HOLIDAY, Fla. -- Along U.S. 19, Cosmos Family Restaurant is known for serving up homemade meals and especially breakfast.
“They have good skillets and good omelets,” said regular customer Linda Fruth on her way in for a meal with friends.
But she and other customers had no idea about the restaurant’s long list of health code violations from just last week. State records show Cosmos was shut down by the state Oct. 23 as an emergency closure with 40 violations.
Those include a black mold-like substance inside ice machine, two small flies in the bar area at end of cook line and roach activity under dish machine and broiler, on the wheels of stove and refrigerator and on the underside of a flat-top grill.
The inspector also reported finding temperature violations on the sausage patties, cooked onions and diced ham and ordered a five-gallon bucket of spaghetti sauce be thrown out after it was found at 51 degrees after being made the previous day.
“Who wants to eat in a place like that?” asked Fruth after reading through the violations.
The restaurant was cleared to reopen the following day, so 10News stopped in to see if conditions had improved a week later.
“Everything is okay now. There’s no problem anymore,” said Manolis Papadimitriou, who owns the restaurant along with his mother. He decided to allow our 10News camera inside to show us his cleaned up kitchen.
Inside, we found the employee hand washing sinks stocked with soap and paper towels. We also checked the ice machine where the inspector reported finding black mold a week earlier.
The ice machine appeared sparkling clean.
We also searched high and low for any evidence of remaining insects.
“There was one right down here,” said Papadimitriou as he showed as an area under the grill. We were happy to find no more roaches.
Our findings were enough was enough for 97-year-old Audrey Cosia who was also heading in to eat.
“Knowing that, I would eat here,” Cosia said.
Customers say they’re encouraged by the fact management felt confident enough to allow our 10News camera inside the kitchen.
“It speaks volumes for them to volunteer to let you go back in the kitchen,” said Fruth. “They didn’t have to let you do that. It should be really clean now!”
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