Hamden eateries are going “green”
Restaurants are working hard to get top health & safety grades
By Lia Gordon & Courtney Cortright
The presence of health and safety letter grades on every restaurant door in Hamden has many overachieving owners working hard to get a better mark.
The number of restaurants with ‘C’ ratings — the worst grade given by the Quinnipiack Valley Health District — has decreased by over half in the past year. And the number of ‘A’-rated establishments has risen by over 30 percent, according to an analysis of QVHD grades in April 2016 and April 2017.
Lynn Fox, Chief of Environmental Services at QVHD, explained that restaurant owners say they are actively working to resolve issues after getting points taken off in their inspections.
“I would say nobody wants a C on their door. Across the board I would say everybody is very concerned about that grade,” said Fox.
The new grading system has resulted in a shift towards more ‘A’ ratings. Fox said, with the option to get reinspected following a poor grade, there are fewer and fewer ‘C’s’
Before the grading system was put in place, owners may not have cared what grade they received because the information was not so publicly displayed. However, now that many restaurant owners have been working on resolving their issues to increase their grades, it is clear that they have more riding on this factor now than in previous years. They have bought new equipment, keep closer tabs on monitoring their temperatures, and made sure that all food is covered at all times in the building.
Records from the QVHD office show that as a result of their changes, businesses with lower ratings have been requesting reinspections more often to try to show how they have improved their violations. Most of these establishments have jumped from C’s to A’s directly.
There are many factors that come into play in order to make this jump. Every detail of the kitchen and dining area have highly influential roles in the outcome of the final grade. Restaurant owners need to be sure they are keeping their establishment clean as well as following all the criteria outlines by the QVHD inspection sheet. Restaurant owners agree that even the slightest change in a situation can have a much larger impact than expected.
Amet Kangel, manager and owner of Three Brothers Diner in Hamden, discussed his recent history with the QVHD grading system and the reports the inspectors gave him about his restaurant. A QVHD inspector gave the diner a ‘C’ after simple issues with temperature variations set them back in the numbers and resulted in previously poor grades.
During the times they were previously inspected, the diner was under construction. By fixing the interior and exterior of the establishment at the same time, in both the kitchen and dining areas, conflicts were occurring as a result.
“We [did] a lot of changes in kitchen too, with the walk ins… we knocked down one freezer and one cooler at one time and put everything we have into the new ones,” Kangel explained. Having this equipment holding double the quantity it usually does, they were not performing up to standards and were not able to keep the temperatures high enough. From these violations alone, they were given four 4-point demerits, resulting in an automatic ‘C’ grade.
Once the construction was finished, the renovations proved to be successful. The equipment and temperature issues were resolved.
“I got all brand new walk in coolers and freezers, they are perfectly running now,” said Kangel. And a a result, they earned an A letter grade at their two most recent inspections on January and March 2017.
When asked how this letter grading system has affected his business, Kangel said he was unaffected by it. The majority of those who dine at the establishment are regular customers.
“Ninety or 95 percent of our customers are regular people, they’re here all the time,” said Kangel.
These people, who come multiple times a week, know and understand the quality and cleanliness of the service they are being provided, regardless of the letter hanging on the front door.
“People who understand that rating, they know what it is there to do… people get comfortable with it, but business-wise it don’t make any difference,” Kangel said.
Even when this system was first introduced in 2015, some customers of Three Brothers say they didn’t pay any mind to it. Ted, a frequent customer of the diner who did not want to share his last name, says he never even noticed the sign was added. He has been paying visits to this diner 2 or 3 times a week for the past 10 years. When asked if he was aware of this grading system and how it worked he replied, “I never noticed that.”
He works as a home inspector and says that he understands that rules must be enforced on the job regardless of the charm a place may possess. He noted some hardships that the restaurant faced as they were remodeling, however noted with high pride that they did not change their food or ever shut their doors during the process.
Even after learning the specifics of this grading system, Ted said he was not going to change his routine visits to Three Brothers. However, he did make note of this system to pay attention to other establishments. “It was being maintained good before… they do very good business here,” Ted explained.
Now that he is aware of the system and how it works, he will taking a closer look at new establishments he plans to visit in the future.
Brownstone House Restaurant or Brownstone, is a place where Hamden locals go to enjoy a cup of coffee or a nice breakfast. Since the QVHD started its inspections two years ago, Brownstone has not had many ‘A’ grades until this year.
They earned a “poor rating” during its March 15, 2015, inspection, a few months before the grading system was put in place. The public records show a chart, such as the one pictured, of a checklist of what is accepted of a restaurant owner and his or her restaurant. For instance, owners must make sure that they are keeping food up to temperature and that their kitchenware is properly sanitized.
The QVHD notes from the restaurant’s Nov. 3, 2015 inspection include, “no soap at hand sink, dirty ice machine, and knives wiped repeatedly on unsanitized rags.” These are some of the reasons why Brownstone earned its first wave of ‘C’ grades.
As a year went by, Brownstone was inspected again. The restaurant received another ‘C.’ But this time, it was for the cooks not having hats on near the food they were cooking. Likewise, thermometers were broken. A Brownstone restaurant worker says, “we just needed new parts…that was the problem.”
Months went by and the restaurant was still receiving C’s and “poor” remarks. The reason for these poor remarks were from previous inspections that suggested Brownstone needed new equipment and a better staff. For instance, cooks were not provided with hats to keep hair out of the food. Likewise, thermometers needed to be fixed and the dishwasher wasn’t reading up to temperature. The public records commented on the fact that the “facility remains unimproved.”
Some businesses, like Brownstone have fared with the recent changes of the QVHD by trying to grow from the inspection process. What started off as being labeled “poor” all over inspection reports has now become an ‘A’ success. According to the QVHD inspection notes, Brownstone House’s employees, after an inspection rating of an A “continue to use proper skills and demonstrate conscientious in their work.” The last inspection (to date) was January of 2017 which, once again they were given an ‘A’ for their efforts and clean work space.
And customer reviews really show. “I have been going here for quite some time. Now that I know the inspection reviews from the past I am shocked” says, senior Talia Fiorentino.
Fiorentino explained that the staff is so nice and accommodating that “it masks everything else.” Fiorentino suggested that people never really think about the place they are eating at in such specific terms. She says “people go to eat and hope to trust that if a restaurant is open they are being truthful [about their cleanliness and health standards] to the public.”
Similarly, customers who have been going to the restaurant for a less than a year are shocked.
Johanna Morse, a freshman from Quinnipiac University said, “I go there all the time. You would never know they had issues to fix in the past.”
