Four restaurants that are popular with UF students are among the city restaurants that have been hit with health-code violations in the past five months — including some that resulted from an inspection as recent as Friday.
The restaurants included 101 Cantina, Boca Fiesta, Designer Greens and Copper Monkey.
No restaurants required shutdowns, and most restaurants had violations that stemmed from food-temperature violations, according to records from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
In a health inspector's report from Nov. 15, 101 Cantina had 14 violations ranging from having an open beverage on a table where food is prepared to having small, live flies in the dish area.
The inspector noted there was food residue built up on a cookline reach-in cooler. The report also stated fajita chicken cooked more than a week prior hadn't been thrown away. The food was tossed during the inspection.
The restaurant had also installed carpeting in a dry storage area and had not cooled cooked black beans from 135 degrees to the state-required 41 degrees Fahrenheit within six hours.
The restaurant has included a change in management as part of its cleanup approach.
New manager Josh Lowenstein said Tuesday he wasn't able to speak about the violations because he wasn't working there at the time. However, he said, he plans to hold the restaurant to higher standards.
Part of that, he said, includes improving quality across the board - in both food and working environment.
To keep live flies from buzzing around the dish-washing station, he said his plan is to emphasize cleanliness, which includes having employees scrub the kitchen when business is slow.
Records indicate efforts to walk away with a clean inspection haven't been as successful as Lowenstein hoped.
Though the flies are gone, inspectors found four new violations in an inspection Friday.
Four of them were repeat violations, including finding that the black beans were not cooled down enough and the offending carpet had not been removed.
Lowenstein declined to comment on the new violations.
Boca Fiesta was cited for food-temperature violations on Nov. 29 when the inspector found 13 violations. One of the violations was that a mini-fridge used to store soy milk and salsa was not cooling the items properly.
Warren Oakes, an owner of Boca Fiesta, said the fridge was immediately tossed and a new one was put in its place.
The report also mentioned a build-up of slime in an ice machine.
He explained the slime built up when people opened and closed the door to the ice machine. The buildup was on the door's underside. It had never touched the ice and was not immediately visible inside the machine, which is how it went unnoticed.
It has since been cleaned and added to a list of items to clean before the restaurant closes each night.
Oakes said there are two kinds of violations: those that come from mechanical failure and those from human error.
In the case of those stemming from mechanical failure, he said he has since replaced all malfunctioning parts and machines.
In the cases of human error, he said he sends out a notice to employees with their paychecks to detail what employees will have to do to avoid the incidents in the future. Those instructions are also listed inside the restaurant.
So far, he said, it's worked.
Oakes said the health violations trouble him because the restaurant is his baby.
"We're a part of this community. We live here," he said. "We eat here, too."
Designer Greens had four health code violations on Jan. 11, including one that Designer Greens owner Steven Kay called a stroke of bad luck.
The restaurant employs the "fast-casual" style where customers can select ingredients to add to their salads as they go down a line, similar to Chipotle or Subway.
At Designer Greens, those ingredients weren't being chilled properly, he said.
Kay blamed the issue on faulty parts in the refrigerators that were used to chill the ingredients.
An inspector noted on Jan. 11 the ingredients were being kept at a temperature of 48 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 41 degrees Fahrenheit.
The refrigerators have thermostats, which are designed like air conditioners, Kay said. They switch on to cool the ingredients at the appropriate moments.
However, when those parts fail, the still-operating refrigerators don't do their job correctly and violations happen.
He previously failed an inspection for the same violation. The day after the first failure, he said, he brought in a repair company to fix the refrigerators. He said he spent $700 on the repair.
However, the company gave him thermostats he likened to cheap auto parts.
Two months later, he said, his refrigerators broke on the day of his follow-up inspection.
Now, he said he could face even larger fines.
Kay said this particular infraction is a common one — an easy rule to break but also an easy one to fix.
He said ingredients that get warmer than 41 degrees Fahrenheit are still allowed to be served for up to two hours after they pass that barrier.
Copper Monkey had 10 violations when it was inspected Jan. 11.
Though it was not cited for food-temperature infractions, the report showed the restaurant had been storing raw chicken and shrimp above french fries in a freezer. This was corrected on site.
The report also noted residue buildup on racks in a walk-in cooler.
Officials from Copper Monkey were not able to be reached for comment.
