understood that people want to know where they are spending their money at and it's important for them to know a score and the time the inspection was performed. so it's actually worked out pretty well and it's abating some of those complaints. >> so, mitch, people call and say what's your score? . >> no. but we were really excited when we got the hundred. it was like getting a good review from the local, you know, reviewer on our food because we try to keep the standard -- we want the standard to be as high as we can get in everything. so you can't serve good food and probably have a dirty kitchen. i don't think it works like that. everything has to be kept --. >> what do you have to do to get a score like that? . >> it's the same as making sure good food is coming out, it's a daily thing of talking to your people. everyone gets really busy in restaurants and you are not on your own time. you come in, you are preparing the food and then all of a sudden it's, like, bam, whether

you are ready or not and that's when it can get sort of hairy and that's when people really have to pay attention. it's a constant thing, like having children. >> what is an effective score for a restaurant. >> that's what we're looking at. in the city and county of san francisco, the ordinance says if you are 90 or above, that would be like an a. in the 80's would be a b. 70's would be a c and lower than that we would have some issues we would have to work on a little harder. fortunately someplace like this, which is an excellent place, it had 100 the first time around, 98 the second time armed. if they achieve the opportunity to get anything above 90 again, they will get a symbol of excellence from the department of public health which they can put in the window and displayed

we have consistently met the standards by the state code and the city and county of san francisco recognizes that through their inspectional process that we are continuing to be excellent. that helps us what we see here, what we observe, what we consistently see -- our inspections are never scheduled. we come when we need to come but we never tell them ahead of time. so they are completely unaware we are coming out. we catch a snapshot of them and it might be the busiest time. it might be an opportunity for them but we get to see them in action. that's important for our public to know we're not going there late at night when everything is cleaned up. what's the use? we need to see them in action. >> when your inspector comes in a restaurant, what sort of is the sequence of things you look at? what do you do? . >> the first thing we do is identify ourselves first with our badge because we know that -- we don't want them to have someone else that might

misrepresent themselves. then we directly usually go to the kitchen where the action starts. we want to see the kitchen because by the time we start doing everything else peripheral, things might be changing in the kitchen that we don't actually get to see what the kitchen looks like. so we usually start with the kitchen first, the heart of the facility, and see how they prepare the foods, seeing where things are generally organized. we're looking for cross-contamination items. >> what do you mean by cross-contamination? . >> for example, you have raw chicken, you have raw chicken being defrosted and it's right next to an area that's doing salad. there's a cross-contamination problem. there's a possibility for that. >> how long does your inspection usually take? do you usually know -- if they know you are inspecting that --. >> a facility like this it depends. it could be a small grocery store, very short, half an hour. it could be a large facility

like this or a large chain market, it would take us 3 or 4 hours. it's up to us to really work with the chef to know where the food is coming from, what kind of foods they are selling that day, how long it's been out and how they are preparing that. >> would you even check something like the temperature on the dish washing machine. >> that's correct. when we do the inspection, we're looking at the facilities for vermin control, everything that goes in your mouth, the dish washer, proper sanitizer to sanitize your dish ware. are they using wiping cloths to wipe down the food areas, what concentration of bleach do they use to do the kill? those are all comprehensive things that the inspector has to do is as part of the inspection for food places. yes, we do check for temperature. we have test strips to put on the plates, high temperature dish washer has to go to 180

degrees. that will kill most of the pathogens whereas they can use chlorine hydrochloride or ammonium or use iodine for dish ware, too. whatever your preferences happen to be. >> how often do you inspect a restaurant? . >> restaurants are normally anywhere from 3 times a year to maybe grocery stores maybe once a year if they have no delis and also we do complaints immediately. if they have consistently good scores here, we will do less so we can spend more time on places that need our attention. >> as we go upstairs here, i had a couple things i wanted to mention before we do that. one is disabled access is a big issue all over the city, particularly for public facilities like this that are open to the public. and this has to be fully

