Japanese steakhouse in Florida closes after customers test positive for meth | Hacker News Reader

Japanese steakhouse in Florida closes after customers test positive for meth

usatoday.com

44 pointsmetadat26 comments

"On June 9, the day of the alleged poisoning, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation conducted an inspection at the restaurant and conducted a follow-up inspection on June 13.

The department found a total of 31 violations at the restaurant, including employees switching from preparing raw to ready-to-eat food without washing their hands and the restaurant was reporting with an expired Division of Hotels and Restaurants license, the PNJ reported."

Hard to feel bad for the restaurant if employees are making raw food without handwashing...

Doesn't sound great - but then again, you'd be surprised just how many "violations" are passable, even in strict areas like California.

Back in my youth, the restaurant I worked at always passed, but had 2 pages of notes for things that weren't correct. Most are benign, like dust found under the stove.

I worked as a cook at a TGIF when I was younger. I've seen things...food dropped on the floor and still used...the general laissez-faire attitude of kitchen staff under the right conditions can be appalling. I haven't been to a TGIF since I left and I avoid chains of that caliber as much as possible.

You’d be surprised that this isn’t uncommon in even some upscale establishments

there are only 15 waygu steaks in the freezer and tossing one because it might have hit the floor isn't acceptable

I worked at a movie theater and the ice machine had mold. I even not so subtly showed the health inspector who didn't care. This was California too... We got an A rating.

what you quoted said they switched from raw to ready-to-eat preparation without washing their hands, from which the risk would be something like "contaminating the cooked chicken with raw chicken"; it does not say that they prepped raw food without handwashing which would be like "not washing your hands after the toilet"; although if cooking is going to kill the salmonella, it'd probably kill the e coli too.

If time permits, prepare ready-to-eat ingredients first, then raw, and followed by hand washing. Separate everything for raw ingredients because there's no time to wash dishes, cutting boards, and knives when customers expect a show AND dinner.

Was anyone feeling bad for the restaurant?

It's very possible that meth was smuggled in with food or other things that the restaurant ordered and one of the packages broke open. Not saying that the restaurant smuggled it in, but it just happened to be in with whatever they ordered. The 31 violations perhaps indicate a lack of cleanliness which could have prevented contamination.

Last year eight people got an overdose of MDMA leading to one death after drinking a bottle of champagne that was used to smuggle the drug and accidentally ended up in a restaurant and was sold to the group. [1]

[1] https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2022/06/ecstasy-in-champagne-...

If the restaurant had anything to do with the poisoning, then there should be legal consequences.

However, I don't understand why so many businesses treat social media like it's something to be taken serious.

Probably 99% of the social media "backlash" they received were from people who don't even live in the city the restaurant is in.

Ignore it... it'll go away. It always does...

The article seems to refute what you are saying. In other words, the restaurant did reopen, but their traffic was way down (and the restaurant owners are saying social media is to blame) to the point that they had to close.

It doesn't entirely refute it, but yes it did mention their local news continued to flog the story daily.

It does not make it clear why they closed in the first place, however.

I was speaking in general terms. Companies quiver at social media outrage. It's always performative... and it passes. Don't pay attention to it...

They had to because of the other 31 health violations the health dept found?

No, the article says 31 violations, and there was a follow-up inspection. That's fairly normal for the food industry - only the absolute most severe violations would shut down the operation.

The article doesn't make it clear the inspections are related, particularly given the first inspection was on the same date some of the guests reported falling ill.

Edit: Here's the related story about the violations[1]. The article mentions the business was open on the 14th, the day after the follow-up inspection. So it does not appear they were closed due to any health inspection related reason.

You can read the list of 31 violations - they are all mostly benign, and pretty typical for many restuarants.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/dining/2023/07/...

Worth noting unopened packets were reportedly also found to be contaminated! [1]

> Detectives said that two soy sauce bottles and unopened to-go packets of the condiment that were tested came back positive for methamphetamine, according to the television station.

[1] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/trending/japanese-steak-house-clo...

King of the Hill did it first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1029PjJJUnk

So did Mike Myers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo

I can't believe I'm linking pensapedia on hacker news, but this wouldn't be the first time a drug ring in a beloved restaurant was exposed in the county which I grew up.

Presenting Cancun Mexican Restaurant in Gulf Breeze, within walking distance of the high school I went to.

https://www.pensapedia.com/wiki/Rogelio_Galvan_Chavez#cite_r...

Happens fairly often, it seems. My favorite pizza place growing up (they had the terminator 2 light gun arcade game!) got busted for dealing out of the back and closed down as a result.

I don't think they ever cross contaminated a pie and got customers high, though.

A pizza place near me in a very nice area of St Paul MN was busted for being a drug front... I always thought it was weird that no one seemed to actually go there. From the look of the place you could kinda tell they were probably just cooking frozen pizzas if anyone did go there. I always suspected something was off.

Turns out I was 100% correct, I have great drug-front-radar, it is at the top of my resume.

Cynical me thinks they put in the steaks because they thought it would make people want to keep coming back. How does meth get on a steak, I wonder.

Because it's labelled as salt?

Would have to balance the euphoria against the appetite suppression

I don't know the first thing about it. But when thinking, jokingly, along the lines of "forbidden condiment", does it actually have a "taste" (I mean in the taste buds, literally)?

Hibachi guy keeping it in a salt shaker maybe?

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