Keeping food at just the right temperature is a tough job for restaurants. That's why health inspectors are always looking for those kinds of violations. And as ABC2 News Investigator Joce Sterman explains, they've found them in one Anne Arundel County restaurant.
When it comes to restaurants, temperature is everything. The way food is heated, cooled and held can mean the difference between safety and making you sick. That's why temperature violations are critical and restaurants that don't get the rules get cited. Jackie's Deli in Glen Burnie is one of them. We looked at their health department records and found they had critical food temperature violations in eight of their last nine inspections. We're going neighborhood by neighborhood, looking at places with the biggest number of violations and the consistent patterns we've seen in reports dating back to 2006.
The reports for Jackie's Deli show they've got a history of holding their food at the wrong temperature. We went in to ask them about the problems and the restaurant’s manager, Jessica, told us, “In the morning time we keep the food out so it goes faster." That's exactly what's gotten them in trouble, with the inspector warning management to stop letting food sit around at room temperature. The warning came after things like raw beef, scrapple and containers of deli meat were all found left out during three different inspections in 2006 and 2007. Still, critical food issues continued, with more temperature violations added during two inspections this year.
Owner Hong Park denies having any problems with temperature. When our photographer ask whether he’d been cited for heating and cooling violations, he told us, “I didn't do that. We passed every time." But there's no pass-fail in this food inspection system. There are just written reports that detail every violation, gauging the degree of temperature problems like the ones we found here.
