A bucket with a Styrofoam cup is not a handwashing station: dirty dining: Taqueria El Palenque

How can a restaurant operate with no running water? Not in a safe or sanitary way.

Darcy Spears of KTNV ABC Channel 13 writes that one restaurant in Las Vegas tried to do it anyway, and that landed them at the top of the health district’s demerit list in this week’s Dirty Dining report.

Taqueria El PalenqueThe health district shut the place down on April 30 and it is still closed. 

When inspectors were there, they found the restaurant had been operating for nearly a week with no running water. That got us to wondering what they did to keep things clean. How could employees wash their hands? How could they wash dishes? They couldn’t even flush a toilet.

The health district’s pictures show the bathroom sink was a bucket with a Styrofoam cup. There was another bucket next to the toilet. Employees were washing their hands with room temperature water in large pots and a trashcan.

Inspectors didn’t know where the water came from.