TAMPA, Fla. -- If you tried to go to the Waffle House at 922 East Fowler Avenue in Tampa on last week, you may have seen a sign on the restaurant door saying the place was closed due to public safety.
On June 2, the state shut down the restaurant for six hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. after inspectors saw live roaches crawling near food.
According to the inspection report, over 30 live and dead roaches were seen on the cook's line, underneath the steam table, bread rack and coffee maker.
Other violations documented include no manager with a proper food certification, the dish washing machine not sanitizing properly, and old food debris under shelving, stoves and reach-in cooler shelves.
Waffle House released the following statement:
We make every effort to provide a clean and safe restaurant for our customers and apologize for letting them down. Our corporate training department and senior management are involved in ensuring our food safety protocols are in place in this restaurant. We worked with our local environmental vendors to ensure the issue was immediately resolved, and the restaurant was cleared to re-open within a couple of hours. In addition, we have put into place an action plan going forward.
