Rodent Skeleton, Droppings, Found Inside Tucson Restaurant During Inspection

A local restaurant has a rodent problem.Photo byJoshua J. CottenonUnsplash

When you go to a restaurant you are looking for a good meal. You also probably want the staff to follow general food health and safety guidelines. Clean hands, clean sinks, no mice. You’re probably not asking for much. Just to enjoy your food without eating something dangerous or could make you sick. That’s where health inspections come into play here in Tucson. While not always the easiest information to track down, these reports give essential insights into local restaurants. That includes one Mexican restaurant that recently was cited for nine violations during its most recent health inspection. 

On May 8, La Indita Cafe was visited by a health inspector to perform the annual walkthrough of the restaurant. La Indita Cafe is generally well-reviewed, with a 4.6-star rating on Google (over 1,000 reviewers). It is also unique in that it isn’t exclusively a Mexican restaurant, but it also serves up a collection of Native American dishes as well. 

The first issue came when the health inspector saw employees handling dirty dishes without washing their hands, and then when they removed dishes from the dishwasher, they still did not wash their hands. This only increases the potential of contaminating clean dishes. The inspector pointed out the problem to the Person In Charge (PIC) and informed them that it is necessary to have clean hands when handling clean dishes. 

The second violation came in the form of a broken, poorly functioning hand-washing sink. According to the PIC, the sink stopped working correctly two days before the inspection and someone was stopping by to fix the sink the following day. 

The biggest red flag in the inspection though came when looking through cabinets in the kitchen. The inspector observed not only rodent droppings in the storage area, inside the cabinet, and under the hand sink, but inside the cabinet was a rodent skeleton. Based on the sheer volume of rodent droppings and the fact one died and was able to decompose without ever being noticed or cleaned, there is likely a larger rodent problem (and that the area is rarely if ever, thoroughly cleaned). 

The PIC did produce a copy of a check paid out to a local pest control company, dated February of 2024. The inspector told the PIC they needed to bring the pest control back and schedule additional services. 

There were other problems around the restaurant, including the build-up of food debris, problems with secondary sinks, and the ice maker did not have a cover, which would allow dirt, dust, and other debris to stick to for-consumption ice.