Mesa Mexican Restaurant Visited 4 Times By Health Department, Receives D-Level Grade.

Not washing hands correctly was one of the violations.Photo byMélissa JeantyonUnsplash

Well within our first week of September, the tail end of August restaurant inspections are finally trickling in. With college back in session and the snowbirds returning, restaurants will soon return to full capacity, and with it, ideally churn out their best months of business. However, the busy level doesn’t have an impact on health inspections. Those will continue, with every restaurant receiving at least one annual inspection (if not more). For one local Mesa eatery though, things could have gone better, as it was hit with a D-level inspection grade. The worst grade a restaurant can receive without failing. 

On August 27, Filberto’s Mexican Food at 1755 West Main Street in Mesa was visited for its annual health inspection. This is the eleventh time it has been visited since November of 2021. The number is rather high, especially as the majority of these inspections have been classified as “Food Routine Inspections.” Usually, these are performed annually, and yet in some years, the restaurant was visited every three months (despite not having a violation the previous visit). 

In some ways, this feels like a, “if you look hard enough, you’ll find something” kind of situation. The August 27 visit was its fourth in a twelve-month span. With two notching single violations and a third without any. However, the August 27 violation did turn up three Priority Violations. 

A Priority Violation is one that directly contributes to the increased risk of foodborne illness and injury. The restaurant did not have any secondary violations, yet any restaurant with three Priority Violations automatically is given a D grade. Filberto’s Mexican Food does not participate in the voluntary grading system, so it did not receive an official grade, though it would be classified as a D-level. 

The first violation came when the inspector watched a kitchen employee rinse off their hands without using soap. The instructor pointed out the need to wash, with soap, for at least twenty seconds. The second issue came with how the staff was using the three-compartment sink to wash dishes (a cleaning sanitizer was not in use). 

The third violation had to do with proper cold-holding temperatures. All food in cold-holding units, such as walk-in coolers and refrigerators, must not exceed 41 degrees. Bacteria will grow in the warmer temps. Despite this, raw-shelled eggs were tested at 72 degrees. As eggs in most other countries of the world are stored on counters (the external, protective membrane is not cleaned off, so room temperature storage is allowed), it is possible the Spanish-speaking staff did not know any better. The inspector, with the help of a translator, pointed out the issue.