PINELLAS PARK, Fla. -- Bill Merritt said he’s been enjoying the food and atmosphere at Pinellas Park’s Hao Wah Chinese Restaurant for nearly 20 years.
“They always have good food. It’s just a good place to come and its reasonable,” said Merritt, who had no idea about his favorite restaurant’s emergency closure last week.
State health inspectors cited Hao Wah on June 20 with 16 violations including a black or green mold like substance inside ice machine and temperature violations on the raw shrimp, beef and melon. There were also live roaches around the Mongolian BBQ, under the buffet, crawling around the coffee mugs and in the soap dispenser. The inspector even reported finding live roaches inside the reach in cooler crawling around the food!
“That’s not good,” said Merritt. “I’m pretty sure they’ve gone something about it.”
10News stopped in Wednesday to check on conditions inside the restaurant a week after their closure.
An employee at the front desk said no managers were available to speak with us. It quickly became apparent employees didn’t want our camera anywhere near the kitchen.
We asked the employee at the front desk if the cockroach issue had been taken care of.
“Yea yea yea… we got all” – ‘No more cockroaches?’ we asked.
“No,” replied the employee.
With just a quick glance around the buffet line we spotted more roaches right under where the food is served on the buffet line and near the Mongolian grill.
“They need to address every bit of it,” said Merritt.
When we walked around to the back of the restaurant, things got even more interesting.
Back near one of the restaurant’s catering trucks, we found clean dishes and glasses on the ground right next to puddles of water and mud in the parking lot.
Employees told us all the stuff is outside was because they were cleaning.
As for loyal customers like Bill, he plans to keep his eyes peeled for potential problems.
“If I see something, I’m going to say something and I’ll be a little more cautious.”
Check out the stop sale for Hao Wah:
