Misleading health score grading

[namstermonster]

From an email from Brandon this morning:

I wanted to let you know before your visit tonight, I am sorry to report that the Department of Health was just here on Thursday night and they they have given us a C grade. I understand that our guests will be concerned when they see the letter in the window, so I am emailing everyone in advance of their visit to explain what has happened. In 8 years, this was the first time we have received a grade lower than A. Almost the entirety of the deductions were for three things: 1) A cook whose food handler card was expired, 2) Frozen food that was vacuum sealed rather than wrapped in plastic wrap - The inspector is asking us to submit a HACCP plan for any vacuum sealed item we put in the freezer 3) Time stamps on every single food item that we remove from the refrigerator to temper before serving to customers. In all my years of cooking, I have never encountered an inspector like the one we had this week, who was here for three hours during an extremely contentious inspection throughout our entire dinner service, but they make the rules, so I won’t make any excuses. I have requested that a supervisor do a re-inspection immediately, but we need to wait up to 10 business days to get someone to return. Unfortunately for the time being there is nothing else I can do but wait. I am attaching a link to the health department report site, the report is not up yet, but I think you will be able to see it within a day or two.

If the health department grade is of concern to you, of course we can cancel your reservation and refund your deposit. Thank you for your understanding, we look forward to hosting you tonight.

I’m not that concerned unless the deductions not listed are for some specific violations that would normally leave me concerned… still, a tad surprising. What would you do? Does anyone know how difficult (or easy) it is to get a C rating?

[joe]

sometimes i feel like the food score grade inflation is on par with academic grade inflation. to sound extremely pedantic: a grade of C is what most people/places should get, based on my ignorance of the bell curve.

anyway, according to LA County Department of Public Health, a grade of C means

“Generally acceptable in food handling practices and overall general food facility maintenance.”

I feel like “generally acceptable” is the motto of my generation. I’d still eat there.

[J_L]

I wish I could say more, but I wouldn’t sweat this particular C grade much. I stand by Team Hayato on this one…

[Loaxley]

Health department ratings are jurisdiction specific as @lighthill discussed. No system is perfect, though some are more flawed than others. The issue with LA County’s system is that the baseline letter grade doesn’t tell you the severity of the violation(s). A handful of relatively minor violations that nobody would be concerned about could lead to a lower score than a single major violation that might be concerning. Assuming Brandon’s email is accurate, that appears to be the case here.

A restaurant can be penalized for a minor violation of “no insects, rodents, birds or animals present” (-2 points) and still get an “A”. A restaurant can be penalized for a major violation of “no insects, rodents, birds or animals present” (-11 points) and still get an “B”. Now here’s where it gets tricky. Most of the time, a major violation of that provision leads to an immediate closure.

Take, for example, Elephante back in January.

They were ordered closed during the above inspection due to the vermin infestation, lied and told their customers there was a water leak, were re-inspected a few days later, and got to re-open 3 days later with that “B” rating.

So a “C” can mean you didn’t follow some administrative food safety guidelines like Hayato, while a “B” can mean you were literally shut down for a vermin infestation. I firmly believe that any restaurant ordered closed should have to display a modified health placard for the next 365 days clearly alerting customers to the closure and the reason for it.

Then there’s the inspection frequency problem. LA County guidelines are to inspect restaurants three times per year. There is such an acute shortage of inspectors that most restaurants are being inspected once every few years. Hayato, for example, had their last routine inspection three year ago, in March 2023. Budonoki, meanwhile, opened in 2023 and still has not had a single inspection.

It is worth noting that at Hayato’s last inspection in 2023, they were cited for missing/expired food safety certification. Rookie mistake for a restaurant of this caliber to get dinged for that once, let alone twice in a row. But would I feel safer eating at Hayato or at Elephante? The former, no doubt.

Most people would be shocked by how many (and which) restaurants get shut down for vermin infestations. It’s a habit of mine to read the closure list every week. Even with the acute inspector shortage, I still see way too many restaurants with which I am familiar. I don’t post most of them here, though maybe I’ll start a thread for that. Some (but not all) of the vermin closures get picked up on Reddit.

If we extrapolate this one example (Hayato inspected 1x per 3 years instead of 3x per 1 year) and therefore calculate that there should be 9x more inspections, then there should be 9x (or maybe slightly less) more vermin infestation closures than now, if there were sufficient health inspectors. Scary thought. And all of these places get to rectify the issue, lie to their customers, and reopen several days later often with an “A” or “B” rating.

Meanwhile Hayato makes a few legitimate but not serious mistakes and has to slap a “C” on the door. Flawed system, indeed.

[lighthill]

Id add that the food grading system is designed for the median restaurant, not really fine dining. In particular, some restaurants that do a lot of aging or fermenting or raw treatment of unusual ingredients sometimes get picked on because it goes against formal rules even if done safely, since most places don’t ferment or pickle in house. Of course that’s also kind of a cop out, so ymmv.

See the Ynyshir controversy

https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/s/jtnaIpa6O2

[hamburgertuesday]

I used to work at a *. #2 and #3 are kinda fucking insane to me; we did both of those and never got dinged. Sounds like the inspector was on a trip?

