DENVER –In this week’s Restaurant Report Card, a Centennial eatery gets an F for rodent droppings, cockroaches at an Aurora Ethiopian restaurant and an A for an Olive Garden.
Volcano Restaurant
Volcano Restaurant is best known for the food they prepare in front of you, but health inspectors were more concerned with what customers could not see in the back.
The Centennial restaurant located at 10440 E. Arapahoe Road gets an F on our report card for 15 critical mistakes in two recent health inspections.
Inspectors found “rodent droppings” on the floor, a “bottle of vermouth was adulterated with fruit flies,” and “raw meats were stored above ready to eat food items in the walk in refrigerator.” Tri-county health inspectors also found areas in the kitchen were soiled with food debris, grease and mold.
The owner of the restaurant refused our offer to do an interview and instead a manger sent this statement: “We have already modified our workflow, conducted more employee trainings, to ensure our commitment to food safety and quality.”
Meskerem Restaurant
Our next F goes to Meskerem Restaurant in Aurora.
The Ethiopian restaurant at 1121 S. Peoria Street failed our report card with 10 critical mistakes.
Tri-County Health inspectors found “live cockroaches … below the liquor cabinet, raw steak … stored above ready to eat vegetables,” and “dishes are not being sanitized.”
Inspectors said employees failed to wash their hands before preparing food, a hand sink was not accessible and there was no soap in the kitchen sink, bar sink and men’s restroom.
Meskerem’s owner also refused to speak to us but sent a statement: “Every day we are doing deep cleaning all over the restaurant (e)specially in the kitchen … We also have monthly service with budget pest control, since we start doing this we got remarkable results.”
Olive Garden
The A plus goes to Olive Garden at 7655 W. Alameda Avenue in Lakewood for perfect back to back inspections.
Matthew Johnson attributed the restaurant’s success to its employees.
“It comes from the hostesses all the way to the servers, the bussers, the cooks, the dishwashers and everybody coming together as a team just to make sure the standards are upheld,” Johnson said.
And, the bottom less basket of bread sticks can’t hurt. “It’s great to know we are going to be on the restaurant report card as an A.” Johnson said.
Check Your Favorite Restaurants
- Follow this link for restaurants in the city of Denver
- Follow this link for restaurants covered by the Tri-County Health Department (Arapahoe, Adams and Douglas counties)
- Follow this link for restaurants covered by Jefferson County
