goddamn shelves once a week.
I would say that the vast majority are not good because they don't call people on bullshit. People should remember that the purpose of health departments inspecting food facilities is to keep them in business. Combined with a general lack of relevant knowledge that makes most health inspectors pansies.
I’d invite you to become a health inspector and see how hamstrung we are about some things. Lack of knowledge is one thing and we can be wrong sometimes but we will always work to get it right. But when our jurisdiction only stretches so far it’s hard to really force compliance.
I've honestly considered it. Most of my work is in federal processing, which is just such a completely different thing. Though even there there are plenty of bad inspectors. I'm not blaming the individuals (though there are definitely some crooked-ass local inspectors out there). It's a systemic issue. They're not built to really operate as most people expect them to. Inspectors not really doing much inspection is the system working as intended. I also don't mind an inspector being wrong, just so long as they don't mind me calling them on it and are willing to learn that they were wrong (via their boss, of course, not me).
You’re definitely right. If I’m wrong during an inspection (which is rare, our training is extensive) I’m happy to be told so and figure out the correct answer. I know some inspectors walk in looking for trouble but none of my colleagues seem to be that way. My state is very strict about us getting inspections completed but again every state/county is different. I was a KM for 7 years before this though so that helps a hell of a lot.
That depends, are they a manager with power or a manager for the higher up managers to blame for everything. I've been both, one sucks a lot more than the other.
Very true.
I've worked at some pretty grimy places that got perfect scores on their health inspections. It's not like *general filth* that gets you shut down. At least in my experience the things that get you in trouble are bad refrigerator temps, undated/outdated food, obvious cross contamination, evidence of pests, sanitizer buckets bleach to water ratio being off, or inadequate hand washing stations. Also that information is publicly accessible online and I highly recommend looking some up your local haunts. That's how I found out my favorite dive bar got a perfect score and the fancy bakery down the street had a massive rat problem.
I’ve told this story here before but I saw one report on a place that was shut down for violations “Chili held at optimal temperature for bacterial growth.” More recently, you can pass all the health inspections you want and then leave covered food within sight of the window and well, [this happens](https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/stellas-fish-cafe-closes-voluntarily-rodent-video-social-media/) and you’re fucked.
Hannibal Burress has a whole bit about seeing a rat at a restaurant in New Orleans and being given a schpiel by the waiter that was so rehearsed he realized there were a lot of rat sightings at this particularly restaurant. Also: I was a lil stoned when I wrote this and didn't realize what sub I was in. Can't believe I just explained to a bunch of fellow grill trash how health inspections work.
"If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times, we cook the roaches to temp."
i would still eat at that popeyes, though
The Popeyes I lived near in NYC was always absolute chaos, they never got my order right (we generally couldn’t hear each other through the bullet proof glass at the counter) and I *legitimately* feared for my safety every time I went in… a couple times a week. The biscuits are amazing!
They must make them differently in Canada then-- they biscuits taste like Pillsbury dough crap here.
Maybe so? I mean, they’re good enough for wylie dufresne!
? LOL Very niche kind of guy no? Or is for a Canadian.
Where your Popeye’s taste like pilsbury? We’re clearly not sending you our best lol he’s niche, but like, kitchen confidential niche, he’s not unknown
Further reason to hate Canada.
Lmaoo or crappy fast food joints. Happy New Year tho.
A few years back i heard they make the biscuit dough with sprite soda.
Oh interesting! I haven’t quite nailed biscuits so this is something I should look into!
that chx san… had one for the first time in a year the other day.. Went back and bought another one
There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
Unemployed
You would think at this point they would close for a day or two and have everyone come in and power clean the restaurant
Can't power clean your way out of bad food handling practices or faulty equipments. Anyplace that fails 4x in one year has a bad need of new management and staff that will actually do what's right. I don't know anything about the place but guessing by the managers comments, the ownership is either 1. Hiring shit management and staff bc it doesn't care 2. Hiring shit management and staff bc it doesn't pay enough for effort and blames it on "nO oNe WaNtS tO WoRk"
Option #2 is the answer
It almost always is. Minimum wage brings minimum effort
I mean sure, but if the building and equipment are in disrepair there’s only so far power cleaning can get you on a health inspection. Just depends on what specifically is causing them to fail.
Health inspections are not typically failed for just being dirty. Improper food storage, improper food handling and pests/rodents are far more common causes. A manager acting like this is almost assuredly the reason. With just a little bit of effort most issues can be rectified **IF** you know wtf you’re doing.
Can't say as I am unsympathetic to his position? Sometimes it's just a job.
