redneck_lezbo

Most horrid? Probably entering a facility to perform its first inspection after a new owner took possession of the building. The last owner completely shut off power and everything and the restaurant sat empty (or so we thought) for about a month during the summer. I walked in with the new owners, who had just received the keys. The dining room looked to be clean and in order. As soon as we walked into the kitchen, it was an all out nightmare! Dishes caked with mold and remnants of food everywhere and drains filled with black slime! The worst was the walk-in cooler. When we opened the door, I almost hurled. The last owners must have closed shop on their last day and just walked away- leaving boxes and boxes of raw seafood (fish, oysters), raw meats and produce sitting on the shelves in the cooler. Nothing was recognizable except the oyster shells. Everything was COVERED in black and green mold. The veggies had turned to limp slime. It was the most disgusting thing I have encountered. I feel bad for the new folks having to clean that up.

I had to go back for a re-inspection before they opened about 2 weeks later. The place was spotless!

Luckily I never had the pleasure of walking into anything criminal! I did hear the story of a co-worker finally getting into a place that was "never open" to do an inspection. When he entered the kitchen, there were some guys counting a very large sum of money on a prep table. He said he slowly backed out of there and the next government official to return was a cop!

I was usually pretty good at uncovering issues. One instance that I can think of that might fit your question: I entered the restaurant just as the employees got there for the day, which was just before lunch. When we entered, the employees began the process of getting the restaurant ready for lunch and I began my inspection. When I got to the walk-in cooler I knew something was wrong. I pulled out my thermometer and sure enough all of the foods were reading room temperature (70ish when it needed to be below 41 degrees F). The walk-in cooler had failed and gone down sometime during the night. It was an asian restaurant and thus they had many, many pounds of fresh meat already prepped and ready for lunch that day. I had to tell the owner that it all had to be discarded.

Sadly, I had to watch as the entire team rolled in 55 gallon trash cans, filled them with the meat and wheeled them out to the dumpster. I finished my inspection, wrote the report (including embargo slip for his tax records) and left. As I was leaving, I happened to drive around to the back of the building. That's when I noticed the restaurant employees standing in and around the dumpster, retrieving all of the food I just made them discard.

Needless to say, the owner got an even bigger violation, a citation, and the food was returned to the dumpster and I got the displeasure of showering it with bleach to ensure it would NOT be used.

It was very sad but also infuriating!

Anything that is not potentially hazardous (doesn't require temperature to keep it safe) is generally only date marked for quality purposes. Potentially hazardous foods are date marked because once they expire, bacterial levels can begin to grow to harmful levels.

So, that box of crackers in your pantry from 2011? Probably safe to eat- maybe just stale. That package of deli meat from 2 weeks ago- get rid of it!

Yes it is very awkward. I try not to do it, but when I do, the operators are usually very happy. Almost honored that I would eat there, because you know, I 'wouldn't eat there if it wasn't clean'! I've had operators announce to the entire place that I was their health inspector and I was eating there, so it must be clean. A little embarrassing!