Latest Darien Health Inspections of Food Serving Establishments, Including Two More Schools

Results of health inspections at two school cafeterias and six other food-serving establishments in town recently were released by Darien Health Department.

The eight health inspections were conducted from Sept. 7 to 13 (last Wednesday). Four establishments received ratings of “A,” the best ratings under the town’s system, and four received “B” — essentially mediocre or middling ratings. No “C” ratings (the worst) were given out in these reports.

Most Recent Inspection Results

Here’s an alphabetical list of the most recently released health inspection results (an explanation for each part of the list, including links, is just below the list).

Keep in mind that a food-serving establishment with a history of good ratings may occasionally get a poor inspection rating, occasionally the best do, and every restaurant normally gets a few things wrong (an explanation of how this list is put together is immediately below it):

SCHOOLS:

— Holmes School — 18 Hoyt St. — Sept. 11 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 98 — Inspector’s Remarks: “Ice cream stored on floor in walk-in freezer; cases of water stored on floor in storage room.”

— Middlesex Middle School — 204 Hollow Tree Ridge Road — Sept. 13 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 96 — Inspector’s Remarks: “Food containers stored on floor in walk-in freezer; no cold water available at any sink, including hand sinks, when sanitizer unit turned on at three-bay sink.”  — Inspector’s Comments: “Food containers stored on floor in walk-in freezer are being stored for Royle School. Royle School’s walk-in freezer not currently working.”

OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS

— Burgers & Pies — 55 Old Kings Hwy. N. — Sept. 11 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 96

— Darien Doughnut — 370 Heights Road — Sept. 11 — Town Rating: B — State Score: 94

— Jennifer’s Kitchen @ White Bridge — 284 Tokeneke Road — Town Rating: B — State Score: 92

— Jimmy’s Southside Tavern — 340 Heights Road — Sept. 11 — Town Rating: B — State Score: 90

— Maplewood at Darien — 599 Post Road — Sept. 12 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 98

— Steam — 971 Post Road — Sept. 7 — Town Rating: B — State Score: 92

Dates link to the food establishment’s inspection report referenced here (when available, sometimes it takes a while to get posted online), and Darien’s own A/B/C 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 (Sept. 10)
• Darien Health Department Starts Letter Grades for Food Service Inspections
  

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For restaurants and other food-serving establishments rated “C,” and for some others of interest to the public (like schools) additional information is given. When we provide that information here, then words within brackets (“[ ]”) have been added for clarity by Darienite.com; semicolons like this (“;”) separate individual comments by the inspectors. Each comment is about a particular violation that triggers a deduction of one or more points from a perfect state score of 100.

How Darien’s Restaurants Are Rated

Restaurants in town are rated under the Darien Health Department’s own A/B/C 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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The Darien system takes into account problems that are ongoing, so a restaurant scoring higher than others on the state scale may actually get a lower score on the Darien scale.

 

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.