LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — "Be concerned. And you should be concerned about who's making your food and this is why we're talking to you. I mean, we're not running away," said Anthony Rossi, who co-owns Broadway Pizzeria with Mario Perdichizzi.
It's the latest in a string of restaurants that have been on Dirty Dining in the shopping center on Rancho near Charleston.
Broadway Pizzeria got a 38-demerit C grade on Feb. 24. That's one major violation away from being shut down.
"This is the restaurant business," said Rossi. "This is how it goes."
One of the first things we asked about was a food handler who inspectors saw touching cooked pizza with bare hands multiple times.
Anthony says the violation looks worse on paper than it really is.
Darcy Spears: "Everyone's freaking out about handwashing right now. It's the number one thing you need to do right."
Anthony Rossi: "Yeah. We do wash our hands frequently. We have a sink available in every station. What they observed--and this is what actually happened because I was here--they had two slices of pizza on a plate and their thumb was on the edge of the pizza to keep it from falling off the dish while they were cutting it."
They should have been wearing gloves, as the health code requires.
Other violations included two large containers of marinara sauce and seven containers of cooked pasta that were improperly cooled and had to be thrown out.
"We tend to try and stuff too many things in the refrigerator when we shouldn't do that," said Anthony.
The make table was full of food in the temperature danger zone including ham, cheese, pizza sauce and cooked broccoli. All of it went into the trash.
And then, there's this...
Darcy: "A cardboard box previously used for raw chicken was being re-used to store bell peppers. You never want to re-use something with raw chicken in it."
Anthony: "No, of course."
He said a staff member put some peppers they hadn't yet washed in a cardboard box that had held chicken tenders.
"Thye are raw but they're frozen in a plastic bag in the box," which he says a previous health inspector didn't have a problem with.
"Is it wrong? Yes. Should we have not done it? Correct. Is it way out? Maybe not because, like I said, we had an inspector previous to this who said it was okay."
Darcy: "Another one of those 'not as bad as it seems when you read it' violations?"
Anthony: "Yeah. I mean, if I'm reading that report I'm gonna be just like you. I'm gonna think, oh my God!"
Inspectors also found old food on the can opener blade and a mixing bowl.
The dish washer washed and rinsed dishes with no sanitizer.
Darcy: "They talked about excess dust and grease on hoods above the fryers and clean dishes stored on dirty shelves. So obviously some cleaning was needed back there."
Anthony: "Yeah. Major cleaning. This is an ongoing thing--cleaning a restaurant. When you're busy 12 hours a day you need to schedule time to do this. And that's something that we failed to do in recent months."
He says they're doing it before and after hours now.
"You don't want to be deep cleaning while you got all this food preparation going on."
Broadway just had an intervention training with the Health District. The owners say the fresh perspective has been a big help and they hope to keep the public's trust.
"And you should be concerned as the public--as I am when I go out to a restaurant," said Anthony. "You don't think about food safety. But we're here 23 years. We are embedded in the community. We want to continue to serve good food, safe food and we're happy to do it."
Broadway Pizzeria was re-inspected on March 12 and received a zero-demerit A grade.
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This week's imminent health hazard closure came at Mariscos El Bigoton, a food truck that was shut down near Washington and Nellis on Feb. 24.
There was no hot water and employees couldn't properly wash their hands as just a trickle was coming out of the handsink.
It also got 32 demerits for violations including unsafe food temperatures, raw oysters stored over salsa and thawing octopus at room temperature in the hand sink.
Also, no one on the truck had a food handler card.
Mariscos El Bigoton did not return a call for comment.
It re-opened with a zero-demerit A grade on Feb. 25.
Click here to see the health report for Broadway Pizzeria.
Click here to see the health report for Birrieria Gonzales / Mariscos El Bigoton.
