Episode Details

Story by Patti Brown

Ed’s Cantina and Grill and Bird and Jim’s both experience brief closures by Larimer County Health and Environment inspectors

In the wake of a recent outbreak of E. coli infections connected to many McDonald’s restaurants in the region, news surfaced that two popular Estes Park eateries were temporarily shut down in the past month by the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment for violations. Neither restaurant had issues with E. coli as a reason for being closed.

Ed’s Cantina was shut down on Sept. 25 during a routine health department inspection. The restaurant was allowed to reopen on Sept. 27, and it passed a required reinspection on Oct. 16.

Bird and Jim’s Restaurant was shut down on Oct. 23 and was allowed to reopen on Oct. 24
after making immediate corrections to the violations. The restaurant has not yet had its required reinspection, a process which will take place seven to ten days after the initial routine inspection.

According to Nicole Aguilar, program manager for consumer protection for the LCDHE, during a routine inspection a retail food establishment is graded on 56 indices. A rating sale is used to determine if the business is in or out of compliance on things such as the good hygiene practices of staff members, the proper temperature for food storage, the proper use of utensils, working plumbing, available hot and cold water, adequate water pressure, and adequate ventilation and lighting.

The higher the score, the more serious the violations. A routine inspection also looks at whether a problem can be corrected on the spot during the inspection and if there are repeated violations of the same issue.

A passing score is 49 or fewer points. Reinspection is required if an establishment scores
between 50 and 109 points, and if more than 110 points are scored, the retail food
establishment is immediately shut down.

The inspectors can also shut down a retail food establishment immediately because of a high score in certain areas even if the score is under 109, or because of an imminent health hazard, however the number of points awarded in an inspection are not included in the report which is available for the public to review.

Aguilar said the decision to include the points on an inspection report is being debated at the state level because the numerical point system is not necessarily the most accurate way to measure the severity of a compliance problem.

Inspectors are not “food cops,” Aguilar said. Instead, they train to approach their job as a
partnership to help restaurants succeed. “If we’re being successful, they’re being successful, and vice versa. And that’s why we always take a partnership and education approach first, even though we are regulators,” said Aguliar.

“What we’re trying to do is set our businesses up for success so that we can have sustained compliance. There are so many establishments in Larimer County we can’t be everywhere at once,” said Aguilar.

When a large corporation has a problem, like McDonald’s, they will survive, said Augilar, but a small, independent business may not be able to. “And we don’t want to see that happen to our businesses,” she said.

To date, the county’s consumer protection team has conducted 1,629 inspections of retail food establishments in 2024 which includes restaurants, grocery stores, and food trucks.

The E. coli outbreak affecting McDonald’s

Read full story here:

https://estesvalleyvoice.com/2024/10/31/food-safety-issues-affect-regional-mcdonalds-and-two-local-restaurants/