Worst Rating — ‘C’ — for One Establishment in Recent Darien Health Inspections

A ‘C’ rating — the worst in the town’s A-B-C ratings system — went to one Darien food-serving establishment in the six food health inspection reports released on Thursday by Darien Health Department.

Inspection reports from three town schools were among the ones released.

The most recent batch of reports are from inspections that took place from  Jan. 25 to 30. Two of them received a rating of “B,” and another three were rated “A.”

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. — Jan. 30 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 99 — Inspector’s Remarks: “Dirt/food residue accumulating in gap between floor tiles and walk-in cooling units.” — Inspector’s Comments: “The wall-to-floor juncture alongside the walk-in boxes should be covered to eliminate food/dirt buildup. All temperatures good: Pasta, 198 [degrees]; chicken, 162 [degrees]; cold cuts, 39 [degrees]; salad, 42 [degrees].”

—Middlesex Middle School — 204 Hollow Tree Ridge Road — Jan. 28 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 100 (perfect)

—Ox Ridge School — 395 Mansfield Ave. — Jan. 25 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 99 — Inspector’s Remarks: “All spray bottles need to be labeled with content.” — Inspector’s Comments: “Solid inspection once again. Seals steak, 188 [degrees]; tortellini, 196 [degrees]; pasta salad, 36 [degrees]; deli meat, 39 [degrees]. New steam table in place, along with two prep tables. Told by kitchen manager that the two spray bottles were for the grease trap and are not used by kitchen staff. If it is in the kitchen, it has to be labeled.”

OTHER

—Burgers Shakes & Fries — 800 Post Road — Jan. 29 — Town Rating: A — State Score: 95

—Darien Butcher Shop — 13 Grove St. — Jan. 28 — Town Rating: C — State Score: 85 — Inspector’s Remarks: “Cooling large cut of beef at room temperature, 82 degrees; interior of Bain Maries unclean; unlabeled bottles on counter; thawing turkey at room temperature (prep sink); large prep wood board starting to crack: what is the repair/replace plan?; non-food contact surfaces unclean: near grease trap; fruit flies observed near prep and warewash; hood filters unclean.” — Inspector’s Comments: “Glove use observed!”

—Mama Carmela’s — 1981 Post Road — Jan. 28 — Town Rating: B — State Score: 91

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.

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 (“;”) separate individual comments by the inspectors. Each comment separated by semicolons is about a particular violation that triggers a deduction of one or more points from a perfect state score of 100.

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See also:

• Our previous article showing restaurant inspection ratings (Jan. 25)
  
• STAMFORD online health inspection results
• NORWALK online health inspection ratings (explanation of ratings)

You can find the past several inspection ratings under the Darien ratings system for food-serving establishments along with copies of inspection reports, including state health code scores on this website.

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How Darien’s Food-Serving Places 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.

 

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.