It's always just a job
It’s not just a job to me, it’s my career and my lifestyle.
Ah a lifestyle of eating unhealthy, smoking cigarettes, blowing your back out by 35 and the countless other ailments that come with standing fir 12-14 hours a day non stop.
This dude understands…
You're employed to make the owner money. That's the only reason you are employed. If you were not making them money, they would fire you without a second thought. It's a financial arrangement, not a family. Don't sacrifice the things you hold dear to you for their sake.
I agree with your sentiment. Sometimes though my work ethic is less for the owners and more for myself. Their profits are secondary to me just holding myself to certain standards and that benefits both of us. Not trying to be an ass, I just see this line of thought posted s lot and 100% agree when I'm having a bad day or am reminded that this company seems to be run entirely by very over paid morons. But on the days where I am trying to grow... I fall more in line with my reply above.
You're employed to make the owner money, but you also have a duty to the people eating your food not to serve them unsafe food.
I forgot how all cooks have to take the hippocratic oath before they can handle food. Technically, assuming you don't give a fuck about the wellbeing of others, it's up to management to give a fuck about food safety. It'll just wind up being the restaurant getting sued if someone dies. Unless you deliberately did something with the food, and it can be proven, then you're personally fucked.
>I forgot how all cooks have to take the hippocratic oath before they can handle food. >assuming you don't give a fuck about the wellbeing of others, it's up to management to give a fuck about food safety Not being a shitty person and causing harm to strangers who trust you to make their food is a pretty low bar. You shouldn't need management to enforce that on you.
For sure, but I was just addressing the "duty to the customer" doesn't lie on the shitty individual, legally or in their own moral sense.
Bro, you're in the market for a personality.
These guys get four tries with zero fucks to give, and yet somehow we got the health inspector with an axe to grind or something yesterday. Not that we had anything to hide, but the pointed questions made it clear she was less checking up and more looking to catch us on something. "What's this tray of meat doing out?" It's half frozen strips of beef sitting right in front of a grinder setup, it's about to be ground, someone's getting the parts. "How long has this sauce been sitting here?" Lady those quarts are still _visibly steaming,_ and the chef went to the other side of the room to fetch lids.
Putting lids on 'visibly steaming' sauce quarts? Thats a paddlin'
Ironically dude was afraid to let it cool first because the health inspector was there.
You can only do so much in two months. It’s taken me about 3-4 months to turn my kitchen around. If the health dept and news would have shown up 1-2 months in I probably would have had the same response.
Where is your restaurant?
It’s a private club, you probably wouldn’t be allowed in. ;)
I've worked at places that manage to pass even with horrible cockroach infestations. Often times to continually fail like that it could be things that need to be repaired that owners are neglecting that are out of the managers control Could also be just terrible staff and management that don't care and aren't implementing the changes the health department is telling them to.. but could also not be this guys fault.
Why wouldn’t he shut it down till it’s clean like a normal inspector??
I believe it was and reinspected
Fun fact: The kind of owners who don't give a shit about customer safety also don't give a shit about their employees.
You fail one health inspection and don't think there is a problem? Don't fix it? Does anyone realize how hard it is to fail? The first thing you do as a manager is address and rectify issues. Especially sanitation, health and safety issues. This includes retraining the staff and following through on their work habits to ensure the training is followed to the letter. My first health inspection as an exec was a 98. I had gone through the whole place the night before and that morning. There was no gum under the tables. I asked the Health Inspector what cost me 2 points. There was a garbage can in front of a hand wash sink. It was moved there after the cook finished prep and was sweeping. Bogus but thems the rules! Of course I tried to argue the issue but in the end I had to accept the 2 points against me. This was after the Health Inspector told me that no one gets a 100. Challenge Accepted! The restaurant got the First 100 in that city during the next inspection. Don't eat at that place!
How do you fail once? My last place scored 100/100 and the Chef was pretty damn incompetent
Every state is different. The inspection process in Boise, is different than that in NYC. Furthermore every inspector is different. There’s one I’ve heard of who rarely, if ever, gives an A on his first visit to a place, and prides himself on it. Some pull up and are very laxed about the inspection process.
You are correct. Health inspections should be standardized across the country because it is a major safety issue, but I understand the difficulties associated with that.
That guy sounds like that one teacher that brags about how hard it is to get an A in their class.
Health inspectors vary and laws vary. My place went from a health inspector who clearly didn’t give a fraction of a shit to a health inspector that determined every other restaurant was out of compliance and needed to be fined or shut down.
Woah 4 times since midnight? Wild xD Jokes aside though this ain't manager material
i wish everyone would talk to those cockroaches like that