We’ve updated the search tool at Fined Dining through December 2007. Now you can see which Florida restaurants were fined from 2005 through 2007, how much they were fined and when.
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You can find details here. And you can judge for yourself, which is the real point of this post so please read on.
 
If your wondering about the maps, we’ll have them up soon one way or another. We’re holding off for the moment because we think the imminent change we promised a month ago might actually be really, truly imminent. If not, the maps will be up in the usual place in a few days.

Meantime, at the risk of beating a dead post, we want to revisit last week’s exchange with Laura Reiley, the St. Pete Times’ food critic, just to make one last point that we regard as central to the whole exchange.

If you forgot or missed it, we criticized Reiley for recommending an eatery, which had been temporarily closed and fined by the state just a few months earlier, and for failing to (know or) mention this down side to readers, or even mention where they might learn more on their own.  
Then we decided to tweak Reiley by posting this at her blog. Annoyed by our impudence, apparently, she responded the next day with a post in which she rationalizes unsanitary kitchen conditions, suggests that her 16 years of reviewing restaurants have taught her how to spot a real health hazard and that state inspectors can’t necessarily be relied upon for accuracy.

She capped it all with this comment, which we’ve excerpted below.

“…my problem with reporting the pertinent facts is that sometimes they aren’t valuable  … The last thing I want to do is create fear among the dining public about restaurants that are doing a good job … Penalizing a restaurant for a whole year for an off day is rough stuff.”

Thank you, Mrs. Pulitzer.

What we have here is failure to get over yourself. Reiley, apparently, sincerely believes that she is the ultimate judge of all things restauranty, that we’re too thick or childlike to discern valuable information for ourselves and that we need an adult to interpret the big, complicated food world.

Is it any wonder that traditional media is held in such contempt by so many people who flock to untraditional sources of information?

Omniscient media is a transparent canard peddled by a few lingering, arrogant media hacks. As hard as it may be for Reiley to accept, the lecture is over. We’re moving outside to the commons for a conversation and we’re all better off for it, including those restaurants of which she is so fiercely protective. 

Doug Bebell, the owner and chef of Mystic Fish wrote to us asking what we hope to accomplish by calling attention to unflattering public records. Until we said so, it hadn’t occurred to him that GoToTell is at his disposal 24/7/365 to comment, explain, document and even crack back at us. He and you are always welcome to document, comment, rebut, question, criticize and draw your own conclusions. And that’s why this kind of forum has the potential to provide more pertinent and valuable information than Reiley ever would or could from her singular, albeit well-informed perch of the printed word.

As we explained to Bebell, we know that many people are actually intelligent enough to realize that good businesses make mistakes, just as good people make them sometimes. And a lot of regular folks are surprisingly adept at discerning authentic remorse from duplicitous denial. People are generous with second chances when they see them as warranted. All they need is enough information by which they can feel confident to decide. Lectures beg questions. Dialogue provides answers. Just ask a journalist.

Bebell is a chef and an entrepreneur. We understand why he didn’t get it right away but we’re gratified that he does now and that he took advantage of our forum to say his peace. As for Reiley, that’s just one woman’s opinion.

We’ve attracted attention from the St. Pete fish wrapper, particularly its food critic, Laura Reiley, who posted this at her blog today in response to a smartass jab from us yesterday (read down in the comments section, until you come to the one from that Dave H jerk).  

At the risk of inflaming our disagreement with people who buy ink by the barrel, we’ve responded at her blog. Now we’ll respond at our own.    

First, it’s really not about you, Laura. Well, ok, it is but not the way you seem to think where you say at the top “At question: Is it my job to evaluate the sanitation of a restaurant?”

 
We never suggested that you evaluate restaurant sanitation. We’re suggesting that you pay attention to people who are paid by the state to evaluate restaurant sanitation and report their findings where relevant to one of your own restaurant reviews.

Laura, in case you missed it, recently had kind things to say about several local eateries, which have been fined by the state for health and safety violations since 2005. That isn’t a big deal in it’s own right but a couple of these places were fined fairly large amounts within the last six months and one of them was actually ordered to temporarily close, until violations were corrected. That is kind of a big deal, at least in our book.

We don’t know about y’all but we aren’t plannng on taking the family out to eat at that place any time soon, no matter what Laura says about it. For all we know it’s a great restaurant that just had a bad moment on the most perfectly awful day. We don’t care. We aren’t going.

Maybe it’s just us but we think not. We actually think a lot of people would like to know that a place Laura describes in positive prose was described in much less positve prose by inspectors with a view of the kitchen, and a horrific one at that, if their report is to be believed.

