Restaurant Report Card: June 2011

Here at The Lo-Down, we know our readers care a lot about our local restaurants. We are all fortunate to live, work and play in a neighborhood full of interesting places to eat and drink. We welcome the new ones and look forward to giving them a try; we grieve the loss of old favorites; and we love to analyze all the ones in between. The second Wednesday of each month, we post a summary of the previous month’s health department inspections for eateries in the 10002 ZIP code. Click through to read the June report.

Here’s how it works: The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene inspects about 24,000 restaurants annually. Inspectors issue points for violating food handling, personal hygiene, vermin control and other sanitary regulations. Points result in letter grades, which must be posted where patrons can easily see them. Zero to 13 points is an “A;” 14 to 27 points is a “B;” 28 or more points is a “C.” Restaurants that earn more than 28 points are re-inspected roughly once a month until either they improve or the health department shuts them down. A restaurant can also contest its grade, and in that case, is allowed to post a “Grade Pending” certificate until its appeal is heard.

The new system marked its first anniversary last week, prompting several news accounts detailing restaurauteurs’ complaints about how C grades were hurting their business and documenting that many restaurants receiving abysmal scores were allowed to remain open anyway.

Because we know it’s a tough business, and that inspection results offer only one snapshot in time, we have chosen to list only those that earn 28 or more violation points, a “C” grade. In a nod to excellence, we also call out the establishments that earned 3 points or less.

For more details on how the city grades restaurants, see the guide (PDF). Because of the way the city’s search function operates, we cannot link directly to individual reports here, but you can visit the website and type in the name of any restaurant to view the details.

Here’s the report for last month. First, the good news: Max Fish earned only 3 points in its June inspection, while Café Grumpy and Silk Cakes each earned only 2 points.

Two establishments whose tangles with the health department we chronicled last month, PKNY and The National Underground, do not appear on the list below. That’s because they were re-inspected before the end of the month, and their latest inspection scores fell within the A or B range.

PKNY, formerly known as Painkiller, earned a whopping 101 points during a June 3 inspection, but was permitted to remain in operation. The tiki bar, at 49 Essex St., earned only 24 points (a B grade) in a follow-up inspection, but then was briefly shut down for one day due to a lapsed operating permit.

The National Underground, meanwhile, was shuttered for 10 days after earning 71 points on June 10. A follow-up inspection score of 7 points allowed the East Houston Street rock club to reopen.

Here’s the 28 points and over list for June, from most points to least: