ATLANTA — For the first time on a different kind of restaurant tour; channel 2 action news Let us take you to a restaurant in metro Atlanta and see how inspectors search kitchens and warehouses to make sure the food is safe.
This is a different restaurant report than usual.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Sophia Choi along with Pineapple Express Hospitality Services' hired inspector Michalene Brown, went behind the scenes at Breakfast at Barney's, the wildly popular restaurant on Decatur Street, to find out what health inspections check for.
Brown and Choi met outside a Barneys breakfast venue in southeast Atlanta during a busy lunch break.
The first step was to speak with Emily Smith, the restaurant's food and beverage manager.
“Hello, do you have a manager?” Ms. Brown asked when she and Ms. Choi came in.
Breakfast at Barneys hired Brown to regularly inspect restaurants for health violations and train employees.
“We don't know when the health inspector is going to come, so sometimes we want to have a pop-up to alert us,” Smith explained.
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Choi and Brown started at the bar, where they found everything set up. The bottles had labels and expiration dates on them, were clean, and the sink was working.
“So I'm looking for hot water and paper towels and soap,” Brown said.
Brown and Choi then entered the kitchen wearing hairnets.
Again, I checked for proper labeling, expiration dates, and cleanliness. One of the biggest concerns there was keeping cold and hot food at the right temperature.
When they were testing, the tomatoes were too hot.
“So what is the corrective action?” Brown asked Smith.
“We need to add ice to the bottom,” Smith replied.
Brown said. channel 2 action news She says she's employed by restaurants like Breakfast at Barney's and meets the standards, so she's prepared for occasional inspections by the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Brown said she is increasingly helping failed restaurants pass re-inspections.
“We realized that a lot of people open restaurants without knowing anything,” Brown explained. “So they just don't know. It's not that they don't care, they just don't know.”
A score below 70 will result in a failing score from the health department. Brown said if she goes to a place with a score below 90, she won't eat there.
Barney's Breakfast received a score of 100 in its last health inspection in February.
On Tuesday, Brown deducted points from the restaurant for mislabeling the bottles.
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