Random restaurant health inspections by Huntsville’s health department put some restaurants in hot water.
Humphrey’s, the Subway located at 1621 Sam Houston Avenue, Asian Star, Schlotzsky’s and Zipp’s Food Mart at 1101 Sycamore Avenue received the five worst ratings by the City of Huntsville’s Health Inspection Department in September, according to documents.
Humphrey’s and the Subway location across from Sam Houston Village each received 26 points, according to the report. Asian Star, Schlotzsky’s and Zipp’s each received more than 20 points. Each point represents a violation.
Restaurants that receive 20 points or more are required to have a re-inspection, and most of these restaurants have already said they’ve corrected the problems.
“We’ve been re-inspected, and we got a perfect score,” Schlotzsky’s manager Lynn Mizell said.
Schlotzsky’s was cited for having a child in the kitchen, a problem that Mizell said pushed their score so high. Other violations were personal items on prep tables, dirty soda nozzles and the sanitizer was too weak.
Subway Manager Erika Gonzalez also said that their problems were fixed and made a perfect score on the re-inspection.
Shin Feng, waiter at Asian Star, said that the violations reported were easily fixable and did not compromise the integrity of their restaurant.
“Basically, it was just things that we can fix right away,” Feng said. “The violations were basically not critical.”
Humphrey’s won The Houstonian’s 2013 Best Of Huntsville award for best patio and best happy hour drinks. The award-winning bar received a 26-point violation record from the City of Huntsville for violations including having moldy yogurt, dirty grease traps, improper cold hold and employees not wearing gloves while handling meat.
Of the 35 restaurants inspected, only two were in total compliance with health code. Although the number of violators overshadowed those restaurants in compliance, the HEB Meat Market and Sam Houston State University Stadium Concessions both received a perfect zero for the month of September.
Humphrey’s and Zipp’s were unable to be contacted by press time after multiple attempts on Monday.