Skillet and their friends at the Health Department
Whoa! Two hours after enjoying a sumptuous coconut curry soup and crispy artichokes from Skillet on Thursday afternoon, I get an email that they were closed the day before by the Health Department! Huh? What’s going on here? Are they operating illegally? What were the violations? Was my meal ok?
I immediately emailed Skillet to get the whole story. I exchanged several emails with Josh, one of the owners. First, I’ll cut and paste from the Health Department’s website.
Violations
• Operating without a valid permit
• Operating without approved food business plans
• Hand washing facility not working
• Excessive red critical violations
Sounds serious, doesn’t it? That’s what I thought too. Now, I’m going to give you my opinion before I go any further (feel free to ignore). I am reporting the facts on the Health Department’s website and the response I received from Josh. Based on these responses, and my good faith in Skillet, I will be returning to Skillet, weekly if possible, for the foreseeable future as I believe they are doing a good job. There is, of course, always the possibility that Josh is not being entirely truthful. So take this information and do with it what you will. If you have any cold, hard, facts that you want to pass along, please do. I have provided these questions and answers as they were emailed to me, with minor edits such as capitalization and punctuation.
1. Was this your first visit from the Department of Health? If not, were past visits clean?
Yes…this was the first and we will probably expect another in 30-60 days
2. What are the excessive red critical violations?
There were two critical violations, we had just run out of water, and had no hot water. The other critical was items being held at room temperature, pasta, wontons, and vegetables…These items were all within the allowable window of time, however we did not have them marked as to the time they were pulled from refrigeration.
3. How were you open today?
That is really the interesting part of the story…About two months ago I called one of the health dept. inspectors and asked about the legality of being a private food club. Being a club that is on private property, and is a members only business. They said that it was a grey area and they really don’t have any jurisdiction. So the fact we were shut down really shouldn’t have happened, however we want the health department to be our friend, so we complied. They gave us 60 days to come up with the necessary permitting, however are allowing us to operate within those 60 days.
4. I know this is a part time business for you currently. Do you have plans to file/obtain/determine food business plans?
We are already a corporation in Washington state, and a licensed business within King County and the state of Washington. The papers are all current and there.
5. Do you have plans to obtain the proper permits?
We are in the process of getting the necessary permits, however it is a fairly cumbersome process as what we are doing is not a cookie cutter type business. We were in the process even before the visit from the health dept, however were under the understanding that being a members only private club that there would be no issues. We were told as long as we said we were a private club on our website that is what we were, however yesterday they said they looked at our website and felt that it wasn’t clear enough, so it will be changed.
6. Anything else you’d like me to know
We are two chefs with over 20++ years combined experience in the food industry, both certified Serv Safe professionals, and have a complete commitment to serving safe, and fantastic food. We were upfront with the health dept from day one, there was no wool being pulled over anyone’s eyes in the slightest. It is frustrating, but it will all be ok, as we just want to serve great food. We even invited our health dept friends to come on over and have a bite, they could become automatic members! :)
The Mercury operates as a members-only business as well.
This is an accepted gray area that I am not a fan of. If you’re a business, you should be subject to the same general regulations as any other business in your field. You should not be allowed to sidestep regulations simply because you serve ‘members-only’ or your personnel works without pay to maintain the club status.
Skillet may be okay here, but what happens if, say, such a restaurant elsewhere makes a bunch of people sick, and when the health department et al tries to enforce the codes, said business pulls the ‘we are members only so your laws don’t apply’ card?
This members-only business loophole needs to be closed. The law needs to be refined. You should be allowed to operate outside of codes just because you claim to operate as a private club.
I dunno, maybe it’s because I deal with IRS records with businesses at work and we call bullshit on any business that, say, claims they’re exempt from reporting income because they checked the Corporation box when they’re clearly licensed as an LLC. If such laws are designed to protect integrity in commerce, and the law can be danced around, then how is that good for society?
I admit, this is an area I don’t know a lot about. When first investigating Skillet, I heard a little about the private club aspect, but really didn’t understand why they were operating that way.
I’m not a big fan of skirting along the fringes of the law. Though I’m also not a big fan of regulations just for regulations sake. So while I respect the fact that Skillet is trying to get themselves established, and that there are a lot of hoops to jump through in that process, I hope that they will make a concerted effort to get themselves legal.
…so how does the crazy/scary/fly-by-night taco truck manage to evade permitting? :)
I guess I’ve got membership to more than one club!
As usual, Gomez spins irrelevant information into his comments. Summary: the Mercury operates as a members-only club which is how they can avoid some of the Draconian Washington state liquor laws. The people working there are only volunteers who are paid through tips. The Mercury donates all profits to charity, keeping only enough to purchase alcohol, maintain the club, and pay rent. Coincidently, this is how they “sidestepped” the smoking ban. The Mercury does not serve food, only beverages. Bringing The Merc into this conversation is pointless, as they are not a restaurant. Let’s keep it on topic.
As usual, Wesa takes a shot at Gomez whenever she gets the chance, and then as usual, a Mercury apologist gives the usual irrelevant spiel to defend the little club that’s so totally not using their status to sidestep the law.
Also, the Merc, as a business operating under the ‘members-only club’ tag, is directly relevant to my original point, which addressed the usage of the ‘members-only club’ tag to exempt themselves from civic business laws.
i can’t speak for all taco trucks, but the rancho bravo one in wallinford has their health dept license posted right inside the window.