One Restaurant Gets Poorest Rating in 10 Most Recent Darien Health Inspection Reports

One Darien restaurant received the lowest town rating of “C” among the 10 inspection reports released Friday by Darien Health Department. The other establishments all got “A’s” and “B’s.”

Details from the worst-rated eatery and links to the latest information posted about each of the other recently inspected food-serving establishments are listed below, and you can find an article about the ratings system here.

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’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 (June 19)
• 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, each one with a particular violation that triggers a point deduction from that perfect state score of 100.

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 get a poor inspection rating, occasionally the best do, and every restaurant normally gets a few things wrong):

• Browne & Company — 865 Post Road — June 21 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 97
• Four Forks — 7 Tokeneke Road — June 19 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 98
• Genji (at Whole Foods Market) — 75 Ledge Road — June 16 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 96
• Green & Tonic — 1098 Post Road — June 15 — Town Rating: B — State Score: 94
• Koko’s Gelato & Cafe — 841 Post Road — June 20 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 96
• Little Bites by Jen Maher Food — 2420 Post Road — June 16 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 100
• Meatball & Co. — 23 Tokeneke Road — June 16 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 95
• Michael Joseph’s Catering — 1405 Post Road — June 16 — Town Rating: A —  State Score: 94
• Taco Bell — Darien South Rest Stop on Interstate 95 — June 16 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 96

• The Waters Edge at Giovanni’s — 2748 Post Road — June 19 — Town Rating: C — State Score: 83 — Inspector’s Remarks: “Dessert/salad cooling unit not working properly: tomatoes at 54 degrees, mozzarella at 50-52 degrees; food items stored on floor in two walk-in coolers downstairs; slicer not sanitized from night before; dishwasher not reaching final rinse temperature o 180 degrees; inside meat-cutting walk-in unclean; shelving inside walk-in cooling unit upstairs unclean; slicer, some utensils in storage unclean; no soap at bar hand sink; label all granular [containers]; waste water dripping in salad/dessert prep area; odor coming from grease trap; fruit flies present; floor in walk-in meat cooler unclean.” Inspector’s Comments: “Latex gloves no longer allowed for use as of July 1, 2016; shellfish tags need to be organized and up to date; all kitchen employees need to have knowledge as to where test strips are; exterminator must be called today to address fruit fly issues.”

How Darien’s restaurants are now 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.