Jacksonville, FLA. - Hala Arabic Bakery & Sandiwches is located in a busy shopping center off of South University in Jacksonville. The restaurant has been in business since the 1970's. The manager on duty, Ansar, was quick to respond to their recent report. He says, "We've had a lot of turnover here with the employees..." Ansar offered to take us back into the kitchen to look around... overall everything looked clean. The inspector didn't find it that way recently. The restaurant had 16 critical violations including employees touching food with their bare hands, an employee touching raw food and then ready to eat food, Windex near the food and the restaurant was operating with an expired license. You can see the full inspection
report here.
Ansar responded, "Yes, the inspector saw one of our employees touching a raw kabob and he threw it on the grill and then touched other food... she stopped him in his tracks and we had a talk with him."
Ansar says in this economy business has been tough and employee turnover hasn't helped. He says with a 37 year history they are determined to make the Hala Bakery better than ever, "We serve good healthy food and we're doing the best we can."
Here are the other restaurants at the top of the list this week for critical violations.
At the Waffle House on JTB there were 16 critical violations including employees not properly reheating food. You can see that full
report here.
At The Blues Rock Inn on North First Street there were 14 critical violations including a big problem with bugs... the inspector even put a stop sale on the food from possible bug contamination. Check out that
report here.
The following restaurants had zero health violations and get our clean plate award of the week!
Hot Dog Nation: Everbank field
Penser SC Logistics Pritc: Pritchard Rd.
Westlake Cafeteria: Pritchard rd.
Hot Diggity Dawgs and More: South Third Street
