Health Dept. to Commend Safest Restaurants

The Darien Health Department recently announced that it's starting a "Certificates of Excellence in Food Handling" program for restaurants and food-serving establishments in town to recognize those that consistantly keep their customers safe.

"Our establishments really do work hard, and are very, very serious about what they're doing," said town Health Director David Knauf. "I'm very pleased at the efforts I see across the board."

The certificates program won't start until this coming December, in order to give food servers an incentive to improve their services over the course of this year to make the grade. The Health Department inspects about 90 food-serving establishments in town.

As a way of transitioning to the certificates program, the Health Department has sent out a total of 26 "letters of commendation" to food-serving establishments in town, in recognition of consistently high food safety standards.

Knauf said he preferred not to publicize which restaurants got the letters, although he did recently commend each of the Darien Public Schools cafeterias for getting consistently high grades in inspections conducted by his department.

The letters of commendation and later the certificates are just the latest examples of the Health Department's long-term effort to let the public know how well individual restaurants are doing in the town's quarterly inspections.

"I'm a strong believer in the public having a right to know" how food establishments do, Knauf said.

In late 2009, the Health Department started posting online a three-tier public ratings system for food-serving establishments in town.

"The rating is another tool in our arsenal to get things done," Knauf said.

Each food-serving establishment in town is supposed to post its latest ratings certificates in a conspicuous place, easily seen by the public, he said. 

"New York City requires food establishments to post them on their doors," Knauf said. "We're going to start looking for this to be the case, so that public notification is indeed public. In addition to that, we do have it on our website, so that anybody can check it at any time."

How Health Department 'plate' ratings work

On its Web page, the Health Department describes how it rates the establishments:

"This is a program designed to provide the public with some basic information about the sanitary conditions observed in the facility, not just at the time of the inspection, but over the past year.

"Ratings are provided by the department to the food service establishment with the inspection report during each inspection and are based on the following factors:

• The absence/presence of 'critical violations' that are likely to cause food borne illness,
• The absence/presence of chronic violations as noted in past inspections,
• The facility inspection history and efforts to correct previously noted violations,
• The training and demonstrable knowledge of food service personnel, and
• The overall sanitary conditions in the facility at the time of inspection."

The ratings system classifies food-serving establishments into three categories:

Three dishes—Good: "A food service establishment shall receive a Good Rating when safe food handling practices with no critical violations were observed at the time of inspection and the facility was found to be in considerable compliance with the factors outlined above."

Two dishes—Fair: "A food service establishment shall receive a Fair Rating when the minimum requirements of the Connecticut Public Health Code were met at the time of inspection but improvements were needed in the food handling practices of food service personnel and the factors outlined above."

One dish—Poor: "A food service establishment shall receive a Poor Rating when chronic or critical violations that are likely to cause food borne illness were evident at the time of inspection, or the facility received a score below eighty (80) or had one (1) or more four (4) point demerit items in violation, or was not in compliance with the factors outlined above."

Plate ratings for the first quarter of 2012

The vast majority of food-serving establishments in town get the best, three-plate rating. Here are the ones that didn't in the department's most current list (which can be found here). The numbers after "history" in each item show the previous and present ratings, showing how well or poorly an establishment did over time (three is best, one is worst):

ONE PLATE:

• Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza—history: only one inspection—319 Post Rd. (This restaurant just recently opened.)
    Last Inspection Date: 03/19/2012

TWO PLATES:

• —history: only one inspection—10 Center St. (This restaurant just recently opened.)
    Last Inspection Date: 03/26/2012

• Diane L. Browne, Catering—history: 3, 3, 3, 2—865 Post Rd.
    Last Inspection Date: 03/09/2012

• —history: 2, 2, 2—306 Post Rd.
    Last Inspection Date: 03/09/2012

• —history: 3, 3, 3 2—72 Heights Rd.
    Last Inspection Date: 01/20/2012

• —history: 3, 3, 3, 2, 2—1981 Post Rd.
    Last Inspection Date: 02/10/2012

• New Beijing Restaurant—history: 3, 2, 2—5 Tokeneke Rd.
    Last Inspection Date: 01/27/2012

• —history: 2, 2, 3, 2—25 Old Kings Hwy. N.
    Last Inspection Date: 03/30/2012

• Uncle's By The Shore-Weed Beach—no history given—0 Nearwater La.
    Last Inspection Date: 07/22/2011

NO RATING LISTED:

• Tokeneke Beach Club—no history given—4 Butlers Island Rd.
    Last Inspection Date: 06/01/2011

• Noroton Bay Snack Bar—no history given—54 Nearwater La. Pier
    Last Inspection Date: 07/22/2011