I've been amazed the last few months over the ratings I've seen posted for various restaurants. One that we used to like to go to has had an 82 for several months! We first saw it listed in our local paper that publishes restaurant ratings once a week.
A few weeks later I was looking for something online and I came across the Jefferson County restaurant inspection site (http://www.jcdh.org/EH/FnL/FnL03.aspx). I noticed tonite that it only lists the most recent ones that have been inspected. Take a look and see if any of your favorites are on this list. fyi -- for anyone who like's Mc Donalds (which we don't really care for), one not far from us has a score in the 80s I saw tonite!
I stopped by Subway on my way home to pick up sandwiches and noticed that they had a rating of 87. Is it my imagination or does it seem like scores are lower than they used to be?
My question is: are the standards becoming stricter or are the restaurant owners, managers, and workers becoming more lax in their following of proper procedures? What do you think?
15 years ago
2 comments:
As someone who used to work in the food industry, my opinion is that some of the inspectors are more strict that others. I'm sure this is the case with any job. Some people take their job more seriously than others. Sometimes too far. We had one inspector who was on a power trip every time he came by the store. I worked at a ham store so Christmas was our busiest time of year. We shipped hams across the country and would have an assembly line in the back of the store of glazing the hams then packing them to ship. As fast as we were going the hams would stay out of the fridge for, at the most, 10 minutes. Our inspector came in the day before Christmas eve. Now this is really our busiest day because people want their hams overnighted so they are fresh. He saw all the hams sitting out and even though we showed him how fast our process was to cook, glaze and package in coolers, he made us stop production and take the temperature of every ham on the table. This was something like 20 hams, so of course, by the time he got to the last ham, 30 minutes later, the temperature was above what it was supposed to be. He set us up to fail and meat above temperature is a big deduction. I could go on, but that is a long example of what can cause a rating to be low and I try to keep that in mind when I visit a restaurant. However, if a rating is consistently low for a year or more, I would probably stop eating there. Somehow Chick-fil-a always has 100's.
I agree with Taylor and could go on and on as well. When I was working in restaurant management and marketing, we would sometimes get deducted for things such as a little dust on the outside/back of the ice machine. I remember some inspectors were more strict than others, too, and I also know from experience that challenging one of them mid-inspection only makes matters worse. Having worked in restaurants, I can usually figure out for myself if the rating is just. I agree Chick Fil A deserves their high ratings in most stores.
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