Thurston County inspectors have shut down a Happy Teriyaki restaurant near Lacey, citing many food safety violations.
Inspectors visited the restaurant at 8205 Martin Way East on Feb. 7 and inspection notes were recently added to the county’s food safety website. Its menu includes Chinese, Japanese and Korean cuisine.
“Due to severity of risk observed and lack of managerial control, facility closed to the public,” the inspection notes read.
The restaurant received a score of 180 red points and 26 blue points, according to the inspection notes. Red points denote violations that are most likely to cause food-borne illness. Blue points relate to the overall cleanliness and condition of the operation.
Sammy Berg, senior environmental health specialist for Thurston County, said the county reinspects restaurants 10 to 14 days after they score 45 points or more. The county only moves to close a restaurant if its red points reach 100.
“When we get at or above 100 red points, one of the things that we’re concerned about is that means there’s a lot of different violations going on,” Berg said. “And it implies there’s just no one really in charge of making sure that food safety is really being addressed.”
This is the first such closure of 2023, Berg said. According to data shared by Berg, there have been seven closures due to high violation points over the past six years, including two in 2017, one in 2019, two in 2021, one in 2022 and this one.
The county currently has six inspectors that review about 1,000 food facilities a year and 300 temporary food vendors, Berg said.
Happy Teriyaki did not respond to The Olympian’s request for comment on Friday.
A closure due to a high score lasts at least 72 hours but it may last longer depending on what corrective action a restaurant needs to take, Berg said.
In this case, Berg said management and employees must undergo retraining, and management must show county inspectors how they plan to improve their policies and procedures.
“They’re still closed because we are working with them,” Berg said. “We don’t expect the employees to be perfect all the time, they’re people, but the owner or managers should be there to reinforce.”
The restaurant may reopen later this month if it passes a two-hour inspection, Berg said, but the reopening date is dependent on when the restaurant informs the county they are ready to move forward.
“They are earnest in their desire to make things better,” Berg said. “We applaud that. But they are the ones that have to put all the hard work in consistently and that’s what we’re going to look for.”
Once it reopens, Berg said inspectors will visit the restaurant weekly to review its progress. If those initial inspections go well, inspectors may move visits to every two weeks instead.
“They’re basically going to be on probation for a year and we’re going to just keep reinforcing and seeing how they’re doing,” Berg said. “The better they do, then the less frequent we’ll need to be back there until we’re back on better footing.”
Inspection notes for Happy Teriyaki at 8205 Martin Way listed deficiencies in 19 areas.
• The person in charge reportedly did not maintain active managerial control, meaning multiple high-risk violations occurred without adequate intervention. This person was also cited for not taking corrective action or demonstrating knowledge of the associated risks.
• An employee did not properly wash their hands in the kitchen upon returning from active food preparation. The notes indicate they washed their hands in the restroom sink instead.
• The kitchen hand sinks could not be used during the inspection because they were obstructed. The first kitchen sink had used utensils in its basin and the second sink contained raw chicken buckets and other foods.
• An employee used their bare hand to check the temperature of food. The restaurant must have proper barriers in place to prevent bare hand contact of food that’s ready to eat.
• The restaurant could not verify parasite destruction for certain menu items.
• Multiple food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned and sanitized. Additionally, the inspector observed in-use woks being stored on the kitchen floor as well as pots and pans stored on used egg cartons. These items were not cleaned before use.
• Raw chicken was stored above ready-to-eat foods in the walk-in refrigerator.
• Proper cooling procedures for certain foods were not followed. The inspector observed food stored in covered containers that were greater than 2 inches in depth in the walk-in refrigerator. Cooling food also was placed in bins greater than 2 inches in a rear storage room. Lastly, food was observed cooling at room temperature on the bottom shelf of a steel preparation table.
• Hot foods, including cooked chicken and cabbage, were improperly held at temperatures below 135 degrees.
• The operator did not have accurate records of food preparation times or a written plan for time as a control. In-use cooked meats were observed on a counter without proper temperature control.
• Some foods were improperly stored in cold hold units with temperatures above 41 degrees.
• Thin tip and unit thermometers were absent from the facility.
• Boxes of raw chicken were observed thawing at room temperature on various surfaces. Frozen in-house cooked meats were also thawing at room temperature on the floor.
