MACON, Ga. — A low health score at a popular Macon restaurant has a lot of people buzzing this week.
If an eatery fails a health inspection, does a cut-off score automatically shut them down?
At Decadent Dessert Bar in downtown Macon, the staff takes cleanliness very seriously.
"We start fresh every morning," says owner, Patrick Polowichak. "The standard for Decadent is perfection."
And it shows.
They have a nearly perfect rating (99) from the Department of Public Health. But a few blocks over, it's a different story.
Parish on Cherry received a score of 55 from DPH last week. Owner Chrissy Lee says since then, life has been a nightmare.
"I hate that the 55 is a cloud over us," says Lee.
So that sort of begs the question, how low is too low?
Rick Craft with DPH says restaurants are inspected twice a year. Owners do not know when inspectors are coming.
We asked Craft to verify if there's a cut-off score that requires a restaurant to shut down.
"There is no magic number," says Craft. " There's no score that forces anyone to shut down. One of the reasons why is because if there's any critical violation -- and that's something that's deemed a public health risk factor -- it has to be corrected before that inspector can leave.
The Parish inspection report says the inspector found some expired food items, sinks without hot water, and food splatters on the walls, among other things.
"Some things were stupid, careless mistakes on our end that we have no excuses for and we apologize," says Lee. "They've been fixed and will never happen again."
Lee says they've fixed nearly every problem and are ready for their follow-up inspection.
"We're just hoping that our customers will give us another chance and accept our apology. We're not pointing fingers at anyone but ourselves," says Lee.
To see the DPH report, click here.
Here is Lee's detailed response to each part of the report:
PARISH ON CHERRY RESPONSE TO RECENT HEALTH SCORE
2/1/2019
We would like to respond to the recent health inspection score of a 55 we received recently.
First, we would like to say that we take cleanliness and food safety very serious at Parish, we do not cut any corners when it comes to ensuring all of our guest are served safe food.
Below are the observations made by the Health Inspector and our response to each:
A Sealed pan of raw Shrimp stored on a shelf directly above a shelf containing a sealed bag of spinach:
Sealed pan of eggs stored over a sealed raw ground beef and a sealed pack of raw bacon:
We take great measures to ensure all of our food is stored properly to prevent the risk of cross contamination. A sealed pan of uncooked shrimp was placed on a shelf above a sealed bag of spinach. The shrimp did not come in direct contact with the spinach at any time.
Also, a sealed pan of eggs stored over a sealed raw ground beef and a sealed pack of raw bacon:
We do understand the importance of not storing seafood directly above ready-to- eat food or poultry over beef or pork.
This was a rare mistake for us we guarantee this type of mistake will not happen again.
Several food items were temped at a temperature of above 41 degrees.
These items were in a cooler that stopped working the night before, we are diligent in recording temperatures of all coolers and items in each cooler to prevent serving food that was stored at a dangerous temperature, and we can assure you that this problem would have been discovered and the items would have wasted immediately. The inspection began before we opened and unfortunately before the items in this cooler were temped.
We do understand that storing food at above 40 degrees is dangerous to our guest and would never knowingly allow this food to be served.
Seafood dip in a warming cabinet temped below 135.
Each morning we prepare the seafood dip by heating it to above 140 degrees then place it in the warming cabinet to keep it at a safe temperature. We do not use the warming cabinet to heat the product as it would not reach 140 in the proper amount of time to prevent the growth of bacteria.
This mistake was made by a cook that is no longer employed with us, again this problem WOULD have been discovered by the manager and fixed immediately and would NOT have been served to any guest.
Observed employee changing labels:
Same employee as above, was fully aware we do not condone this behavior and is not a part of our operations guidelines.
This issue would have also been discovered and fixed before any unsafe food was served to anyone.
Proper labeling on Roast Beef, corn on the cob, and cooked chicken:
All of these items were properly labeled with an expiration date of 2/4
These labels were filled out incorrectly with the start date of 1/28. The product was prepped on the night of the 27th so the label was filled out for the 28th as the start date.
Labels must have a start date of the day the item is prepped
This was a mistake on our part and we can assure you this mistake will not happen again.
Pest control sticky pad placed on a shelf directly below a sealed case of chocolate syrup.
All restaurants in GA are required to hire a third party pest control company to service the restaurant on a regular basis.
We know the importance of this and have always complied with this code.
The pest control technician made the mistake of placing pad on a shelf and not on the floor.
The pad was placed on a shelf directly below a case of sealed chocolate syrup.
We have contacted the pest control company about this issue and they have assured us this is a mistake and will take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again.
In no way did this pad come in contact with any food and did not put any of our guest at risk for any type of cross contamination.
Oysters stored in a plastic container in the walk in cooler.
-We were not aware that oysters or any other Molluscan shellfish cannot be removed from the cardboard box they are shipped in and placed in a clean pan before storing in the cooler.
We know now and will not transfer oysters to a pan before storing.
-Points were also deducted for not displaying the tag that is placed on the outside of each case of oysters that identifies the source.
By the suggestion of the health department several years ago we remove the tag from the case, take a photo of the tag and email it to ourselves and forward it into a separate folder for reference in case we need to identify where the Oysters came from.
We DO in fact follow this procedure each time Oysters arrive and have a recorded of every label from every case of oysters.
We were unaware that the tag displaying the source of the oysters had to be on display, now we know and will make sure we follow this procedure going forward.
Several half gallons of buttermilk and a container of sour cream was found to be expired:
This is not common for us and we would never serve food that is expired.
