Food for Thought Report 7.20 - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

Flies and rodents are just part of the critical violations in this week's Food for Thought. Three low performers with a total of 16 critical violations.

Food for Thought 7.20 Here is a complete list of the restaurants and their violations for the week ending on 7/20/06.

We begin at Lowe's Market Place at 2706 26th Street where inspectors found four critical violations.

• Cheese, lunch-meat and bacon where held from 44 to 54 degrees. Cold foods must be kept at the safe temperature of 41 degrees or colder.
• A can of Enfamil baby formula was found with an expired use-by date.
• A can of Lysol was found on a meat market prep table.
• No thermometers in the walk-in coolers in the meat market.

Management at Lowe's Market Place was unavailable for comment. The report shows most of the violations were corrected at the time of the inspection.

Next we head to Subway at 4009 19th Street. Inspectors found five critical violations including:

• Cheese, roast beef, ham and tuna salad had been on the sandwich prep-line for more than four hours and were holding between 49 and 53 degrees. Lunch meat and cheese inside a walk-in cooler were between 44 and 45 degrees.
• The walk-in cooler and the food prep line were not keeping foods at safe temperatures.
• An employee's open drink was in the food prep-area.
• A spray bottle of cleaner was on the food-prep table.
• The interior of the microwave was soiled.

Subway management tells us, "Everything has been corrected." The report shows, most of the violations were corrected at the time of the inspection.

Our final stop, Skillet's Restaurant at 6622 I-27 had seven critical violations.

• A drink, without a lid was found in the kitchen.
• Strawberries were found with mold on them.
• Employees were washing their hands, but were not using gloves or hand sanitizer before handling ready to eat foods.
• Food products were found with expired dates.
• Flies were found throughout the facility.
• A mouse was seen running through the kitchen during the inspection.
• Food contact surfaces were soiled.

Management at Skillet's says, "All violations have been corrected since the inspection, and we are trying to keep everything clean."

Now on to our top performer.

"We've been waiting to come up to this area, just opened up June 19th," Kyle Walker said.

First opened in Abilene in 1997, Texas Steak Express has found a home in South Lubbock at 9810 Indiana. Owner Kyle Walker says he saw how well pizza delivery worked and wanted to do the same for char-broiled steaks. 

"We deliver to the whole town. So just call from your house or business and we'll deliver you a steak or burger," Kyle said.

With gas prices so high, here's something else to sink your teeth into. "That seems to help them out, keeping that deliver free," Kyle said.

So just what is it that Steak Express delivers? "We use nothing but fresh choice meat, cook it to order when you call it in. Takes about 10-15 minutes to cook and about the same time to get it to your house," Kyle said.

And if beef's not what's for dinner, "We've got chicken, a great chef salad, we've got excellent grilled salmon, we do a skewered shrimp that goes over very well," Kyle said.

But when it comes to recommendations, Kyle sticks with the restaurants name, "Probably a rib eye steak or we sell a ton of our half pound cheese burgers, a ton of burgers," Kyle said.