INDIANAPOLIS — An inspection of an Indianapolis McDonald’s location resulted in the health inspector briefly shutting down the location.
On Wednesday, the Marion County Public Health Department inspected the McDonald’s location at 4545 West 38th Street after a complaint of cockroaches and fruit flies.
This restaurant is infested with roaches and fruit flies. If you pull all 3 of the coolers out under the frappe machine, McCafé machine and orange juice machine several roaches will come out. There is roaches inside the coolers as well, especially the one under the orange juice machine. There is also roaches in the small hole in the wall in the back by the time clock.
Original complaint via Marion County Public Health Department
When the health inspector went to the restaurant, they discovered two violations, one critical. The critical violation included what appeared to be live roaches behind the cooler, McCafe machine, and orange juice machine.
The inspector also found that the walls behind the coolers, McCafe machine, and orange juice machine were soiled. The area behind and below the ice machine was soiled, and the wall across from the drive-through window was soiled.
After the inspection, the health inspector instructed the restaurant to close due to pest infestation. They ordered the restaurant to have pest control revisit the location, noting the last time the location was serviced was February 16.
The health department rechecked the establishment to make sure there was no roach activity and there was proof of pest control. They approved the location to reopen earlier Thursday.
The Marion County Health Department said restaurants are subject to surprise inspections. People can also call the department with complaints and they will get to it within 24 hours.
“We rely on consumers to let us know if they see anything. We’re in there as often as we can be, but consumers are in there more often,” said Janelle Kaufman with the Department of Food and Consumer Safety. “So if they see anything that they’re concerned about, or if they have a food-borne illness, or they want us to check out a place, we really welcome the complaints.”
In this case, after the health department ordered them to close, the restaurant owner said management took immediate action.
“We are committed to providing our customers and crewmembers with a clean and pleasant dining and working experience. Management took immediate corrective action and the health department reinspected the restaurant this morning at our request and instructed us to reopen.”
McDonald’s Owner/Operator Mohommed Moalikyar
The health department has up to 7 days to respond after a restaurant applies to reopen. In this case, they were able to get in and approve them to reopen the next day.
“We assess what the situation is when we go out. So even though they had roaches, it was… they had pest control in place,” said Kaufman. “It seemed to be more isolated to a certain area at that time, although if you have roaches, they could be anywhere, so we did give a shorter re-check for that one because they already had the documentation that they had pest control in place.”
Kaufman also said it is normal for violations to occur at restaurants. Some violations are best practice violations including sanitation and general management, whilst others are risk factors like pests, temperate controls, and employee health.
Kaufman said people should feel confident returning to dine at this location. At the same time, they will keep an eye out to make sure they stay compliant.
“Everything at this McDonald’s has been in compliance,” said Kaufman.
So they should feel confident going there, but we’re going to keep maintaining… whenever we have a place that has a problem or an issue, we’ll sometimes increase inspections or do follow-up inspections after to make sure that it is corrected, just to make sure they’re staying on track with what it is they need to do.”
People can call the Marion County Public Health Department’s Food and Consumer Safety division at 317-221-2222.
