My friend and colleague Alyssa Barkley of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association joined me on Episode 2 of the quasi-daily probe. Here’s our conversation in it’s raw, unedited, form.

Today we talked about restaurant inspection, media coverage and posting grades.

The article that prompted the probe was from the Triangle Business Journal, who put together a list of restaurants in Wake County (where I live) that were cited for five or more  more critical health code violations since the beginning of August. 

Frances Breedlove, who oversees foodservice facility inspections for Wake County, says a critical violation is any rule violation that increases the likelihood of spreading foodborne illnesses. Those can include storing food at the incorrect temperature, employees failing to wash their hands or not keeping cooking areas sufficiently clean.

In all, more than 200 Wake County restaurants were docked for having at least one critical violation. Of those, roughly half were cited for having five or more critical health code violations. Many more were cited for noncritical violations of food safety rules.