Henry Co. Health Dept.: Kewanee Chinese restaurant violations 'corrected', kitchens opened
Two Kewanee restaurants closed for food-handling violations last weekend have both reopened.
The Henry County Health Department shut down the New China and Great Wall restaurants after an inspection revealed a long list of sanitary and food-handling practices that made food service to the public potentially unsafe.
More: Health department closed 2 Kewanee restaurants for food violations
"They corrected all of the priority violations that needed correcting, including maintenance and cleaning," said Kaylee Halberg, the departments' director of environmental health.
Halberg said she had re-inspected the restaurants and met with owners at he health department to review the rules, discuss ways to avoid any future problems and protect the public.
"They are open and they are educated," she said. "We will keep working with them."
Halberg said that despite the pandemic, the health department has continued to inspect restaurants when a complaint is lodged, as it did when a complaint was lodged against one of the restaurants last year. That complaint was investigated and addressed, as was another received more recently. It also worked with restaurants during the pandemic to navigate social distancing rules.
What's new is that the department is again running its regular inspection program, which had ceased during the public restrictions of the pandemic and as several restaurants had closed because of it.
"We were still doing complaint investigations," she said, "but now we're doing routine inspections again."
She said health department inspectors don't rate restaurants based on a score like it used to do. Instead, they take a more proactive approach, conducting a "risk-base" assessment where they work with restaurant owners to correct issues many times even before they arise.
She said the department looks at restaurants as partners to be worked with, not adversaries.
"We want to build that rapport with the facility," she said "We're not there to shut them down."
This article originally appeared on Star Courier: Kewanee restaurant violations corrected, kitchens reopened
