By Adam Murphy
A metro Atlanta restaurant is in some hot water this week after receiving one of the lowest scores we’ve ever seen.
Photographs taken by a DeKalb County Environmental Health inspector show filthy conditions inside the kitchen of the Piccadilly Cafeteria at South Dekalb mall, known as The Galleria at South DeKalb, in Decatur.
Piccadilly failed with 26 points and a “U” for unsatisfactory. The report says there was black mold-like build up on the soda nozzles. Plus, live insects were seen crawling inside the flour bin and there were live roaches in the kitchen and rodent droppings in the storage area.
“That’s very negligent. I work in restaurants myself and that means that’s years of people not doing their job,” Piccadilly customer Vanessa Richardson said.
After customers voiced concerns about it, we tried to give Piccadilly a chance to explain what happened, but management posted a sign at the front of the restaurant saying they are temporarily closed due to a scheduled building clean. They told us off camera they have confidence in the safety and quality of their food and will work to ensure these violations do not occur again.
STATEMENT FROM PICCADILLY
Our managers are ServSafe certified in food safety practices and procedures. We conduct inspections of our facilities twice daily and consider food safety to be our main focus and priority.
We partner with a nationally recognized pest control company, Ehrlich, and all our restaurants are treated on a regular basis.
As soon as this inspection was completed on August 22nd at our Decatur, GA location, we took immediate action to ensure the cleanliness of the facility, and the safety of our products and offerings to the public. We have follow up inspections scheduled to ensure we are in compliance with the health inspection guidelines.
We have every confidence in the safety and quality of our food. We will continue to work to ensure these violations do not occur again.
Piccadilly is proud of our long history in the Decatur, GA market serving hundreds of guests each day, as well as a number of outstanding Team Members that we employ.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, CBS46 discovered three other restaurants at the mall which struggled to make the grade on routine inspections. American Deli scored a 44, Fletcher’s Place received a 50 and later followed up with a 74 and Crab Du Jour got a 70. All three spots had pest problems. But before we could get to the bottom of it, mall security told us to leave.
“It’s just a policy of the mall, no videotaping, no recording, no nothing,” A mall security person said.
Now to some other good scores, in Cobb County, Bella’s Pizza Bar & Grill on Atlanta Road in Smyrna picked up 90-points. In Fulton County, El Azteca on Peachtree Street in Atlanta scored a 94 and in Clayton County, Sonny’s BBQ on Mt. Zion Road in Jonesboro earned 98-points.
And at Cuts Steakhouse on Satellite Boulevard in Suwanee they received a 100 on their health inspection. Congratulations they are the winner of this week’s Golden Spatula Award.
You may want to start out with one of their signature cocktails in the lounge and then when you move to your table just know that in that kitchen everything is made from scratch from the freshest ingredients. On the menu, they have a beet salad, fried green tomatoes with blue cheese crumbles, shrimp and grits, salmon, a 22-once bone-in ribeye. Boy, that’s good!
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Read the original story on CBS46.com.
