Tuesday on page 7A of the Enterprise Record there was a full page ad for the Oriental Buffet at the corner of East Avenue and Esplande that touted a copy of the most recent Butte County Health Department inspection with the words in bold “Compliance Achieved” on the newspaper ad.
You may remember the previous restaurant left an indelible mark in the minds of many Chicoans when it was closed down over a year ago due to massive health violations. Here is the ER Article.
Everybody deserves a chance to succeed, but I have to wonder about the wisdom of opening a door like this by putting your health report in a newspaper ad because it invites people to take a further look. It was the topic of my morning discussion group on Tuesday, so I decided to look for myself.
You can see Food Facility Inspection Reports for the Chico Area online here
And the inspection reports starting 5/07/07 for the Oriental Buffet are here:
( you’ll need Adobe Acrobat PDF reader to view these – its free here )
Oriental Buffet, 2539 Esplanade, Chico 05/07/07 Inspection
Oriental Buffet, 2539 Esplanade, Chico 05/08/07 Re-Inspection
Oriental Buffet, 2539 Esplanade, Chico 05/09/07 Re-Inspection
Oriental Buffet, 2539 Esplanade, Chico 05/11/07 Re-Inspection
On the first inspection on 5/07/07 there were 7 major violations and 14 minor ones, for a total of 21 violations. The inspector made 22 notations on the issues filling two pages. The next day on 5/08/07 they were down to 4 major violations and no minor ones. On 5/09/07 they were down to 3 major violations. On 5/11/07 they finally achieved “compliance”. The restaurant has been open since April 8th.
But I have to wonder, compliance for how long? You have to wonder that when a restaurant runs a full page ad touting “compliance” given the visually dramatic stigma the building has attached to it maybe the owners don’t fully understand what they are up against. Like I said, everybody deserves a chance to succeed, but perhaps a different theme would be the way to do it in this case.
To be fair though, I’ll point out that the inspection reports show that Egg Roll King on Palmetto needed 4 attempts to reach compliance this year , as did Gen Kai on Pillsbury, and Big Al’s needed 4 last year and so did Rice Bowl this year, and so did Sin of Cortez. Thai House on Broadway needed 5 inspections this year.
The all time high was Happy Garden on Cohasset with six consecutive inspections required last year before compliance was acheieved.
Great info. I’m pleased to see you sharing your inquisitive mind with the rest of us.
Anthony,
The only thing worse than opening up the same kind of restaurant at the same location, is advertising the fact that the same kind of restaurant was closed due to health infractions at the same location.
This is very bad business and even worse marketing.
Lon