12 sick? Iguana Joe’s in Texas closed

Mother’s Day in Canberra, Father’s Day in Texas. Eating out on these holidays can be risky.

KHOU reports the Harris County Health Department has temporarily closed a Humble restaurant after multiple patrons reported being sickened over Father’s Day weekend. The health department said it iguana.joe'swarned Iguana Joe’s about critical violations and how to fix them, but the restaurant didn’t listen so it had no choice but to close the place down at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

“The four major problems that they have right now is cold/hot hold violations. It’s how they cool their product after they’ve heated it up — they’ve cooked it, and now they need to cool it down. And food contact surfaces—you have to remember there are danger zones in foods — so between 41 and 135 degrees is when bacteria grows,” said Harris County Environmental Public Health Services Director Michael Schaffer.

For example, health officials said the employees weren’t cooling the batches of beef, chicken and guacamole at the proper temperatures. However, it’s not clear what made people sick.

Iguana Joe’s released a statement late Monday apologizing for what it called an “unforeseen incident.”

Unforeseen because they didn’t look?

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About Douglas Powell

A former professor of food safety and the publisher of barfblog.com, Powell is passionate about food, has five daughters, and is an OK goaltender in pickup hockey. Download Doug’s CV here. Dr. Douglas Powell editor, barfblog.com retired professor, food safety 3/289 Annerley Rd Annerley, Queensland 4103 dpowell29@gmail.com 61478222221 I am based in Brisbane, Australia, 15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time