It’s generally pretty hard to not get an A. The point deduction depends on the severity. We knowingly/willingly took some hits like 1 point for not wearing hair nets/hats.

[beam]

total nonsense!

I would go without any hesitation whatsoever! Pretty confident that Brandon knows what he is doing!

[chewchow]

A “C” for Hayato is certainly NOT reflective of Brandon’s high standards. Jeesh can they make it any harder to do business?

Also, I suspect a few inspections can be spurred by someone with a beef (employees and customers) which seems to be the case at Muse.

I wouldn’t hesitate to go to either restaurant and would be in the catcher’s position for any cancelled reser.

[PorkyBelly]

i guess we’ll have to wait for the inspection report to come out but i don’t get how these three violations add up to > 20 points. the math aint mathing.
can you get penalized multiple times for the same violation?

[Loaxley]

You can’t get penalized multiple times for the same violation, but if you receive 2 or more major violations in one inspection there’s a “bonus deduction” of 3 additional points.

Let’s see if we can make it make sense…

Here’s their last inspection report from 2023…let’s assume these same minor infractions were found again (we know at least the food safety certificate was an issue again).

Now let’s see if we can get from 100 to 79 (to get a C)

100 points
-2 food safety certification (#1b; minor)
-1 equipment/utensils approved (#35; minor)
-1 signs posted (#46; minor)
-2 compliance with HAACP (#18; minor) - this relates to vacuum sealing without HAACP plan
-4 food in good condition, safe and unadulterated (#13; major) - this relates to vacuum sealing without HAACP plan
-4 time as a public health control (#8; major) - this relates to the tempering
-3 multiple major violations (#52)

That gets the score down to 83 - then they would just need one more major (-4) or two more minor (-2 and -2) violations to get to 79 points

[PorkyBelly]

@Loaxley

-4 compliance with HAACP (#19; major) - this relates to vacuum sealing without HAACP plan

did you mean #18? that looks like it’s only a minor according to the 2023 report.

[Loaxley]

Yea I meant #18 looks like my numbering was off just fixed that, and was looking at this in tiny text on my phone guess I thought I saw a major for that one when there’s not. So then there are even more violations than we know about.

Speaking of #19 though…

[lighthill]

Not that I was worried, but Hayato was fully booked at opening today and I havent seen any cancellations pop up.

Surprised the report hasnt popped up online yet; most current date is 4/26. Wonder if the LA Dept of Health has a policy to withhold while people appeal

[lighthill]

I am now extremely confused. I dont see the report on the LA site but somehow Yelp, of all places, has it?

Hayato - Health Inspections Score - 1320 E 7th St, Los Angeles, CA - Yelp - Yelp

Not sure where they are sourcing their data from but clearly its somewhere. Displays a warning on the main page as well lol

[robert]

Yelp may be faster at updating their site than the city / county health department from which they’re presumably getting the data.

This is an awful lot of talk about a completely safe health score.

[PorkyBelly]

there it is. i guess that answers that.

• 2 Standard Not Met: Food safety certification
• 2-4 Standard Not Met: Time as a public health control; procedures & records
• 2-4 Standard Not Met: Food in good condition, safe and unadulterated
• 2-4 Standard Not Met: Food contact surfaces: clean and sanitized
• 2 Standard Not Met: Compliance with variance, specialized processes & HACCP
• 1 Standard Not Met: Equipment/utensils approved: installed; good repair; capacity
• 1 Standard Not Met: Plumbing: fixtures, backflow device, drainage
• 1 Standard Not Met: Floors, walls and ceilings properly built, maintained and clean
• 3 Standard Not Met: Multiple major critical violations / increased risk to public health
• ? Standard Not Met: Impoundment/voluntary condemn and dispose (VC&D)/sampling

[lighthill]

Guessing the 2-4’s are all 4’s, since thats how you get Multiple Major Violations.

Again, for anyone who hasn’t visited Hayato yet, Id still go (and am in fact planning on going back already in a few months)

[mzonelli]

Much like prices are , this is relevant discussion about a restaurant. Consider how an average person who sees that rating and the renown of the restaurant might interpret it not knowing the detail we have that this is “not that bad” which makes it an interesting discussion point that I’m happy we’re talking about.

[J_L]

In this case, the “C” stands for for Complete Culinary Capability

[CatDad]

Personally I wonder if this inspector was unfamiliar with many of the ingredients and techniques used at Hayato? I take it the inspection report from the city website won’t give us further specifics on the items they deemed violations?

I think it’s been worth discussing this just to know more about how the health inspection system works and what looks to me like some crazy flaws in that system. Especially in the context of a two star resturaunt with a large number of luxury ingredients with ultra specific preparations.

I have eaten at LA country restaurants with C health ratings on numerous occasion without any issue but if I brought family from out of town and took them to a resturaunt with the price point of Hayato and they saw a C grade on the window - they would for sure have a very large number of questions for me. This thread would help me answer a lot of those questions with context for the scoring.