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LARGO, FL -- Some may mosey into this Mexican restaurant for their two-for-one margaritas during happy hour, their free chips and salsa, or the friendly service.
Jose Cardenas has been the manager of La Bamba III Mexican Restaurant on West Bay Drive in Largo for the last couple months. So he knew state inspectors had shut the place down in July for a roach infestation.
The inspector found live roaches in the salad prep area, on the cooler, on kitchen shelves, in the bar area, near booths, two dozen on the service set up table, and 'too many roaches to count' under the tables in the dining room and in the employee
bathroom.
"It looks like you had a roach infestation?" asked ABC Action News Anchor Wendy Ryan.
"Yes we did. Everything's clean," responded Cardenas.
"Everything is cleaned up?" asked Ryan.
"Yeah," he said.
"Did you know that it was that bad?" asked Ryan.
"No, not too bad," Cardenas said.
Cardenas was so confident everything has been cleaned up, he showed us the kitchen.
But as we looked around, we saw an employee using his bare hands on ready to eat food, sprinkling lettuce, tomato and cheese on a burrito, a critical violation.
"You have gloves?" asked Ryan.
"Yeah," answered Cardenas.
"But they aren't wearing them," said Ryan.
"Right now, he's not wearing them," said Cardenas.
Cardenas then handed his cook the box of gloves to put them on.
"In the last few months, you had to throw out about 5 gallons of burrito sauce because according to the inspectors, it wasn't being properly cooled. Were you here then?" asked Ryan.
"Yeah, I was here that day," answered Cardenas.
"So have you changed your practices?" asked Ryan.
"Yeah and threw away everything," Cardenas said.
Cardenas also took us into the walk-in cooler where last month inspectors found it at 48 degrees.
That's a critical violation since all cold food should be held at 41 degrees or below. And we noticed, it still doesn't appear to be fixed.
"It still looks like it's almost 50 degrees," commented Ryan.
As we walked around, we noticed a ripped screen over an open window, which can allow bugs to get in.
"You never noticed that before?" asked Ryan.
"No, I never saw if before, answered Cardenas.
"You should probably fix that," said Ryan.
"Yeah, I fix that one," Cardenas said.
But our cameras caught a live hornet already inside the kitchen.
At the back of the restaurant we found a large barrel of used vegetable oil uncovered as well as a dumpster completely uncovered, attracting more bugs. Both can also attract rats.
Still, Cardenas wants to assure everyone all is well.
"Customers, what would you like them to know? That you've cleaned things up?" asked Ryan.
"Yeah, I cleaned everything already," Cardenas said.
"So it's safe to eat here?" asked Ryan.
"Yeah, safe to eat," Cardenas said.
