A Las Vegas restaurant is shut down for gross, unsanitary conditions. That's about all you need to know for this week's Dirty Dining.
We caught the staff at San Salvador taking a lunch break when we walked in to ask about their recent run-in with the Health District.
PHOTOS: Dirty Dining April 5, 2017
The restaurant on Maryland Parkway and Sahara Avenue was shut down with 42 demerits, plus an imminent health hazard.
Inspectors counted between 50 to 75 multi-generational cockroaches crawling around and contaminating the food. There was a live roach in the masa mix and a dead one in the dry rice. Inspectors saw the bugs all over the kitchen.
And if that's not enough, there were lots of rodent droppings, too.
We ask to speak to the person in charge.
Employee: He left right now. He is not here right now.
Darcy: Ok, but you guys do have to have a person in charge actually at the restaurant if you're open. So who's in charge now that he's not here?
Employee: Let me see.
Darcy: Ok. Thank you.
Health inspectors also found spoiled fruit in the make table and beer cooler including tomatoes, bell peppers and mangoes.
There was expired food in the walk-in fridge including cooked meat, rice and beans that were three and a half weeks old and spring lettuce mix that was two weeks past its "best by" date. There was also a head of cabbage on a dirty shelf.
And cooking equipment, pipes and containers were heavily soiled with dried grease, dust and food debris.
Turns out the person in charge was there after all.
Person in Charge (PIC): Is this to be filmed?
Darcy: Yes. It's for our Dirty Dining segment. We just want to make sure we give you guys the chance to participate in the story and give us your side of things.
PIC: Um, well, just some -- a complaint that was filed incorrectly.
Darcy: I'm sorry, I just want to make sure that I can hear you. You said something about a complaint?
PIC: Yeah, a complaint that was filed incorrectly. It caused it.
Darcy: Ok, well, this was actually, if you see right here -- "routine inspection." It wasn't a complaint follow-up according to this document. It was just a routine inspection with seven pages of violations that the Health District documented from food contaminated with cockroaches to rodents to spoiled food to expired food. So there's nothing incorrect about that.
PIC: Yeah, you're reading it incorrectly.
Darcy: I'm reading the health report incorrectly?
PIC: Yes.
Darcy: What's the correct version, according to you?
PIC: Uh, sorry, no comment.
And with that he disappears back into the kitchen.
There was another imminent health hazard closure at Total Wine and More on Rampart Boulevard in Boca Park. Their growler station, where they do beer tastings, was shut down for no hot water.
And Ha's Farm was shut down for the same reason -- no hot water.
When San Salvador was re-inspected, cooking equipment and containers were still heavily soiled. And they had not cleaned the dead roaches or rodent droppings off the floor.
Despite that, they were allowed to re-open with a five-demerit A grade.
Total Wine's growler station re-opened with a zero-demerit A.
Ha's Farm has re-opened with a passing grade as well.
