Weaverville – A popular Weaverville restaurant’s parking lot, which is normally close to full, is empty. Tommy’s Family Restaurant on North Main Street has a sign on the door saying, “Reopening on March 13. However, a post on the business’s Facebook page says, “We are currently closed to improve our kitchen and do some minor renovations. We will be closed for now, but [we] hope to be back up and running on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. Thanks for your patience. See y’all soon!”
What is not posted anywhere is that on March 7th, a health inspection by a Buncombe County Health Inspector gave the restaurant a 72 rating with 56 violations, including 15 critical. The restaurant has had a declining health rating since at least December of last year, with an 88 rating on December 8th and a 78.5 rating last month.
Some of the infractions listed from March 7th as “critical violations” include:
“Employee handled raw shell eggs and did not remove gloves or wash hands prior to handling equipment and working with ready-to-eat foods. Employees shall wash hands when switching between working with raw food and working with ready-to-eat food, after engaging in other activities that contaminate the hands, after handling soiled equipment, and at other designated times.”
“Person in charge (PIC) used handwashing sink to get water in a pot of oatmeal. A handwashing sink may not be used for purposes other than handwashing. [health inspector] instructed PIC of restriction of use of this sink, and PIC voluntarily discarded the oatmeal.”
“Observed two containers of raw chicken stored amongst various seafoods in reach in refrigerator. Food shall be protected from contamination by storing raw animal foods separately from ready-to-eat foods…PIC relocated the chicken during inspection, however this is ongoing violation for previous 4 inspections and permanent correction not obtained. Immediate permit action taken.”
“Slicer had residues and debris accumulation build up in various places of the machine… Repeat violation. Immediate permit action taken.”
“Other violations that called for immediate permit action that were sited were multiple pans of marinara, meat sauces, gravies…pulled from refrigerator and placed in hot box or on clean equipment shelf beside hot box for reheating around 8:30 am. Foods were 65-104F at time of inspection…foods shall be reheated so that all parts of the food reach a temperature of at least 165F for 15 seconds to be placed in hot holding, and this shall be achieved within 2 hours…Repeat violation. Immediate permit action taken.”
“Out of date container of meatballs was dated…cooked pork…Immediate permit action taken due to on-going repeat violations. Opened jar of salsa, cooked hard-boiled eggs, cooked turkey were not bearing dates of preparation…Immediate permit action taken due to lack of long term compliance.(The complete list of violations for the last the and a half months can be seen by scanning the QR code with a phone)”
Reaction to rating and closure
The Tribune tried to call the owner or manager of Tommy’s for a comment but was met with a busy signal, a disconnected message when dialed without the area code, and a voice message that said the voicemail was full and there was not enough space to leave a message. Their Facebook page has 3,700 likes and 3,900 followers.
While the Tribune was unable to get in touch with Tommy, posts on the Facebook page explained what followers thought, but before comments could be copied for this article, the post was deleted and replaced with “Looking for experienced friendly faces to join our team. Great pay and hours. Apply within.” At the time of deletion, there were 72 comments listed.
Facebook user David Corlito left this comment on the new post – “Nobody is going to want to eat there after what people are now finding out about your restaurant from the Nextdoor app. Y’all hide your restaurant scores behind a decoration. Your restaurant score is a 78.5 due to bad sanitation reasons. No wonder why people are getting sick later on after eating y’all’s food. And trust me no matter how much you advertise hiring your staff lie [sic] to there [sic] customers no matter what. Restaurants are supposed to put the sanitation score somewhere people can see it not hidden by objects or other things.”
Another comment on the new post by Alice Sandlin-Jason said, “I will be eating there. I have always got great food and enjoyed it. We eat there so often we know most of the waitress [sic]. A bad score can be because of cracks in a floor tile it can be simple things. Just start looking at the cards of the fast food chains half of them have not been checked it over a year!! Humm wonder what score they really have? Yes Tommy we will be back and tell momma Hi for us”
That comment drew a direct response from Whitney Cambata, “Actually if you look at the fast food places in Weaverville, their scores are great! This disgusting place hasn’t scored a good score in years. They literally went downhill from a 78. That says a lot. They don’t care if their customers get sick.”
Reporter follow-up: On Tuesday, March 14th, the Tribune finally reached someone at the restaurant after it reopened. After asking to speak to the owner or manager, a man came on the line speaking broken English. Asked about the restaurant closure, she replied, “It’s open today.” Asked for a comment about the closure due to health infractions, he said, “For what reason?” The man was told, “for the newspaper.” “Yeah, so what?” Trying to communicate with the person was difficult because of the language barrier. Asked again about a comment about the closing, he said, “One day. Big deal. We close, we open again.” The Tribune never got the man’s name, and he ended the call abruptly.