What your Favorite Restaurants Aren’t Telling you

By Tatum Foulger

Thelatest county food inspections are in for restaurants in Old Towne Orange. Some are good, some are nasty. Cockroaches, finger-licking cooks, and disease-level nasty.

Although county health inspection reports are available to the public, most people do not know they should be looking out for them.

How should customers know where it’s safe to eat?

At least once per calendar year, the Orange County Health Care Agency’s (OCHCA) Environmental Health team conducts inspections of food facilities in the county. Along with restaurant inspections, Environmental Health also has programs that deal with water quality, hazardous materials, solid waste, and several others.

Environmental Health’s purpose is to “protect public health and promote the well being of all Orange County residents, workers, and visitors,” said director Christine Lane.

On Valentine’s day in 2022, Taco Adobe was shut down by the environmental inspector assigned to the establishment because of a cockroach infestation and malpractice committed by an employee.

The report noted several cockroaches: some dead, some still alive.

The inspector saw the bugs in various areas, including by freezers and sinks. He even saw a cook lick his fingers while engaging in active food preparation. While the inspector was there to stop the cook from continuing, what would happen if the inspector was not there?

“Poor employee health could contaminate food and transmit illness to customers via the food and surfaces,” Lane said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), a large percentage of foodborne illnesses are spread by contaminated hands.

A little over a month after reopening, Taco Adobe went up in flames.

Although the restaurant is undergoing restoration, its owners have since introduced a catering service.

Café Zocalo, another restaurant in the Orange Circle, had its permit suspended earlier this year, forcing it to temporarily halt operations due to rodent droppings in critical areas of the facility.

“I wouldn’t say that makes you want to vomit because I don’t like vomit, but that is disgusting,” Kierra Koehn, a

Chapman pharmacy graduate student, said.

Neither Taco Adobe nor Café Zocalo representatives responded to a request for comment prior to publication.

In late January of this year, Urth Caffé was visited by the OCHCA as a regularly scheduled inspection. However, what seemed like a regular visit revealed some dirty secrets.

Multiple areas in the Orange Circle restaurant showed an accumulation of grease and grime, a lack of handwashing facilities, and improper internal cooking temperatures, noted inspectors.

In light of these reports, Urth Caffé manager Bryan Diaz assured there is no ongoing risk to restaurant consumers.

“We get our condiments freshly every day so we ensure that the day and expiration is correct and everything is sealed properly,” he said. “Managers go through each refrigerator and pick up temperatures just to pretty much measure what our temperatures are to make sure that it’s not going under or over.”

While cockroaches and other rodents are less than ideal, the biggest health risk to the Orange community is improper heating and cooling temperatures, one of the most common inspection violations in area restaurants.

Improper heating and cooling temperatures are a common cause of foodborne illnesses, defined by the Food and Drug Administration as “illnesses caused by consuming food contaminated by bacteria and/or their toxins, parasites, viruses, chemicals, or other agents.”

According to Rosalee Hellberg, associate director of Chapman’s food science program, these temperatures can mean illness-causing microorganisms may survive the cooking step and cause bacteria to grow to dangerous levels.

“It is a concern, especially if the violation is not fixed after the first inspection,” Hellberg said.

Koehn lamented it’s sad that these inspections are not better known to the public.

“In healthcare we tell the truth about a patient’s treatment and conditions, so why wouldn’t you be transparent when it comes to other health issues?” she said.

However, it’s not all bad news. Zito’s Pizza passed its last few health inspections with no need to schedule a reinspection, proving it is possible if the correct measures are taken proactively before health risks arise.

Zito’s employees say it’s because they pay attention to the smallest detail.

“I’m front-of-house so for my measures it’s basically just wiping down the tables and countertops,” said Eleanor Koski, Chapman junior and Zito’s Pizza employee.

Koski added:

“Everyone wears gloves when they cook, and I think it is partly because you can see the cooks when you are sitting at the table. The nature of being on display helps things be cleaner.”

Even if health inspection reports have never crossed your mind before, this is a sign to think twice about the restaurants where you eat. So if you are worried at all: passed its latest inspection

Here is how you can look it up for yourself. Simply enter the restaurant you’re looking for, click enter and a list of matches will fill the screen. You will then be able to click the establishment name and view its inspection history.

Or you can go to the OC Health Care Agency website and look up Food Establishment Inspection Results.