accessible, the doors have to be accessible. you may have noticed there's a ramp up to the level, there's an accessible path of travel all the way through. it has accessible toilet facilities upstairs. that's something that is checked when the building is first constructed. we then inspect on a complaint basis. we expect people to maintain, as they have here, their accessible compliance. if this was a new building we would say this restaurant has to be sound isolated from the residential apartment above. but that only applies to buildings built after 1974. this is an old building and it's not required but sound attenuation is a really big deal in restaurants. i have heard from my buddy in

the acoustickal world that there was a big problem. >> people were, like, we love your restaurant but it's too loud. >> they came in to try to mitigate the sound here and what did they do? this is really fascinating. the smooth ceiling above me here looks solid, but it's really not. it's a microperforated vinyl, very tight, can't even see it unless you look at it extremely close. >> they heated the room up and then pulled it. >> and stretches. above it, it has acoustickal bat installation of a special type. the ceiling runs all the way over the bar so it became access i will. people no longer complained about it. >> we don't have it nearly as much. we noticed immediately the complaint level going down. it was a big difference in tonal. it wasn't just loudness, but the tone in here changed a lot. >> a lot of people are

sensitive to high noise levels. were you planning on that when you built the restaurant? . >> from what i heard, we worked with a man by the name of charles saulter and most restaurants don't bother with it because most of the times it seems the architects aren't taking that into consideration. they are more interested in what it looks like. most of my friends, we all deal with that after, you know, is the sound issue. >> like anything else, when you have to come in and fix it it's a lot more expensive than when you do it the first time. >> we had fought really time to get the bead board ceiling which we ended up covering up. >> beautiful bead board ceiling which they ended up covering up. >> our cost, all said and done, was 50, 60 thousand dollars plus two days lost revenue from closing. this will probably do more. >> there are other ways acoustickal consultants can

tell you to reduce that problem in restaurants. you can put soft stuff on the walls. these are very hard walls. there's nothing that absorbs sound on the walls. curtains, which wouldn't suit the spirit of the restaurant, but you can put soft stuff up, you can put soft stuff on the floor to absorb sound, but that's the first place to start so you don't have sound that reflects back and forth, it bounces up and stops. okay, so here is the plan now. we're going to -- maybe we'll break up into 3 groups and we can get maybe one of the health inspectors, mr. lu, upstairs and you can be downstairs here and i can get spencer who is a building inspetor who knows everything about inspection upstairs in the kitchen upstairs. who else -- oh, tony, you want to be just -- mitch, are you okay down here in the kitchen to answer questions and tom

harvy, our fire captain, maybe you can be anywhere you want, tom, you can answer questions. . >> this is for breaking right here, sweet potatoes. . >> we're just watching where things are located. you have chemicals here. the contact surfaces, we're looking at if there's any vermin. vermin primarily like to be hidden, just like inspectors, we don't like to come out in the open.

things like mice, which are the least intelligent we're talking about, they will be in the back area. you will see droppings. you see that? . >> oh, my god. >> nothing in this corner here. pretty good. these are rodent-proof containers. you conclude the rodents may be in there to eat the food. hard to get at. utensils are pretty good. there's eggs out here but they will be used quickly. >> that's right. >> bakery products, our understanding, have to be kept at room temperature for the

dough to rise. we have to work with a lot of pastry chefs. these are storage containers. allowed by law. now, we have restaurants who use chemicals on the food. that's be allowed. we are very careful to be sure they use proper items like this. we have a -- i usually have my temperature gun. we usually take a temperature, we stir it up and take a surface temperature. it should be fairly close. you want to know what kind of product it is.

if it's something that needs to be cooled quickly, we like the temperature to come from 140 to about 41 degrees within 6 hours time. today we're not equiped to do that. the reason i'm looking at other structures, roaches like to stay under in the crevices, they like to lay their eggs. sometimes you look at high water areas because we're looking for cockroaches. duck is being cooled down, you don't have to put it in the refrigerator right away. if you put it in the refrigerator right away, it will lose (inaudible) you have to allow time for it to cool

down correctly. you allow that to cool down, it's still fairly hot. it's a big thing for us in our special reports. you have to have hand washing facilities adjacent to your food handling area. it's important to have warm water, soap and towels to help to flush away the particulates on your ands. like alcohol wash. we don't allow that because it doesn't wash away the stuff on your hands. warm water, soap and towels as part of the operation of your kitchen. we don't want them washing their hands in the area where they are washing dishes at. we don't want them washing their hands over in the area

they are preparing the kitchen at, they need to have a separate sink. although it might be grandfathered in, in some of the new facilities, but new facilities you have to have separate hand washing facilities. if they didn't have soap or towels or warm water we would take 12 points off. we know that's one of the highest transmission routes is, is not washing the hands or using the restroom and not washing the hands. can you imagine what it is out there in the basement where they actually had the food preparation during world war ii? that's a hard job, the restaurant business. i said before, talking about that's probably one of the toughest jobs to have in a restaurant, own a strauplt, all the things you have to worry about besides the food skills,

your overhead, your worker's comp and just traipsing in and asking questions is a hard thing to do. this is a state department and this is support for multi use -- we are required by law if you do not have a dish washer that you have alternate methods to clean your dishes. soap with -- detergent with hot water, this is going to be a sanitizer with hot water, a 30-second bath in the sanitizer then you dry it up. this is an example of the process. nothing here is ready to eat. there is nothing here that we have to carry away. separate area.

this preparation is what we're looking for. >> we are upstairs here at town hall restaurant in the kitchen for what preparation? production. >> party. >> there's pastry, you do desserts and stuff here as well, right? we are here, one of the interesting things about commercial kitchens, they have a lot of special requirements for removing the waste products of cooking. so we have steam, we have heat, we have grease-laden vapor and all those things result in materials that have to be evacuated through the hood and duct system. here we have a type 1, all welded, and it has inside it these things heading down, these are heads for the system called an ancill system.

tom, what is an ancill system? . >> it's a brand name, actually. this is a fire extinguishing system. the nozzle is here and there's also co2 which would expel the liquid out to cover and extinguish any type of fire that may happen that might be created by fuel on the stove. this is the way if the cook or someone sees the problem they can manually activate it, but there's a fusible link also, it could release the co2 cartridge and put the extinguishing material out over the entire stove area. if it activates they are going to be out of business for a little while. >> you see a feasible link. typically there's a cable or chain with a little tiny link

in it which melts at a certain temperature. >> that's exactly right. this would be a higher temperature. sprinkler heads are generally 125 to 135 degrees. or by design it could be even higher. >> a couple things we see at this cook station that are fire concerns, there's a frier here and if you look at this frier, you will see it's separated from the flame so that the oil which is combustible is not next to the open flame. >> that's a guard for it because the one head is only for that particular device, cooking device. >> great. it's very effective. you can feel the make up air sweeping across and sweeping the vapor into the hood and outside. >> another thing, we always look that this needs to be serviced because it is such a critical system, every 6 months and it has a state fire marshal tag that this is a licensed

company to the state. just two months ago it's been serviced so it's right on. >> excellent. let's find out what this lady is making over here. hi, what are you making for? . >> this is for the lamb stew. >> what kind of biscuits are they? . >> butter milk. restaurant, it's all about food but we inspect a restaurant, we never get into the food, unfortunately. >> we are just moving through. generally we try to do it before or after the main rush hour but this is such a popular restaurant it looks like it extends quite a long time. >> we need some of that lamb stew, ought to be working on that. >> you need one requirement for kitchen work. >> we like you to not wear too much jewelry. those are guidelines to consider. people go, oh, we can wear

gloves. the health department standards on gloves in terms of the uniform is not that good. gloves will protect your hands but it will not protect the food. if i went to the bathroom with my gloves on, boy, my hands are clean but i go back to the food area with the same gloves. we want you to feel that dirt on your hand. if you have dirt on your glove, you don't feel it. my god, it's going to get on the food. uniforms, we like them to wear an apron or something so they can take it off and, you know, when they are dirty and if they are going out, out side to do other things, just wear street clothes, come back and put an apron on. hair, you asked a question about hair.

how come we don't require hair nets in san francisco. there is a law that allows us to ask for those things but if your hair is behind your head or if you are able to keep it so you don't keep brushing your hair back, it will allow you to not wear a hair net. but even if it's -- your personal habits, the kitchen itself is a fairly long line but mine is fairly cramped so i would suggest maybe you might not want to go down there. but it's kind of interesting in there just to see --. >> yeah, we can just pass on the outside and come back. you want to go look at the line downstairs for a second before we finish up? really a hot -- it's like a boiler room back here, really. one thing i find interesting is the oven, they are on all day. this is not like turn the oven

on, they turn it on first thing in the morning and it's on all day. there is no energy efficiency. they don't even have a shield around this. they can heat the whole thing, everything is -- it's up to 500 degrees. it stays that way all day long. >> there's an interesting thing, it's sucking air out of here. in order to do that, there has to be some make-up air into this area. you can't just pull air away. somehow in the mechanical design of this restaurant, there is a place where fresh air can come in from the outside that equals the volume of this air coming in. and it can't be upstairs because then you have a problem of sort circuiting the hood. what would happen if you had the fresh air make-up in there, it would come down here and just go up there and we wouldn't be running it across the cooking surface. the concept is the air comes across the cooking surface and picks up the vapors. so there would be -- if we look

around we can find a fresh air inlet here, it's not allowed to be dampered, it couldn't be closed, fresh air, unluvered intake. they have lighting up here and they are all in this protective explosion -- fire protective covers. what else can we say about this place? fresh brussels sprouts. this is brussel sprout country we live in, down in south san francisco, san mateo county. >> grease filters are stored at an angle to drain the grease that is collected. >> back here, so the grease drains down into that gutter. there's also a gutter that runs all the way down the hood right here, i can put my hand in it, it's just a little gutter that the grease can run in and collect and down at that end, maybe at each end, there's a little container for that grease where it's just covered.

what else are they doing? turning off the little -- little tiny turnips. yeah, looks like, little tiny turnips. we also have the regular fire extinguishing system, sprinklers up in the ceiling. if there is a fire these sprinklers will go off to put out the fire at a lower temperature. they put out so much water, when they were putting up this ceiling up here, remember i was telling you about the noise control ceiling? when they were almost done, somebody accidentally punched the head with a hammer and it went off and one head flooded the whole restaurant and the whole basement before they

could shut down the system in the building. tremendously high pressure. really puts out a lot of water to reduce fire. in the kitchen, and the health inspector, we have washable surfaces everywhere, right? for example, ceilings and walls. >> ceilings, walls, floors, everything. so there's nothing that can attract vermin. it needs to be well maintained and all the nooks and crannies in the refrigeration doors, those are cleaned every so often and -- but this is a great example. we've got a really clean surface all the way, all the walls all the way up to the ceiling and the countertops, everything. >> what else would you look at?

what would you be looking at? . >> well, temperature control is huge and they've got a variety of different things happening here, so, you know, we would check in all the refrigeration units, the hot holding, that needs to be above 135 degrees. the cold temperatures have to be, food needs to stay below 41 degrees fahrenheit and also the food handling, what are they doing when, you know, if they have an itch on their nose, they go and wash their hands right away. the rags, wiping rags, do they have a sanitizer solution available to dip and clean the rags when they wipe down surfaces and change jobs going from vegetable preparation to some other kind of food,

whether it's cooked or not. so it can get very complex, depending on what they are doing. . >> is the floor required to be hosed? . >> yes, we need to have a cleanable surface where the floor is going it meet the wall. so it needs to be a 3 inch -- and the degrees i'm not exactly sure, i think it's a 45 degree slope. >> it's a gradient. so the floor comes up so you don't have a sharp corner. it has to be bulldozed so you can scrub it all off. >> the importance of sanitizing your working surface and if you are handling raw meat to make a little bleach solution, you can use a teaspoon of bleach per

about a gallon of water and you can wipe things down and it won't taint the food. a lot of it evaporates before -- you know, you are not going to get a bad taste in your food, but you are going to kill any salmonella or any bacteria issues that can happen. because a lot of cutting boards have grooves in them, whether it's plastic or wood, and it can collect bacteria and you can make yourself fairly sick or your family if things aren't sanitized and cleaned really well. making sure to wipe things down, sanitize, run them through the dish washer and take your time with it. . >> that's wrapping it up for today, brown bag lunch. this was fantastic, thanks to town hall, terrific servers, terrific food. thank you to the heal