It could be any bagel store in Brooklyn. There are bagels in bins, assorted cream cheeses behind a glass case and beverages in refrigerators. A few tables sit in front. From the outside a large sign reads, “Bagels made on premises.” In the window above the black metal bench out front, which customers use on warm days to sip their iced coffees, there’s a much smaller, less appetizing sign. It’s an orange letter C. It’s their restaurant-rating grade from the New York City health department.
Rachel Helmick had given the Bagel Factory a positive review on Yelp, but now is having second thoughts. “I’ll be checking out the coffee shop a couple blocks south. I don’t know what causes a restaurant to get a C rating, and frankly I don’t think I want to find out,” she wrote in an email.
In July 2010, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene began requiring food service establishments to post letter grades that correspond to their sanitary inspection scores. The new program had two goals: to help consumers make informed choices and to give restaurants an incentive to maintain the highest food safety standards. But these letters are only of use to customers if they’re posted, or if customers search for the listings on the Health Department website.
In an emailed statement about the restaurant ratings in Brooklyn, Chanel Caraway, a Health Department spokeswoman, said, “The grading program relies on public awareness to motivate restaurant operators to maintain high food safety practices. Consumers can learn which grade card should be posted near a restaurant’s entrance by checking nyc.gov and searching ‘restaurant letter grading.’”
The Health Department inspected the Bagel Factory on May 13th, and the restaurant received 48 violation points for four cited problems. According to the Health Department’s website, one violation was holding cold food items above 41 degrees. Points for this violation, like most listed by the Health Department, vary in numerical value, depending on severity. The point breakdown is not available to customers. Only the type of violation and the total points received are publically available.
On the day of the inspection it was warm, about 70 F, and the shop was busy, said Mike Abbas, one of the owners of the Bagel Factory. The refrigerator case doors opened and closed constantly to accommodate hungry customers, bringing the temperature up. Abbas says the restaurant received 15 violation points for 3 degrees in temperature.
Irene LoRere, executive director of the Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District and owner of the Fifth Avenue restaurant Aunt Suzie’s, says she has had similar experiences with restaurant inspections. “Friday or Saturday night during service they’ve come into Aunt Suzie’s,” she said. “I was cited for prosciutto not to the right temperature.” Fans of the Italian meat know that it should be served a bit warmer than other hams. LoRere says that she had the meat out during the busy service to reach the right temperature. “’Is it ham?’” she remembers the inspector asking. LoRere said she tried to explain what the proper temperature of the meat should be, but was cited anyway.
Inspectors can give three different letter grades: an A for having 0-13 points for violations, B for 14-27 and C for 28 or more. During inspections, restaurant staff members lead inspectors through the restaurant, and the inspector checks everything from garbage, toilet and plumbing facilities to evidence of pests and food temperatures. An establishment that does not score an A on its initial inspection does not have to post its grade until the re-inspection, usually a few days or weeks later. According to the health department’s “What to Expect When You’re Inspected” guide, ”an establishment receiving a B or C grade on re-inspection receives two cards: one showing the letter grade and one that says Grade Pending; one of those cards must be posted immediately. The final grade is determined at the Administrative Tribunal.” At the tribunal, restaurants can fight their grading if they choose. Caraway wrote in the health department’s statement that inspectors can also close restaurants, “if an inspector finds an uncorrectable public health hazard or violations that have not been corrected from prior inspections,” such as a severe pest problem.
Since the bagel shop posted their C grade, Abbas says customers ask, “‘Mike, what’s up with the C?’” Abbas says he tells them about the violations or directs them to the Health Department website. He wishes the ratings came with a breakdown of the violations to post along with the letter. Not posting the sign is considered a health department violation.
He fought some of the violations and even thought about going to the tribunal. He could try not posting the sign, like other restaurants in the neighborhood, he said, gesturing up 5th Avenue. But he doesn’t want to give the Health Department any more money for violations, so he posted the sign.
The agency has issued nearly 1,000 violations since July to restaurants in New York City for failing to post their required grade or not posting the grade in the required location, according to the emailed statement by the health department. These violations come with a hefty fine, usually $1,000 for the first offense. There are over 5,000 restaurants in Brooklyn alone, and in the Ink’s informal survey of the restaurants along 5th Avenue around the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, about one in eight restaurants had no health department posting at all.
One such restaurant was Joe’s Pizzeria (483 5th Ave.). The restaurant received a ‘C’ grade in late July. On September 12th no inspection sign was visible.
Great Lakes bar, another Fifth Avenue establishment that received a C rating, still had a ‘Grade Pending’ sign on September 12th. According to an email from the Health Department, their trial was on August 2 and the C sign should have been posted after the trial.
Posted or not, the grades don’t affect everyone. Another Bagel Factory regular, Malcolm Kates, stands by his positive Yelp review. He wrote over email, “In general, from my understanding of the grading system, it’s highly subjective with lots of room for reviewer interpretation. If I already like a place or have read enough reviews about it to have made a premeditated decision to dine there, the letter grade is entirely irrelevant.”
Abbas said business is good at the Bagel Factory. “Customers know us. Maybe one out of 500” won’t come in because of he rating, he said. Still, he’s eagerly waiting for his re-inspection. He says, “I feel like I’m back in school. It hurts me.” The original inspection was in May and typically the Health Department comes back three to five months after that. Abbas said that Bagel Factory’s inspection should happen any day now.
“I know it might work for some places,” Abbas said about the inspections, but he stressed that the system is complicated. “It was easier with immigration.” (He helped his wife emigrate from Yemen to the United States.) LoRere doesn’t think these inspections work for any restaurants, and said they are especially problematic in Brooklyn. She believes the fines hit the mom-and-pop restaurants of her borough harder than their bigger Manhattan counterparts. The fines are the same, she points out, but the impact is greater on smaller profit margins. As the system stands right now, it’s “not doing anything to help small businesses,” she said. Abbas and LoRere both agree that customers should be aware that if there were something critically unsafe at a restaurant the health department would close it down.
When a restaurant does get closed by department of health, it gets re-inspected upon reopening. This makes it possible for the sushi restaurant down the block, Ginza, which was closed by the department of health in early September, to legitimately post a B rating when it reopened a few days later.
Before the letter grades were established, “an inspector came in and if it wasn’t critical they would just try and train you on how to correct it,” LoRere said. With the new ratings, “suddenly they think they are Zagat’s.”
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