Operation Food Fight - Chris' Throw

In March 2008, I took a field trip to the Greene County Health Department, located in Bloomfield. My mission was to inquire about the restaurant inspections within the Linton area. I wasn't quite sure how this inspection of the records would work, but I found out that I needed to request each inspection file by restaurant name.

So, while at the Health Department, I started down the highway in my mind, naming off the restaurants as I 'passed' them in my mind. A total of 23 were requested. Admittedly, I missed a few. In fact, I missed three eateries I believe.

Having a newly-hired County Sanitarian on staff, and to be fair to the restaurants themselves, I withheld the actual names. As you can see from this previous post, I simply referred to them as, "Establishment 1, 2, 3…" Here's the original post: http://gcdailyworld.com/blogs/chriswathen/entry/17356/

Since that post, Matt Mason http://gcdailyworld.com/blogs/1159/ joined as a "Community Blogger" here on the GCDW website. Of course, his niche is food, cooking, and restaurants, while mine has been mostly business-related items, investing, and some government issues from time-to-time. So, it's a nice overlay of themes for us both when talking about restaurant inspections. You have a little bit of everything wrapped up into one, big proverbial "taco" so to speak: food safety, restaurants, government, business, etc.

Needless to say, it was only time until we'd tackle a follow-up, and that time is finally here.
To change up things this time, however, Matt took a look at the records a few days ago. And he was a bit more aggressive in his research than I, as he tackled the whole county… at least most every restaurant.

See, at the point that I had inquired about the records there were a total of 128 in the county, and we'll assume that figure from March is still applicable today. Of course, that figure includes not only restaurants, but all entities that handle prepared food. So, that figure includes delis, food stands/trailers at special events, as well as gas stations that have one of those hot dog rolling warmer contraptions. Matt tackled mostly the bricks-and-mortar restaurants, sprinkling in a few delis and convenience stores along the way.

There are a lot of different avenues a blogger (or bloggers) can take armed with this information, but we thought the most helpful to the community, as well as the most objective, was to just issue the information as found in the files. The general public can access these same inspection records, as the information contained in the files are public information. Hopefully, a few of you will because the vibe both Matt & I received at the Health Department was that we were the first and second people to ever inquire.

When reading these, please keep in mind that those establishments that no inspection records could be found are just that: no records found. They could be quite clean -- or dirty -- we just don't know without a record of the last inspection. You may also keep in mind that those with violations in the past -- especially a few years ago -- could now be fixed and no longer have an issue… or they still may be issues. Without a recent inspection, we just don't know. Thankfully, many were immediately taken care of, if not within a few days.

So, without further ado, approximately half of the inspections found -- or not found -- are shown below from the December 2008 visit to the Health Department. Matt will fill you in on the rest of them at http://gcdailyworld.com/blogs/1159/entry/22812/

First, let's start with those places without any inspections found in the file. They included: the Bloomfield IGA, Crossroads Café, the Dancing Bear, the Dug Out Bar, the Front Porch, The Grill, Hidden Hills Golf Course, Hunter's Drive-In, J'Lin Catering, Jo Etta's Pizza Villa, Mocha Tan, Pepperoni Grill, Pizza City, Rosie's Diner, Sharon's Place, Subway in Linton, and Value Mart. Again, without an inspection found, we just don't know.

Those having inspections found are listed below, along with the number of total violations cited, and the number of those violations considered "critical" with a short explanation of those:

Angell's Food Center was inspected on 06/27/06. At that inspection, which has now been about 2 ½ years ago, there were 9 violations found with 2 critical. The sanitary solution was found inadequate and food was found to be not date marked. The file shows these were corrected.

Burger King was last inspected 03/18/08, and it was found to have 5 violations at that time. Only 1 was found to be critical, which was no air gap between floor & ice machine in customer self-service area. It was corrected 10 days later.

Casey's in Linton had 3 violations, but 0 critical on its last inspection conducted 02/12/08.

On 08/25/08, there were 2 violations with 1 being critical at China Sea. Raw meat was found stored directly over ready-to-eat foods. This was immediately remedied.

At the Country Porch in Jasonville on 11/25/08, there were a total of 9 violation found. The 2 critical violations were a leaking toilet in the restroom, while utensils and equipment were not being sanitized as the third bay of the sink was inaccessible and had no water available.

The Dairy Queen in Linton had 10 violations with 8 critical on the 09/15/08 inspection. No info was found on if these have been corrected since that time.

There were 2 violations found at El Ranchito on 01/23/08. The 1 critical violation found was that the hot water sanitizing temperature on the dish machine was only reaching a temperature of 131 degrees, but was remedied that same day.

Francisco de Borja Coffee had only 1 violation with 0 found to be critical at its inspection on 04/01/07. Similarly, Hamm's Place had 1 violation with 0 critical on 03/19/08 when it was last inspected.

Jim's Petro Plus had 4 violation found on 02/19/08 with 0 found to be critical.

At its 10/07/04 inspection, Kentucky Fried Chicken had 6 violations with 4 being critical. Those critical violations found were quaternary ammonium sanitizer used at 3-bay sink not at the adequate concentration, spray hose at 3-bay sink was below the flood level rim, a spray bottle with purple liquid at the fry area was not labeled, & heavy-duty degreaser was found stored next to box of bacon bits under the buffet.

La Plaza had 5 violations with 0 critical at its inspection on 10/16/07.

Living Greene had a clean bill of health at its latest inspection on 10/23/08, as did Main Street Café & Deli on 06/03/08. Both are located in Bloomfield and are new establishments there.

The McDonald's in Wal-Mart had 4 violations with 0 critical, although this inspection was conducted some time ago on 02/28/06.

On 02/28/08, the Oodle Inn was inspected and found to have 1 violation, but 0 critical.

Petro Plus Worthington had 4 violations with 0 critical on 08/27/07.

In an August 2006 inspection, Pizza Hut in Linton had 1 critical violation, namely "numerous cockroaches & flies in the dishwashing area".

South Side Express had 2 violations on 02/12/08, but 0 found to be critical.

Stanifer's Twist & Shake in Jasonville had 10 violations in February 2006 with 3 found to be critical. Hopefully, since that time, these have been corrected, although no follow-up was found in file.

Town & Country Services was inspected 08/15/08, and it had only 1 violation with 0 critical.

Finally, Wendy's had 10 violations cited with 2 critical. The toilet in the men's bathroom was not working, and the temperature of the cheese at the drive-thru prep area was at 51.5 degrees F. These were corrected 10 days later on 04/12/08.

It is interesting to note that 29 of the 80 files pulled were inspected by the Health Department in 2008. So, the number of inspections is improving since my last review of the files. For more health inspections, go to Matt's post at: http://gcdailyworld.com/blogs/1159/entry/22812/

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This blog post by Chris Wathen was also published in his Linton, Indiana based Greene County Daily World blog entitled, "Riddle Me This".