A restaurant has been forced to fork out more than £6,000 after food safety inspectors discovered rodent droppings and dirty equipment.
Haringey Council’s inspectors made the grim discovery when they visited Arocaria restaurant in The Broadway, Crouch End, in March last year.
Fridges were caked with dirt and surfaces were littered with rat droppings. Electricity fittings were hanging from the wall in the kitchen area and inspectors found that staff did not have any training in food hygiene.
The owners of the venue had already been warned in the past and, despite further inspections by the council, failed to clean up their act.
On December 17, Tottenham Magistrates’ court found the restaurant owners guilty of five breaches of hygiene regulations, fined them a total of £5,000 and ordered them to pay £1,320.50 costs.
No one from the restaurant turned up to the court hearing. The restaurant has now closed and the lease is up for sale.
Haringey Council cabinet member for environment Cllr Stuart McNamara said:
“Haringey is proud to boast a wide variety of restaurants that residents and visitors can enjoy and the vast majority are clean and safe. We will not tolerate the small minority who demonstrate a blatant disregard for the health and safety of their customers.
“We always warn restaurant owners and try to help them improve but if our warnings are ignored then we will not hesitate to protect our residents and take action through the courts.”
..perhaps if their rates and rents werent so expensive hen the business owner could have afforded o put things right ? Now another business lost, rate revenues lost, jobs lots, well done !
Small business is the life blood of a free market, but sadly they are used as ‘Cash Cows’ by greedy local authorities, to fund themselves and the large numbers who take more than they generate.
However, part of the responsibility of the Environmental Health Office is to ensure that ALL food outlets meet the required standard of hygiene and must be monitored CONSTANTLY so that the public can confidently eat wherever they choose.
This is not only an indictment of the Restaurant managers, but also the local authority who obviously do not make random checks as often as they should.
In reply to A Nicodemou…..are you crazy??????? High business rates are no excuse for having a filthy, unhygienic, unsafe kitchen and putting paying customers health at risk. Hygiene and safety for customers should be the utmost priority and rent and rates shouldn’t have any baring on these standards. Your comments and cringe worthy and I would hate toimagine what you are used to and what you consider to be acceptable food hygiene and health standards.
This is a sad end for a once great restaurant that epitomised all that was best in
Greek and Cypriot hospitality. We have nothing but warm memories of the friendly owners.
I was a regular customer at the Arocaria and let me tell you that not only was this a great restaurant and properly run (hence its 36 years of history) but also a restaurant that had received awards from Haringey Council themselves 5 years in a row as the best restaurant in North London following inspections.
Make up your minds Haringey Council, is it the best restaurant in North London or is it that bad that you had to close them down, publish it in the local newspaper and fine them???
Thank you Arocaria restaurant for 36 years of great food, great atmosphere and great people!!!!!