The critics have spoken. The ones that literally count, anyway. Check the new and improved Fined Dining search tool to see whether one of your favorite Florida restaurants has been fined by the state for health and safety violations between January 2005 and August 31, 2007.
We’ve also updated our map of Florida’s 50 most-fined since 2005 and it looks like an all-you-can eat buffet of buffets over there.
We damn near made our eyes bleed, keeping track of all the buffets. We think we got it right and we know we aren’t going to be eating off any buffets any time soon. Our map now shows three separate “China Buffet(s),” a “King Buffet” and a “Buffet City.”
In August alone two new China Buffets jumped on the list, courtesy of Sunshine State inspectors. And King Buffet in Miami went back for seconds, moving six places up the list after taking a $1,500 fine for four violations on top of the 31 it already had.
And we were particularly impressed by “Dragon Pearl,” in Sunrise, which not only moved on to the 50-most-fined for the first time but climbed all the way to 19th thanks to a $5,000 kick in the crotch for 13 violations.
We mentioned that Fined Dining is new and improved and we ain’t lyin’. Users tipped us to some funkitude in the search. One problem is that whoever’s doin’ the data up in Tallahassee probably didn’t ace the FCAT for spelling, if you catch our drift. We found “Island” spelled in a variety of interesting ways, several abbreviations for “Beach” and all manner of typos and odd spacing. We think we’ve got most of it cleaned up, which should improve your results.
Another thing we discovered is that searches involving partial names didn’t always produce accurate results. You could type in “Golden” for an instant list of “Golden Corral” restaurants, which have been fined since 2005. But you wouldn’t get the same result by typing the word “Corral.” We think we’ve got that one bagged, too. Please, do tell, if we don’t.
Finally, something that isn’t a malfunction but has been perceived as one is that some cities are missing from the list. Tarpon Springs, for example, had been missing and may still be. The reason is that no Tarpon Springs restaurants appear on the public records used to build the database. I guess we know where we’re going out to eat next time. If a Tarpon Springs restaurant is added, the city will magically appear on our list.
Check back early next week. We’ll be posting the map of Tampa Bay restaurants, which were fined during the month of August.