An Ocala restaurant was shut down last week after a health inspector found 63 rodent droppings spread throughout the eatery.
The inspector on May 28 ordered Crabs in a Bucket Seafood & More, located at 119 Marion Oaks Blvd., to close its doors shortly after 3 p.m. The restaurant, which was cited with 10 violations – two high priority, four intermediate and four basic – has yet to reopen and a sign on the door reads, “Sorry, this location is now closed.”
The rodent droppings were found around a hand-wash sink, near an upright freezer at the corner of the cookline; along a wall behind the cookline; behind a soda-style, glass-front reach-in cooler; under a three-compartment sink by a drain; on top of a water heater; on the floor by booth seating behind the front counter; on the floor among wires behind the front counter; under the front counter and in containers used to put sauce bottles on tables being stored.
A second high-priority violation was cited because no sanitizer was available for warewashing. The inspector reported that an employee said the restaurant ran out of quaternary ammonium tablets. And bleach on-site was lemon scented and couldn’t be used for sanitizer, according to a report on file with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
The inspector also cited two intermediate violations. One was for having no paper towels or a mechanical hand-drying device at a hand-wash station. The other was because the manager lacked proof of food-manager certification, the report says.
Four basic violations also were cited. They included:
- Current restaurant license was at the owner’s home and wasn’t displayed.
- An exhaust system was operating with filters removed and a hood vent was missing.
- A label on a food item prepared and packaged on-site for customer self-service didn’t include product identity/description – the date the product was packaged and the name and address of the establishment that prepared and packaged the food. Four sauce bottles next to the register at the front counter state, “Sauce Queen Liquid Gold in a Bottle Spicy garlic” and on the opposite side, “Crabs in a Bucket.” They also lacked the date and address of the location.
- The ceiling light above a sauce station near the cookline was blinking.