Food for Thought Report 12.29 - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

"It's our customers that make us successful," Scott Stofel, owner of Dot Com Coffee, said. And success is where we find them this week, topping the "Top Performing List." From sweet drinks to sweets, the drive through at 3334 66th Street caters to you from inside your car.

Food for Thought 12.29 Here is a complete list of the restaurants and their violations for the week ending on 12/29/05.

"We get them through pretty quickly. I run outside and get all their orders. We try to make sure they don't sit more than 5 minutes in line," Amanda Stofel, sister of the owner, said.

Just like the "dot com boom" of the late 90s this Dot Com is expanding as well. Come Wednesday a sit-down, wired and wireless Internet Dot Com will open at 1303 82nd serving soups, salads, sandwiches and more.

J&M BBQ at 3605 34th street is the only other top performer this week, with no critical violations.

Now on to this week's low performers.

Apollo Restaurant at 4001 34th Street has three critical violations.

• Inspectors found eggs at 63 degrees, cold food should be held at 41 degrees or colder to be safe to eat.
• They also saw employees handling food without washing their hands using sanitizer or gloves.
• Potentially hazardous foods were found without a date-mark.

NewsChanne 11 contacted Apollo Restaurant, management there had no comment. The inspection states that all violations were corrected on site.

Our next low performer is Josie's at 5101 Aberdeen with four critical violations.

• Inspectors there found inconsistencies in the temperatures of cooked food. They say ranchero sauce was 128 degree around the perimeter of the container and 141 degrees in the center. They also noted ground beef was 127 degrees in the center and only 78 degrees near the exterior.
• Hot food should be held at 140 degrees or warmer. Rice was found at 121 degrees. Enchilada casserole was found at 96 degrees.
• Inspectors say prepared food did not have correct date-marking.

All of the above violations were corrected onsite.

• Inspectors say the hand sink in the employee restroom did not have hot water. They added all employees must wash hands with hot water after using the restroom.

Josie's was given 10 days to correct this violation.

NewsChannel 11 spoke with the owner. She said all violations have been corrected. She also noted that there is an additional hand sink near the restroom where employees wash their hands. She added that they were very busy at the time of the inspection, and they had just hired a new cook who was unaware of the restaurant's cooling procedures.