JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Inspectors shut down a Jacksonville soul food restaurant, Munchies Food For The Soul, after finding several high priority health violations.
Right off the bat, the inspection report shows the restaurant was cited for having a dead snake and three dead roaches in a glue trap, but that’s not what got Munchies Food For The Soul shut down.
Recommended Videos
They found 50 live flies in the kitchen and dry storage, along with evidence of rodents. The inspector noted 34 rodent dropping were found near the reach-in freezer and leading behind the ice machine.
Also scoring in the shutdown, the inspector cited Munchies for storing hot food in a cabinet for 4½ hours. As a result, pans of mac and cheese, greens, meatballs, chicken and cooked squash had to be thrown away.
Munchies worked quickly to fix the issues. On the inspector’s return the next day, all of its previous 22 violations were corrected and it was allowed to reopen.
Munchies responded to the inspection in a Facebook post on Monday.
#MUNCHIESJax family. Thank you so much for your support since we opened our doors in November. Many of you have reached...
Posted by Munchies Food For The Soul on Monday, September 7, 2020
“Some of the issues raised were due to electrical and other problems that our landlord has addressed. Other issues raised by the inspector were fixed by our management team within 30 minutes,” the restaurant wrote. “We have always maintained a contract with a pest control service that treats, inspects and reports regularly. We do not have rodent activity and the “snake” was a lizard. We had a leak in the roof that caused old ceiling tiles and insulation to fall along with the droppings the inspector reported. Please know we take cleanliness and quality seriously.”
RESTAURANT REPORTS: Failing inspection | Return inspection with a perfect score
All restaurant reports are provided by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations and its Division of Hotels and Restaurants.
You can search your favorite restaurants and their most recent inspections anytime in DBPR’s licensing portal.
News4Jax monitors emergency shutdowns every week in District 5.
District 5 covers restaurants in Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Clay, Columbia, Dixie, Duval, Flagler, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Marion, Nassau, Putnam, St. Johns, Suwannee, and Union Counties.