Weekly Falls Church Restaurant Inspections Report

In Virginia, restaurant inspection reports are not quite as simple as getting a letter grade or an easy to see number rating to post in the front window.

With that said, we all want to know how our favorite restaurants stack up on cleanliness and sanitation.

A "critical violation" is one that "poses a direct or immediate threat to the safety of the food being served." Non-critical violations are generally related to cleaning or maintenance.

"Ideally, an operation would have no critical violations, or none which are not corrected immediately and not repeated. In our experience, it is unrealistic to expect that a complex, full-service food operation can routinely avoid any violations," according to the Virginia Department of Health's website.

The site continues: "Keep in mind that any inspection report is a 'snapshot' of the day and time of the inspection. On any given day, a restaurant could have fewer or more violations than noted in the report. An inspection conducted on any given day may not be representative of the overall, long-term cleanliness of an establishment."

In the past month, the following Falls Church restaurants have been inspected by the VDH. The full reports can be accessed on the health department's website.

Domino’s Pizza

1106 W. Broad St., Falls Church
Inspected Oct. 11: one critical violation, four non-critical violations
“Excessive bare hand contact with exposed food that is not in a ready-to-eat form.”

Starbucks Coffee

1218 W. Broad St., Falls Church
Inspected Oct. 10: one critical violation, one non-critical violation
“A complete employee health policy is required to be in place at the food establishment. At the time of this inspection, the Health Department provided and reviewed handouts and resource information in a red folder labeled "Employee Health Policy.”

Southern Fresca

6184 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church
Inspected Oct. 10: six critical violations, 10 non-critical violations
“Raw animal food holding in a manner that may cause cross contamination of ready-to-eat food as follows: raw chicken over potatoes in walk-in cooler by baking area.”