Food for Thought Report 7.17 - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

If your taste buds are tempted by Mexican food this new restaurant is worth your pesos.

"Pesos is the Mexican dollar, and we wanted to come up with something that means value. We feature Tex-Mex so we though that would be a good name," Tom Gordon, owner of Pesos Grill said.

Open less than a month, Pesos Grill at 3211 50th street already knows the recipe for perfection is a group effort, "Everybody just follows procedure and wants to have the place clean and looking good and making sure the food was hot and those type of things. And when we got the top score I shared it with everybody here, and everybody was really excited."

Open for breakfast lunch and dinner, "People love the food, they think it's really good," everything from the Build Your Own Burrito to the Pesos Burger is made to order. "We have some secret ingredients, but the shredded beef, people think that's just reall,y really good."

Next we head to Klemke's BBQ Joint. Located inside the Chisum Travel Center at 2611 East Slaton Road, this Texas flavor is flawless.

Our next stop serves up perfection with more than 162 combinations. Pizza Hut/Wing Street at 3001 50th Street offers you tons of choices, but zero critical violations.

And if you're doing the cooking - the deli, grocery and produce departments at Wal-Mart at 4215 South Loop 289 also make this week's list.

And finally we wrap up this list of perfection with a multiple repeat top performer. Known for their big juicy burgers, Bonus Burgers at 2312 50th Street yet again grills up perfection.

get more>> Web Enhanced 7/17/08 Food for Thought 7.17 Here is a complete list of the restaurants and their violations for the week ending on 7/17/08.

This week's list of low performers starts with a previous top performer. Inspectors cited Pinkie's BBQ at 10207 Highway 87 for six critical violations.

• A cooling unit was not keeping food 41 degrees or below.
• An employee was not wearing gloves when making BBQ sandwiches.
• There was no hand soap in the employee's bathroom.
• Sanitizer was at a toxic level.
• Knives were dirty.
• There was no thermometer for thin foods, and a meat thermometer was not correctly calibrated.

An employee says all violations have been corrected. The report shows most were corrected while the inspector was there.

George's at 6914 82nd Street also had six critical violations.

• Cooked rice and sliced turkey were more than 20 degrees about the safe cold temperature of 41 degrees.
• Hot foods were not at least 135 degrees. Including chicken fried steak that was sitting out at room temperature.
• Cooked chili, sliced ham, hot dogs and other potentially hazardous foods did not have an expiration date.
• Sanitizer was at a toxic level.
• There was mold in the ice machine.
• The report notes that the restaurant has a certified food manager, but according to the report - the past and present inspection results do not show knowledge of regulations.

An employee told us everything has been corrected and that all employees are being retained on food safety. According to the report, all violations were corrected during the inspection.