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Health inspectors always on the lookout for substandard restaurants
By Stephanie Hutson, Staff Writer
While Coppell students are adjusting to going back to school and preparing for homework and tests, area restaurants are continually subjected to inspection pop quizzes, and their scores have the ability to make or break their business.
Restaurant inspection scores have been online since September, and it has been a popular addition to the city’s Web site. In July, the site received 2,500 hits.
“A lot of people are interested in this,” Environmental Health Officer Perri Kittles said.
According to Kittles, inspectors always arrive unannounced, making sure they catch restaurants operating the way they would under normal conditions.
“Restaurants don’t like it, but we will go during the busiest time because if you are going to take a short cut, when are you going to take it? When you’re busiest,” Kittles said.
Coppell uses a demerit-based scoring system, and a consumer can judge the sanitation of a restaurant based on the number of demerits received. Like golf, the lower the score the better.
A restaurant receiving zero to three demerits is deemed excellent, with generally superior food handling practices. Four to 10 demerits indicates good food handling practices, 11-19 is acceptable, 20-30 is poor and 31 or more is failing and results in the restaurant closing immediately until all violations are corrected.
When scoring, inspectors rate restaurants on two types of violations, critical and non-critical. Critical violations are more likely to contribute to food contamination, illness injury or an environmental health hazard. Examples include improper food temperature, poor hand washing and generally unsanitary hygiene practices.
“Critical violations are problems that would create bacteria to grow and thrive and put the consumer at risk for food-borne illnesses,” Kittles said.
Non-critical violations, while not directly leading to illness, could impede the operation of the restaurant. Examples include a lack of facility cleanliness and maintenance.
In most cases, city inspectors will not leave an establishment until all critical violations are corrected.
“We’re not going to leave there with a critical violation taking place if at all possible,” Kittles said. “We try to correct critical violations on site. If it is something like a cooler down, then we will have to come back very quickly.”
According to the city’s Web site, inspection frequency is based on a restaurant’s potential risk. Risk is determined by analyzing the types of food served, preparation steps, the volume of food, populations served and prior compliance history.
“A riskier menu would be a full-service restaurant with a very broad menu, like a diner that would serve everything from chicken to beef with gravies, rice and mashed potatoes,” Kittles said. “The high-risk establishments are allocated more inspection time than the low-risk ones.”
Food temperature, cooling and heating practices seem to be of most concern to inspectors, as the temperature often determines how effectively bacteria can grow in food.
The inspector watches not only how food is prepared, but also how it is stored, looking at how unused food is cooled, reheated and if proper temperature is maintained while it is waiting to be served. Correcting problems in these areas can help reduce risk to the public.
“We are watching the food from the second it is received into the restaurant until it is served,” Kittles said. “Really, how food inspection has evolved is from an inspector looking at dust on the ceiling or grease on the floors to looking at what makes people sick and how foods are handled.”
According to Kittles, there has been a shift in the way inspectors rate a restaurant over the past few years. Now, there is less of an emphasis on the aesthetics of an establishment and more of a focus on the practices that have the potential to make people sick.
“What we have realized over the years is that what makes people sick is not floors, walls and ceilings,” Kittles said. “So, the public may go into the restaurant and think ‘this looks [dirty],’ but we’re looking at the way the food is prepared and handled in the kitchen.”
To view local businesses’ scores, visit www.ci.coppell.tx.us and select “Restaurant Inspection Scores” on the right side of the page.
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