Chipotle Mexican Grill on the Post Road received a “Poor” rating Tuesday, another restaurant in town was rated “Fair” and school cafeterias were rated in the latest inspection reports released by the Darien Health Department.
Chipotle Mexican Grill at 71 Post Road was inspected May 3 and received a “Poor” rating under the Darien health inspection ratings system and a 91 on the state’s ratings scale for health inspections (more information on how restaurants are graded is in the bottom section of this article).
These are the inspector’s remarks from the May 3 inspection (posted online here):
“Moldy red onions in large (40 pound) bag—received yesterday, May 2, per invoice and moldy, blanched onions in large tubs in walk-in [refrigerator]; glove changes without hand washing; no hot water at hand sink—turned off; dripping hood—scheduled for cleaning per manager.”
Additional inspector’s comments in the report: “Rating not posted at entrance! Allow food containers to air dry—do not stack to dry. Onions from River Point Farms, Oregon.”
Here’s how the restaurant fared in other recent inspections. Chipotle also has a restaurant at the Darien North rest stop on Interstate 95.
In late 2015, there were outbreaks of e. coli bacteria at various Chipotle restaurant locations (not in Connecticut) and norovirus at a Chipotle restaurant in Boston. the company then announced it would change its procedures to keep and handle food safer.
But in December, Darien Health Director David Knauf said in an interview with Darienite.com, that from what he was seeing, he didn’t think the problem was with food storage and handling policies, but with a lack of training of the staff. Chipotle said in a nationwide news release that it was working to improve its training practices.
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Recent Darienite.com articles on Chipotle restaurants in Darien:
- Two Chipotle Restaurants in Town Get ‘Poor’ Ratings in Health Inspections (Dec. 17, 2015)
- Health Director: Chipotle Seems to Have Had Problems Training Employees in Health Practices (Dec. 29, 2015)
- Two Restaurants with Poor Ratings: For One, Rating Improves, for the Other, It Worsens: “One of the Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants in Darien received a very good score in its most recent inspection, after its “Poor” score in the previous inspection.” — (Jan. 10, 2016)
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The inspections reported in this article took place from Tuesday, May 3 through Friday, May 6. Details about the towns rating system for restaurants and other food serving establishments are at the bottom of this article.
The most recent inspection results
In the list of health inspection results, below, information is listed by name, address, date of inspection, Darien rating, state score, inspector’s comments that led to the state rating and additional remarks on the inspection report. Dates link to the food establishment’s inspection report referenced here (when available, sometimes it takes a while to get posted online), and Darien ratings link to a Web page showing several of the restaurant’s recent inspection ratings.
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See also:
- Our previous article showing restaurant inspection ratings (April 29)
- You Can Now Read Full Health Inspection Reports on Darien Restaurants Online
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For restaurants and other food-serving establishments rated “poor,” and for some others of interest to the public (like schools) additional information is given. When we provide that here, then information within brackets (“[ ]”) has been added for clarity by Darienite.com; semicolons like this (“;”) separate individual comments, each one with a particular violation that triggers a point deduction from that perfect state score of 100 points.
Here’s an alphabetical list of the most recently released results of Darien health inspections (keep in mind that a food-serving establishment with a history of “Good” ratings may occasionally “Fair” or “Poor” inspection rating, occasionally the best do, and every restaurant normally gets a few things wrong):
OTHER RESTAURANT INSPECTION:
- Lithos Estiatorio — 319 Post Road — May 4 — FAIR — 93
SCHOOLS:
- Hindley School — 10 Nearwater Lane — May 4 — GOOD — 100
- Holmes School — 18 Hoyt St. — May 6 — GOOD — 98 — Inspector’s remarks: “Foods in reach-in [refrigerator] left uncovered.”
- Ox Ridge School — 395 Mansfield Ave. — May 5 — GOOD — 98 — Inspector’s remarks: “No thermometer in service bar cooling unit.”
- Tokeneke School — 7 Old Farm Road — May 4 — GOOD — 100
How Darien’s restaurants are rated
Restaurants in town are rated under the Darien Health Department’s own Good/Fair/Poor ratings system. Health inspectors also use the state health code regulations to score restaurants, with a perfect score set at 100, and demerits (of 1 to 4 points each) for various code violations.
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Health / Health
A Darien Health Department inspection certificate posted on Darien Doughnuts window, near the door.
The Darien system takes into account problems that are ongoing or that have been fixed, so a restaurant scoring higher than others on the state scale may actually get a lower score on the Darien scale, or vice versa.
You can find the past several inspection ratings under the Darien ratings system for food-serving establishments on this website, and now you can also find copies of inspection reports, including state health code scores in the same place.
Any establishment actually deemed unsafe can be closed by the town Health Department until violations are fixed. Town Health Director David Knauf says that has never happened in the time he’s been with the department.