CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — You’ve no doubt noticed we’ve temporarily postponed our Kitchen Cops reports due to the COVID19 pandemic.
But we learned today that health department inspections are back.
The city-county Health Department says restaurant inspections actually began a couple of weeks ago.
Inspectors checking whether restaurants were following the guidelines of masks, gloves, social distancing, and washing hands frequently.
“On that Friday when we first had restaurants open up on May 1st, we had seven days where we had 11 inspectors out in the field checking just those things,” Jennifer Richter with the Health Department told us.
And, she added, the majority of those restaurants are following the guidelines.
Mike Van Syckle and Dana Bazinet, owners of Atomic Omelette on South Staples, told us an inspector stopped by earlier this month to see if they were ready to open their dining room today.
“She came in to see what we had put in place. If we had posted our Texas promise to the public. What kind of sanitation are we using,” Bazinet said. “What kind of dishware we are utilizing to feed customers on. And what we are doing for the safety of our customers, our employees, and ourselves.”
Richter says six inspectors are in the field today. four doing restaurant and public pool inspections.
At full staff, six do restaurant inspections.
She also said that at this time, the state hasn’t changed the inspection guidelines.
And restaurants are still doing their best to keep it clean and safe.
“I think all the restaurants have increased their mindset when it comes to sanitation for going above and beyond what they were normally doing," Bazinet said.
Today is kind of like a grand opening at the Atomic Omelette.
It’s the first time they’ve been able to welcome customers into their dining room at their new location.
“This is like having a baby for the first time,” said a smiling Van Syckle.
