Food for Thought Report 7.19 - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

7/19/07

Food for Thought Report 7.19

There are two at the top in this week's Food for Thought.

Popeye's Chicken at 224 North University and Taco Bell at 4928 50th Street were flawless in their last health inspection.

Food for Thought 7.19
Here is a complete list of the restaurants and their violations for the week ending on 7/19/07.

Now to our only low performer.

Bigham's Smokehouse at 3312 82nd Street had six critical violations.

Owner Joyce Bigham and Joe Keller invited us inside the kitchen to explain the violations and show that they've all been cleaned up.

  • Food in a walk-in cooler was not cooling properly.
  • Several food items in the walk-in cooler were above 41 degrees.

"We were having refrigeration problems at that point, and we did have the refrigeration company out; through various occurrences they were not able to get out here as soon as they thought so we were having to shuttle some of our food over to the 19th Street location," Joyce tells NewsChannel 11.

  • Chopped beef was not 135 degrees or hotter.

"From the time it comes out of that warmer at 165 and goes to an area where we drain the grease the temperature does, apparently at this point in time, did go down. That has been corrected, and I'm recommending that employees keep that temperature up a little bit hotter," Joyce said.

  • An employee was eating while at the serving line.

"We've been in business since 1978, and our food is really really good! So I guess they were hungry, but that has been corrected and they know not to do that anymore," she added.

  • Flies were out back of the facility due to uncovered grease bins.

"On our pits that we have here we have to drain the grease off periodically. We have our employees that do that. There's a valve on the side of these pits. If that valve is not properly turned off the grease will drip out. They left the valve open over night so the next day obviously we had a grease problem, but it's been corrected," Joe told us.

  • Several food contact surfaces were soiled or broken.

"During the food processing and food prepping some food will drop, but we just clean it up, and also the chipped plates and bowls have been discarded," Joyce said.

This repeat top performer says this is the first and only time you'll see them at the bottom, "I invite you to come out because our food is really good and believe me we would not jeopardize any one in any form."