Restaurant inspection reports available online

~ Officials said most eating establishments do a good job of keeping in compliance.

Is your favorite restaurant clean enough? You sure? Check a local Web site and you may find a few distasteful exceptions, from dirty meat slicers and moldy drink dispensers to gnats flying around beer taps and WD-40 sitting on the same shelf with hamburger buns.

Cape Girardeau County's restaurants are generally well-maintained, health officials said, but they want the public to know there's a place to check.

The Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center has a Web site -- www.cgcohealthdept.com -- where the results of restaurant inspections are posted. Site visitors can click on environmental services and then view records on the county's eating establishments.

And it's not all pretty.

"It's not a sugar-coated type thing. What we write in our report is what we write online," said Lynn Lancaster, an environmental public health specialist with the health department.

Inspections are done at least once a year on restaurants, school cafeterias, convenience stores -- anywhere that food is served publicly, Lancaster said. Complaints also draw inspections, he said. In 2005, 845 inspections were done on the county's 392 establishments. So far this year, 478 inspections have been done at 409 establishments.

The inspections can draw critical violations such as dirty pans or handling food without gloves or noncritical violations such as towels not being washed in the correct strength of sanitizer.

Quickly corrected

But Lancaster said most restaurants do a good job of keeping in compliance. When there are violations, the restaurants generally correct them quickly, and follow-up inspection reports online confirm that Lancaster is right.

Restaurants are also provided with copies of the county's food code and the county holds classes for food handlers to show them how to properly store and distribute food, Lancaster said.

County health center director Charlotte Craig called the online offering a "wonderful education tool." It encourages restaurants to keep their establishments in compliance and educates the public about how clean eating places are.

"But we have some wonderfully cooperative, proactive restaurants," she said. "And since we've started putting them online, generally speaking, the restaurants have gotten better."

Even restaurant owners don't seem to mind that their reports are online.

"Personally, as a restaurant-goer, I am thrilled to death," said Debbie Stoverink, who recently opened the Jackson Sports Grill. "We want to comply and not just because of the law. Nothing will turn a person off to your restaurant faster than dirt on the floor. For me, it's just a good business practice to keep it done right."

Brian Noto, who recently took over Mollie's Cafe and Bar, said the process wasn't bad. He found the inspectors helpful. They answered questions and made suggestions.

"They said, 'Here's a list of 20 things that really trip people up,'" Noto said. "They walked us through what we needed to do, and I appreciated that."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137