Before these products would have been used the date would have been noticed and wasted immediately. All of our staff and mangers are aware they are not to use expired product.
In no way would do we encourage or allow expired products to be used in preparation of our food.
Thermometers in each cooler:
We place separate thermometers in each cooler on top of the built in thermometers to assist us in making sure our coolers are in working order.
Somehow this thermometer went missing, this happens often since they are not permanently attached to the inside of the cooler so we keep backups for replacement when we notice they are missing.
The cooler does have a built-in thermometer and would have been tempted by the manager before service. The cooler and all products in said cooler were at a temperature of below 40 degrees. We will still do our best to make sure all hanging thermometers are replaced when missing.
Facility failing to display the last health inspection report:
This report hangs in a frame beside the door for all of our guest to observe at their convenience.
The frame recently fell and the glass broke. We ordered all new plastic frames to replace the glass ones to prevent this from happening again.
It was our mistake for not immediately re-hanging the report with or without a frame.
The missing report in question had a score of a 95 A, in no way were we trying to hide this report from our guest as we are always proud to display our health inspection reports.
Silverware stored as a cleaned with food contact surface up:
When silverware comes out of the dishwasher they are placed in a container on the “drying rack” to air dry before used.
Some forks were placed in the container with the prongs facing up vs facing down.
We understand this is a violation of GA health code and will not happen again, but these forks were still on rack (shelf) with other clean dishes and did not and would not have come in contact with anything that would have contaminated them.
Hand sink in kitchen without hot water:
We have 3 hand sinks in the kitchen for our employees to wash their hands.
This sink began to leak so we shut off the water to prevent the leak.
A plumber was schedule to fix the sink this week. A pan was placed in the sink to signal the staff not to use it, and the staff was personally told to not use this sink and to use the other sink that is 5 feet away from the non-working one, which they have and will continue to do until the leak is fixed.
We should have placed a sign on the sink instructing the staff not to use it, we apologize we did not, but now there is a sign on the sink. The staff is even more aware not to use the sink that didn’t have water to wash their hands and they should use the other 2 sinks.
All physical facilities are in good repair:
Recently we hired and IT company to assist us switching cable providers last week, during the job a technician discovered an air vent above a ceiling tile in the kitchen blowing air into the empty space above the ceiling tiles, we told the technician not replace this ceiling tile and we ordered a grate to put in its place so we may use the air coming from the vent in the kitchen.
This ceiling tile is directly over a walk way in the kitchen and not over any food.
This one ceiling tile is the reason for this deduction.
We weren’t aware this was a violation, we do now and will make sure all ceiling tiles are in place at all times.
Splatters on the wall in the kitchen:
These walls were in the dish area and on the cook line where splatters do occur.
This is common for most kitchens and these walls are cleaned each day.
We do not allow these spatters to remain on the walls overnight.
We will make an effort to clean these spatters immediately at the time they occur.
Observed items being stored in the facility that are not a part of the regular daily operations:
During special events we display merchandise in a display case in the dining room for customers to purchase.
We do not use this display cases all year-round and store it in a hallway away from the kitchen and dining room. We remove it from the hallway when we are ready to use it.
This empty display case in the hallway was considered a violation.
We apologize about this and have since moved the display case back into the dining room and placed menus on top of it so it is considered to be in-use.
Observed flour on the floor and baseboards in the kitchen:
Many of our recipes call for flour and unfortunately sometimes flour gets on the floor.
Our floors are swept and mopped on a regular basis in the event anything falls on the floor.
We had no plans on using the flour that fell on the floor and the inspection occurred before the flour was swept.
We will work harder in making sure flour that falls on the floor is swept immediately.
New flooring around the ice machine:
Because our downtown buildings are old it’s common for us to run into an issue where the facilities need to be repaired.
We discovered the floor was beginning to sink in the “ice room”.
We had the subfloor replaced and reinforced and planned to have tile installed over this wooden subfloor. The inspection occurred between the dates where the new subfloor was replaced and tile was laid. We are now aware that that while the wooden subfloor is ok to have in the facility it must be painted to seal it before the tile.
It has since been painted and we apologize for not painting the floor before the tile.
Observed employee drink sitting on a cooler in the kitchen:
This drink was in a cup that had a lid but we understand that any employee drink has to be kept on a shelf below any food or cooler.
This was a mistake made by a new employee that now understands the importance of not having a personal drink stored above food even if it has a lid.
This is not a common practice but and we will continue to enforce this rule.
Rodent droppings:
All buildings on our block share an underground space, over the years some of the space has been separated but not all.
We take extreme measures with pest control to prevent any rodent or insect from coming from this underground space.
All of our food is properly sealed and the facility is cleaned properly daily.
No rodent has come in contact with ANY FOOD in our kitchen.
I myself am disgusted by the thought of rodents or insects near our around my food and completely understand that ALL of you should and do feel the same.
But we assure you that you DO NOT have to be concerned that any pest has contaminated any food in our kitchen in any way. This was in an area of the building that is used for storage and not a part of the dining room or kitchen.
All of the items in this area have been relocated.
Please contact the restaurant if you have any questions or concerns that were not addressed in the summary above.
We also want to thank the Bibb County Health Department for always being a partner in helping us create systems to ensure that all food is served from our kitchen is safe.
We do understand everyone’s concern as we would be concerned as well to eat at an establishment with a Health Score of a 55. We hope this response clears up some misconceptions and THANK YOU to everyone that has reached out in support.
We would like to put this situation behind us and move forward.