A health inspector went to Romano's Macaroni Grill on Rainbow and Lake Mead on Jan. 24 to follow up on a complaint.
A customer saw a cockroach crawling on a water glass and another running across their table.
The inspector verified the customer's complaint after seeing live multi-generational cockroaches throughout the back prep area and side service station.
That was enough to shut the place down for operating under an imminent health hazard, but the inspector also wrote up 36 demerits.
When we went to Macaroni Grill to ask about the health code violations, the person in charge asked us to leave and said they had no comment.
Macaroni Grill reopened with a zero-demerit A grade on Jan. 25, one day after it was shut down.
In addition to the roach infestation, the inspector found:
- Heavy food debris
- Grease build-up on equipment, walls and floors throughout the kitchen. Even the roach trap was filthy.
- Multiple expired foods including two-week-old cooked garbanzo beans, in-use containers of expired milk and buttermilk, expired feta cheese
- Containers of strawberries fuzzy with mold
- Multiple foods were at unsafe temperatures
- Heavy debris and build-up on ceiling panels subjected open food to contamination.
The other imminent health hazard closure came on Jan. 26 at Pizza Hut on Rampart and Lake Mead.
Inspectors found heavy sewage and waste-water pooling throughout all prep areas.
Food handlers were standing in it while preparing food and then trekking it through the facility leaving all food and food contact surfaces subject to contamination.
Staff told the Health District that waste-water backed up from their floor drains after a plumbing company cleaned out the main grease interceptor and sewer lines.
Inspectors also found heavy food debris on a pizza slicer and can opener stored as clean.
Pizza Hut re-opened the same day with a zero-demerit A.
No one there returned our call for comment.
Documents from this week's Dirty Dining
Weekly restaurant inspection downgrade report from Southern Nevada Health District
Pizza Hut at 2233 N. Rampart inspection report
Illumilatte report - reopening
