Bugs, mice, dirty hands: What's hiding behind the counter at North Jersey mall food courts
Terrence T. McDonald, North Jersey Record
Mallrats, beware.
A review of hundreds of pages of health inspection reports for food courts at some of the state’s most popular malls byNorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey found eye-opening, skin-crawling results.
Live roaches in a sink at Master Wok in Monmouth Mall. Mouse droppings at the Rockaway mall Wendy’s. Cleaned vegetables stored in a soiled soy sauce bucket at the Sarku Japan in Willowbrook Mall.
Reports of filth go on. Raw chicken on the floor at Asian Chao in Menlo Park Mall. A mouse trap inside a fryer at the Jersey Gardens Burger King. Myriad reports of employees not washing their hands or not being able to because there is no soap.
Think you’re safe eating healthy? Not always.
A health inspector told managers of the Willowbrook Salad Works that the restaurant’s conditions were unacceptable and it needed to be cleaned “THOROUGHLY.”
In all but one of these cases, the eateries remained open for business after their inspections. In most, health inspectors awarded the establishments with satisfactory ratings.
How gross is your mall food court?
NorthJersey.com looked at health reports for food courts in 10 malls:
Freehold Raceway Mall
Garden State Plaza in Paramus
Livingston Mall
Menlo Park Mall in Edison
The Mills at Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth
Monmouth Mall in Eatontown
Newport Centre in Jersey City
Paramus Park
Rockaway Townsquare
Willowbrook Mall in Wayne
Lindsay Kahn, a spokeswoman for Paramus Park, Willowbrook Mall and Monmouth Mall, said that when it comes to food safety, mall management relies on local health departments to work directly with mall tenants. Monmouth County health officials are responsible for Monmouth Mall’s inspections and in all other cases, the malls’ home municipalities are.
“Regarding our shopping centers, there is nothing more important than providing a safe, clean environment for our communities,” Kahn said.
The spokespeople for the other malls declined to comment.
Paterson man CJ Glesmer is a regular at the Willowbrook Mall food court. Glesmer, who was at the mall Monday to pick up Thai food, gave the food court high marks, though he added that the tables needed to be washed more regularly.
Glesmer told NorthJersey.com he doesn’t second guess the cleanliness of restaurant kitchens because he trusts health inspectors to shut down a place that has multiple health code violations.
But creepy crawlers are a deal-breaker for Glesmer.
"They got roaches, rats? I would throw up," he said.
Requests for comment from most of the restaurants mentioned in this article were not returned.
"We have very strict protocols surrounding food safety at our restaurants and regularly conduct internal audits," a Burger King spokesperson said. "We take any concerns that may arise very seriously and work with our restaurant owners to ensure proper compliance with our standards."
Marilou Halvorsen, president of the New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association, cautioned consumers not to read too much into one bad health report. Pests can pop up any place, whether a fancy restaurant, a fast-food joint or a school cafeteria, she said.
“Sometimes inspections are a snapshot in time, of maybe not the norm,” Halvrosen said. “That’s why I think they give you a chance to go back and correct it.”
Passing doesn't necessarily mean clean
The good news for food court fans is local health inspectors appear to be visiting them as often as state law requires and most of the restaurants win the highest rating, satisfactory. Of the 289 reports reviewed by NorthJersey.com, only one was rated unsatisfactory.
The bad news is a satisfactory rating doesn’t necessarily mean a restaurant is clean.
A Paramus health inspector awarded a satisfactory to the Green Leaf’s in Garden State Plaza in August even after finding live roaches near a sandwich display unit. Charley’s Philly Steaks in the same mall was given a satisfactory in January 2018 after rodent droppings were found in multiple places.
Judy Migliaccio, the Paramus health director, said it’s rare for a health inspector to shut down a restaurant, even if she finds roaches or rodents on the premises. Shutdowns are reserved for situations where there is an imminent threat to public safety, she said.
“Something so reprehensible that something shouldn't stay open another day,” Migliaccio said. “You know that someone is going to go in there and get sick.”
Asked about the roaches found at the Monmouth Mall Master Wok, the Monmouth County Health Office's Christopher Merkel said the inspector told the restaurant's management to get an exterminator and on a follow-up inspection, the inspector reviewed the exterminator’s report and found no roaches.
“Sometimes live roaches may ride on in produce boxes or other boxes, so my inspector at the time did not determine that it was quote unquote an infestation of roaches,” Merkel said.
One health inspector who spoke to NorthJersey.com said if she were inspecting a restaurant and found roaches, she would ask the place to close until an exterminator was brought in.
“Me, I would have done it,” she said. “Speaking only for myself, I feel it’s unsafe or a public health issue.”
Here’s what it takes to earn an unsatisfactory rating: employees handling raw chicken and not washing their hands afterward, tongs stored in cooked shrimp, workers washing their hands improperly, vegetables stored on the floor, utensils encrusted with old food residue. That’s what a Wayne health inspector reported finding at the Sarku Japan in the Willowbrook Mall on Dec. 28, 2018.
That Sarku location shut down for about two hours until they abated enough violations to receive a green light from the inspector to re-open.
How food inspections work in New Jersey
Food inspections are governed by Chapter 24 in New Jersey law. Inspectors must visit every business that sells food at least once annually and report whether they are in or out of compliance on about 50 items: are employees washing their hands properly, is food stored at a specific temperature, are toxic substances like cleaners properly identified – those kinds of things.
Inspectors can give three ratings. Satisfactory means the place is in compliance. Conditional satisfactory means violations were found that could not be handled on site, so an unannounced re-inspection is scheduled. One or more violations that “constitute gross insanitary or unsafe conditions” should lead to an unsatisfactory rating and a request that the eatery close until they can be fixed.
If someone makes a complaint to a health department about an eatery, that should force a separate visit. A Jersey City health inspector visited the Panda Express at Newport Centre mall in January after receiving a complaint from someone who claimed to have spotted a roach there. The inspector awarded the place a satisfactory after reporting no roach infestation.
Chapter 24 is long, a 50-page list of mandates described in mind-numbing detail. Chlorine solutions used for cleaning must have a specific concentration. Sponges cannot be used to clean surfaces that touch food. There are nine required temperatures for cooking and holding beef and pork roasts, depending on the time.
Keeping control of temperatures may sound nitpicky — a Paramus inspector repeatedly noted that the Mr. Cupcakes at Paramus Park had its display case temperature too high — but Merkel said controlling the temperature of food is critical in avoiding public health emergencies.
“The longer food is out of those appropriate temperature ranges, the more opportunity that bacteria have to grow on the food and get people ill,” he said. “Time and temperature are two key factors in ensuring that the public is safe when they’re out at any food establishment, whether it’s a food truck, a full-scale restaurant, a diner, a food court eatery and so on and so forth.”
Email: mcdonaldt@northjersey.com