Health inspector: Most restaurants want to do the right thing

During a recent visit, a health inspector found no violations at Gotham's Deli in Smithfield, which scored a perfect 100 and earned a letter grade of A.

 

John Phillips, who oversees the County’s food and lodging inspectors, rarely gets a call from 911.

But it happened one Thanksgiving weekend a few years back. “They had received a call from a concerned restaurant patron who said there was a sewer problem at this particular restaurant,” Phillips recalled.

The patron wasn’t exaggerating, said Phillips, who inspected the complaint himself. “I walked in, and they had a clog in the sewer line,” he said.

Employees in the kitchen were standing in water. “It was three inches deep, and there were food particles, grease and everything coming out of the floor drains,” he said.

Because of the holiday weekend, the restaurant’s managers were away, Phillips noted. “And so the shift leader was like, ‘I can’t get hold of anybody. What do I need to do?’ ” he said.

Calling the clogged kitchen drain an immediate threat to public health, Phillips had a quick answer for the shift supervisor. “I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m going to go ahead and help you here,’ ” he said. “ ‘You’re going to close.’ ”

But that incident was so rare among Johnston restaurants that it stands out in Phillips’ long career with the County’s Division of Environmental Health.

“It’s scary sometimes,” he conceded, “but most restaurants want to do it right.”

In fact, in Phillips’ 25 years with the County, he’s seen only three restaurants score low enough to trigger an immediate closure. “It takes a lot of violations to get to that point,” he said.

The grading system

In North Carolina, restaurants receive letter grades based on a 100-point scale. “You have A, B and C grades,” Phillips explained.

An A ranges from 90 to 100, a B from 80 to 89.5, and a C from 70 to 79.5. “If the score is 69.5 or below, we immediately close the restaurant and revoke the permit,” Phillips said.

Johnston County’s “Food Establishment Inspection Report” includes 56 items, each with an assigned point value. Some carry more weight than others.

“If they don’t have hot water, that’s a big deal because you can’t wash your hands,” Phillips said. Failure to keep hands clean can lead to a four-point deduction. So too can touching ready-to-eat food with bare hands.

Six items deal specifically with food temperatures, with violations worth three points each. A restaurant that failed all six would lose 18 points, dropping an otherwise perfect score to an 82 — a low B.

“In a refrigerator, 41 degrees or below is the goal,” Phillips noted.

Inspection frequency depends on risk.

Fast-food restaurants, where ingredients arrive ready to cook, are typically inspected twice a year. “They’re frozen or fresh, but they’re ready to cook,” Phillips said. “They take it out of the bag, put it on the pizza, send it through the oven, and it goes straight to the customer.”

Restaurants that handle more raw ingredients and cook from scratch are inspected more often — usually three times a year.

“The more cooking and cooling you do, the more stuff you do from scratch, there are more chances for things to go wrong,” Phillips explained. “You get raw meat in and you have to patty your hamburger. You’re doing fried chicken and you bread the chicken. You’re handling that raw product.”

Because of that added risk, inspectors focus closely on food temperatures and safe handling practices.

Those restaurants also receive a fourth visit each year — an educational session rather than a scored inspection.

“So they get three inspections, and then they get something called an educational visit,” Phillips said. “Instead of being there to give them a sanitation score, we’re there to talk to them about some issues they might be having.”

Not every restaurant takes full advantage of those visits, Phillips said. But “a lot of times, they’re really really able to increase their scores for the next time,” he said.

Even so, inspectors spend limited time in each establishment.

At most, an inspector is in a restaurant four times a year, Phillips noted. “So it's important for restaurants to understand they're responsible for the food safety in that facility,” he said.

 A snapshot in time

The inspections are unannounced, meaning no restaurant has a chance to fix problems in advance, Phillips noted. Still, it’s an imperfect system. An inspection — whether it ends in a low score or a high one — reflects conditions on a single day.

“When we post that score, that 99 or that 85 or that 80, that is a reflection of right now,” Phillips said. “It is not what happened last week or last month or what may happen in the future.”

For that reason, Phillips won’t rule out eating at a restaurant with a lower score. “It depends on where I’m at, and it depends on if I can see in the kitchen,” he said. “If I can see into the kitchen and see that they’re handling the food properly, then I’ll be more likely to eat there even if the score was lower.”

Ultimately, diners need to decide for themselves at what score they draw the line, Phillips said.  “Everyone is different and has a different standard they will set for the restaurants they choose to eat at,” Phillips said. “Food safety is ultimately up to the facilities, and the sanitation score can affect their business.

“As long as an imminent health hazard does not exist, and they score a 70 or above, they can be open to the public selling food.
Phillips imagined a restaurant with a posted score of 70-85 but no imminent hazards.  “They may have the best burger in the country, and some people are going to eat there no matter what the sanitation score is.”

Sanitation scores are available on the Johnston County Environmental Health website, where Johnston residents can see what violations inspectors found. Go to https://www.johnstonnc.gov/envhealth/content.cfm?pd=food.

 

Page last updated on:  April 15, 2026