Restaurant Inspections: Gainesville Fast Food Restaurants Visited by Health Inspectors

The Prince William Health District has visited several fast food restaurants along the Linton Hall Road corridor in Gainesville recently, including Chick-fil-A, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell and Burger King.

Chick-fil-A, located at 5015 Wellington Road in Gainesville, received one critical violation and four noncritical violations during a routine inspection.

According to the Health District report, the Sept. 10 critical violation included:

Critical (Corrected During Inspection): A food employee failed to wash his or her hands before handling single-service food items after coughing.

The non-critical violations included:

• Repeat: A sign or poster that notifies food employees to wash their hands is not provided at all handsinks used by food employees
• Repeat: There was no temperature measuring device located in the work-top cooler by the drive through window
• Repeat: Food stored on the floor in the walk-in freezer.
• Repeat: The mop sink water line to the chemical mixer / dispenser lacks a backflow or backsiphonage prevention device identified as meeting standards set by the American Society of Sanitary Engineering.
•  Inadequate storage space in the walk-in freezer.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, located at 7600 Linton Hall Road in Gainesville, received five noncritical violations during a routine inspection Sept. 9.

The non-critical violations included:

• Thermometers for walk-in cooler / freezer not working.
• Broken castor on 1-door under-counter cooler.
• Heavy ice/condensation of walk-in cooler refrigeration coils.
• Shipping plastic on 1-door under-counter cooler.
• Condensation dripping on pan racks from refrigeration coils/drip pan of walk-in cooler. heavy ice on bottom/back of housing.

Taco Bell, located at 7620 Linton Hall Road in Gainesville, received three noncritical violations during a routine inspection Aug. 19.

The non-critical violations included:

• Mop sink water line to chemical mixer / dispenser lacks an approved back-flow prevention (BFP) device.
• (Corrected During Inspection) Fly trap in food prep area.
• (Corrected During Inspection) Dead bulb in walk-in freezer

Burger King, located at 7640 Linton Hall Road in Gainesville, received one noncritical violation during a routine inspection Sept. 9.

The non-critical violation included:

• Repeat: Less than 10 foot-candles of light in the walk-in cooler. Measured 2-6 foot-candles.

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“Restaurant inspections are normally scheduled for one to four inspections per year, depending on the complexity of the menu, how much food is made from raw products, and how much is made in advance rather than cooked-to-order,” the agency states on their website.

When inspectors observe violations during a routine inspection, they are detailed in a report and classified as either critical (posing a direct or immediate threat to consumers) or non-critical (a failure of cleaning or maintenance), they said.

These inspections are considered by the Health District as a snapshot of a specific day of operation.

According to the agency, “Ideally, an operation would have no critical violations, or none which are not corrected immediately and not repeated. In our experience, it is unrealistic to expect that a complex, full-service food operation can routinely avoid any violations.”