At question, Laura, is whether you should pay attention to all this inspection data and include the most relevant stuff in your reviews. Beyond that, ma’m, how about just routinely reminding people that they can easily find this information on their own at Fined Dining and the state’s search tool before they decide where to spend their dining-out dollar?

Let’s keep in mind that just last August Florida was ranked first in the nation for cases of food-borne illness based on 2005 data compiled from the Centers for Disease Control. More recently, Bill Veach, director of Florida’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants, told a local TV reporter that his agency is understaffed. Combine these two elements and you’ve got ingredients for an issue that might just interest the food critic for one of the state’s largest newspapers.

Or not. Laura, in her blog post, seems to suggest that restaurant inspections aren’t all that reliable because they’re really just random snapshots by inspectors who can be a little arbitrary at times. That and, of course, food poisoining is bound to happen, if you go out to eat often enough. The good news, though, is that it probably won’t kill you.

Thank you, Mrs. Upton Sinclair. We’ll keep that in mind.

But we really don’t know what to make of Laura’s remark about how she might have to go out with state inspectors for a few days in order to evaluate their job performances. Seriously? Gawd, we hope not. Instead, Laura, why not hang back in the office and concentrate on your own?

 
 
If you haven’t seen the St. Pete fish wrapper’s Weekend section, specifically the feature entitled “100 things that make you go mmmmm,” take a peek.
 
Though we admire food critic Laura Reiley for her magnanmity in allowing that “… since I’ve been the Times food critic for less than a year, it seems presumptuous of me to declare the area’s best restaurants just yet …,” we suggest that she at least consider a few other opinions before issuing proclamations in the future. Specifically, those of restaurant inspectors employed by Florida’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants.
 
Reiley’s 100 mmmmmy things make for interesting reading and we hope to follow at least some of her tracks but Tampa Bay food eaters should know that several of Reiley’s favs have been fined by the state for health and/or safety violations since January 1, 2005, including one that was temporarily closed by the state last August.
 
Let’s put this into perspective. Florida has about 38,000 licensed public food-service establishments and, as reported here, an inadequate staff of inspectors to make sure they follow rules designed to protect our health and safety. What’s more, most violations don’t draw fines. When a restaurant gets slapped with a fine, you can be sure it screwed up and may have even ignored warnings.

So, we’re not just going out of our way here to make Reiley look silly but we do think she should have taken time to consult Fined Dining or the state’s search tool and included in her report at least some of what she would have found.

In fairness, some of the violations are not of a nature to send you on a dash for the nearest commode, though some are, nor are some of the fines particularly large, though a few are. We also think it’s only fair to note that fines listed here are initial fines listed by the state and may not equal fines actually paid. Beyond that you be the judge.

Listed below are Reiley’s mmmmmys that showed up in state files. We’ve listed locations, initial fine totals and, in a few cases, some additional explanations. All of the information is derived from public records. You can find more details at the state’s search tool. You can see fine totals at our own Fined Dining search page.

Ceviche Tapas Bar & Restaurant - 2109 Bayshore Blvd. in Tampa was fined $250 for one violation in 2006. See the state’s search tool for more recent inspection activity.

Chipotle Mexican Grill at 3700 Park Blvd. in Pinellas Park was fined $250 for one violation in October 2006. Chipotle Mexican Grill at 2660 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd. in Clearwater was fined $500 for two violations in October 2006.

Mystic Fish at 3253 Tampa Road in Palm Harbor was fined $750 for three violations in October 2006 and $1,000 for one violation in October 2007. Records show that this restaurant was temporarily closed by the state last August. Among critical violations listed is this: “Critical. Observed roach activity as evidenced by live roaches found. Approximately 15 live adult german roaches observed behind dishmachine, 10 baby roaches by dishmachine.” And there is this: “Critical. Observed toxic container reused for food storage. Potatoes, soups.”



Salt Rock Grill at 19325 Gulf Blvd. in Indian Shores was fined $1,250 for seven violations in August 2005. Check the state search tool for more recent information.

Marlin Darlin at 2819 West Bay Drive in Belleair Bluffs was fined $650 for three violations in July 2007.



Vino e Pasta at 3603 W. Gandy Blvd. in Tampa was fined $250 for one violation in December 2005.

Shepard’s Beach Resort at 601-619 S. Gulfview Blvd. in Clearwater Beach was fined $400 for two violations in May 2006.

Cafe Ponte ffice:smarttags” />at 13505 Icot Blvd. in Largo was fined $1,950 for 10 violations in November 2007. Read more here.

Kelly’s For Just About Anything, at 319 Main St. in Dunedin was fined $1,000 for four violations in February 2006.