By BRIDGET TURCOTTE
SAUGUS — Following an allegation that a Border Cafe customer took home more than just leftovers, all restaurants in town may be subjected to regular pest inspections.
William Heffernan, chairman of the Board of Health, and Director of Public Health David Greenbaum agreed Monday night that the panel should consider making routine pest inspections mandatory for all restaurants. Greenbaum said he’d like to see them completed on a monthly basis.
“Given the amount of establishments in town, I think we, as a board, will request pest inspections be completed more regularly than they are now,” said Heffernan.
The proposed change stems from an incident two weeks ago. Kristin Torres, a customer, posted on Facebook that she found a cockroach at the bottom of her leftovers from the Route 1 Mexican restaurant. The post included two photos of an insect at the bottom of a glass bowl of dip and quickly spread over the internet.
“He was all the way at the bottom,” Torres wrote. “I am sick to my stomach.”
“When I came home and opened up my leftovers after eating the cilantro dip with my pastelitos, this was on the bottom,” she wrote. “To think me and my husband go there religiously. I am extremely disappointed and disgusted.”
Torres said comments written on the Facebook page were deleted — when a review was posted, the whole page was taken down.
Greenbaum said the issue is under investigation. Torres called him Monday morning to file a complaint. On Monday, March 28, before answering calls from Bob Murphy, vice president of operations for Border Cafe, Greenbaum paid the shop an unscheduled visit to complete his own inspection.
“I went Monday morning at 10 a.m.,” Greenbaum said. “I wasn’t going to rely on their pest control’s inspection.”
While there, he found a dead insect beneath the three-bay sink that he described as looking like a cockroach.
“I did look at the area where they prepare this particular dish and there was no activity,” he said.
No live cockroaches have been found and the dead bugs aren’t enough evidence to determine the building is in violation. Should he have found live cockroaches, the restaurant would have been shut down, he said.
“I’m comfortable with them being open,” Greenbaum said.
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This isn’t the first time the Mexican restaurant’s cleanliness has come into question. As recently as two to three months ago, inspectors noted German cockroach activity, Greenbaum said, though most reports have come back with little or no activity.
“I know last year the issue centered around a suspect foodborne illness complaint,” Greenbaum said.
Murphy said restaurant operators have taken great strides to improve operations over the past year to consistently deliver the highest standards.
“We understand that the board takes all public complaints concerning restaurant food safety and public health very seriously,” he said. “We want the board to understand that the company is committed to the highest standards of food safety as well as a quality dining experience for our valued guests.”
Murphy noted that the customer placed her own food in the take-out container and discovered the bug when she reopened it about five hours later. He said the administration immediately contacted its own pest control company to have them complete an inspection. The company, Ecologic Entomology IPM found no activity.
Lisa Berger of Berger Food Safety Consulting said she has worked with the Border Cafe for about a year, and members of her team have completed 19 inspections with no evidence of a pest problem.
“A lot of people make complaints whether they’re legit or not,” Berger said. “We’re pretty much at the mercy of someone having made this complaint.”
Murphy agreed to voluntarily have pest control inspections twice a week for the foreseeable future.
Revere’s Health Inspector also completed an inspection as a neutral third party and found no evidence of living roaches.
Bridget Turcotte can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @BridgetTurcotte