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City health inspectors walked into an Upper West Side Subway (the sandwich shop) on Aug. 13 and left after ordering it closed. It was the second time this summer they’d done exactly that, and most of what they wrote up the first time was still sitting there waiting for them.
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The Subway at 2508 Broadway, between West 93rd and 94th streets, picked up 63 violation points across seven sanitary violations during its most recent health inspection. Five of those were flagged in red, the designation the Health Department reserves for its most serious findings.Two of the red flags had to do with what was living in the store. Inspectors found live roaches in the food or non-food areas, along with filth flies and other nuisance pests, a category the department defines broadly enough to take in house flies, blow flies, bottle flies, flesh flies, drain flies, Phorid flies and fruit flies. A third violation, this one not flagged in red, pointed in the same direction, citing the store for failing to keep itself free of harborage or conditions conducive to rodents, insects and other pests.
The rest of the violations had to do with the food. Cold items that require temperature control were being held above 41 degrees, and the equipment was part of the reason why, because inspectors also determined the store didn’t have enough hot holding, cold storage or cold holding capacity to keep temperature-sensitive food where the code requires it. They further cited raw, cooked or prepared food that was adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated or not discarded as required. The seventh and final violation, also not in red, was an improper thawing procedure.
The July report reads almost like a rough draft of the August one. On July 2, the same store was ordered closed after racking up 60 violation points across six violations, and five of the six turned up again six weeks later. The roaches were there in July, so were the flies, so were the conditions conducive to pests, so was the cold food sitting above 41 degrees, and so was the contaminated or improperly discarded food. The only July violation that didn’t repeat was the administrative one. No manager or supervisor of food operations held a Food Protection Certificate at the time, and that item is gone from the August report.
What’s new in August is arguably the more telling part. The cold holding equipment citation is less a description of one bad day than a description of the setup itself, and it arrives attached to a temperature violation the store had already been written up for a month and a half earlier. The improper thawing procedure is new as well.
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For context on the numbers, the city has used a letter grading system since 2010. A score of 0 to 13 points earns an A, 14 to 27 points is a B, and 28 or more means a C. Points accumulate based on severity, with inspectors assigning a minimum of seven points for a public health hazard, five for a critical violation and two for a general violation, and the discretion to go higher depending on what they find. A restaurant that scores 14 or more on an initial inspection doesn’t get a letter right away. It posts a “Grade Pending” card and gets a second look. At 63 points, this Subway landed at more than twice the threshold for the city’s lowest grade, after coming in at 60 in July.Points alone aren’t what closes a business, though. When an inspector finds one or more violations that amount to an imminent public health hazard and can’t be corrected before the inspection ends, the department can order the establishment to temporarily close. To reopen, the operator has to correct the violations and notify the Health Department in writing, and the department then conducts a reopening inspection, and may conduct as many inspections as it considers necessary before allowing the business to operate again. Owners can also challenge violations and closure orders at the city’s administrative tribunal. The Broadway store cleared that process once already this summer, reopening sometime after the July closure before inspectors came back in August.
The full inspection history is available through the Health Department.
It’s also not the only Broadway storefront the department has padlocked lately. Halal Cajun Platters, at 2707 Broadway between 103rd and 104th streets, was shut down in July after a 74-point inspection, and Tal Bagels at 2446 Broadway was closed days before that with a report that ran to 157 points.
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