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Abilene restaurant ordered to close due to “‘gross’ unsanitary conditions & roach infestation”

Erica Garner

Casamigos Mexican Restaurant was ordered to close following a health department inspection last week.

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – An Abilene restaurant was ordered to close by the health department last week due to “‘gross’ unsanitary conditions and a roach infestation.”

UPDATE – 9:00 p.m. Monday

According to a Facebook post from Casamigos, the restaurant passed re-inspection Monday evening, and should be able to reopen Thursday morning.

The post reads in part, “[sic] Casamigos is coming back harder and if your still wondering 💭 if we took care of all of the issues they wouldn’t let us be re open to begin with so the final answer is YES.“

ORIGINAL REPORT

Casamigos Mexican Restaurant on S Treadaway Boulevard received the order to shut down following an inspection March 13.

During the inspection, 34 violations were documented, including moldy food, unclean dishes, clogged drainage systems and sinks, and a large roach infestation, including both dead and live bugs.

Read the full list of violations Casamigos received March 13 below:

Violations

Casamigos made a lengthy post on social media following the shutdown, which ended by saying, “Casamigos will continue to support other small restaurant business owners because we love giving back to others and if any business owners have gone through what we have it’s time to speak up! We will keep everyone updated as soon as we make our final Decision and how We will take this further we love and appreciate you so much.”

Read their full post below:

Justice will be served I know our God will move mountains!

Monday, March 13, 2023 at 1:30 PM inspection walk through our doors like any other regular day at Casamigos Mexican restaurant as Terry walked through the door she showed her badge and continue through her inspection it was after lunch so we only had three tables and they were through with their lunch as many business owners know Mondays are extremely busy due to food trucks arriving and stocking and then you have food prepping to do around 8am We started our day with only two employees throughout the whole restaurant one cook for the back of the house and one waitress for the front of the house Their names will not be exposed! how many of y’all will be wise to open a restaurant being that short staff? Let’s get into this the pictures that were screenshot has the time and the date When they were taken and they were for other work related purposes these pictures were sent to the (owner) big boss to let him know our work duties list have been accomplished At a certain time because we have work task that have to be done throughout the day! And one statement in our inspection it says that we were serving moldy vegetables to our customers but if you look closely in the pictures you will see the dates of when the vegetables were freshly chopped as terry The inspector came across a squash which was also stated wrong it was a chayote that was given to us as a vegetable sampler from our food truck from last week as many business owners know sometimes food trucks bring you food items to sample on And this was useless for us It was left behind in our walk in fridge because we do not carry anything with squash or chayote And I did mention it to her and from that chayote being left in our fridge we are being blasted on social media that we serve moldy vegetables to our customers That really saddens our staff and our business because we work really hard to prep daily and have everything fresh and ready to be served! Now let’s talk about the temperatures that were mentioned on the report! One more time as you can see in the picture everything was made freshly from that morning as Teri stuck a thermometer in the tomato she had told us that the bottom tomatoes were cold as they should be but the top of the tomatoes were reading a bit warmer she never told Us to throw them out immediately because she clearly knew That they had just been prepped at 10:26 AM! She did Give us a food cold violation now about the temperature in another statement they reported it mentions the queso sauce and the green salsa and enchilada sauce were not reading the correct temperatures she also stuck a thermometer inside and said the bottom of the salsa‘s were very hot but the top weren’t they were reading warm She told us it was important to be stirring the sauces occasionally for them to read correctly the temperature As for the vegetables they sit in a cold bar table she said once again the bottom vegetables were reading fine it was the top vegetables that were not at right temperature we assume the kitchen Temperatures can increase in Matter of seconds especially if you have your cold tables next to the grill or hot fryer! Then she came across sour cream and guacamole That was sitting on top of the prep table because it was still in the making and in use at the moment We mention to her that the guacamole was fresh Her answer was it can’t be left on top of the prep table it has to be refrigerated Which we know for a fact but once again it was still on the making When she walked in we had a box of tomatoes and some tomatoes that were left from the fresh cut tomatoes and she also lowered our score for that reason? Now let’s move in and talk about the water roaches water bugs etc….. as many of our customers know we are located in a very very old building before it was Mary’s Mexican restaurant and I’ve talked with previous owners and said they also had the same situation with the building having so many plumbing issues it was almost impossible to get rid of this big bugs we have not yet seen cockroaches only big water bugs which either way they are gross these water bugs have there name for a reason they are attracted to WATER in general so if we have a leak through out the restaurant it will attract them there! A day before that our cooks were cleaning getting ready to close and had a bucket with water to clean the grease from the grills was left out from the day before and had a bug floating in the water but they think it’s ok to say we had our minds to use it on our customers tables to be wiped off with? That immediately caused us to fight all of our rights because first off that dirty bucket was in the back house not even in the front to be used on tables!!!!! in our Hispanic culture we use bleach for everything and fabulouso with clean warm luke water and we did have a clean bucket made for the front house which we can show on cámaras then what really got to us as a business was she reported on the inspection that one our employees was using the same glove after using a cellphone first off we had to make that important call to let the owner know Terri had shut us down for the water bug that supposedly went in her bag when there was no proof it actually did after she was a bit upset with one of my employees that had a vitamin B from mexico that was on top of a shelf away from food above the chips Terri went off about the pills more then the inspection she was even mentioning us bringing illegal drugs to the USA like if we were some type of criminales at that point my employee felt Race discriminated! To begin with those were not any of my employees pills that were presented at the time of the inspection We told her we would be happy to throw them away immediately but she said No it was OK I do want to tell you one of my employees got upset and made a comment to her because she took it to personal with her! Three minutes later we hear her yell in the back where the dishwasher is located inside loudly THATS IT IM CLOSING THIS PLACE DOWN IMMEDIATELY! She said one of the water bugs crawled up in her bag we are leaving in the hands of God we don’t know how true it is after she was upset with one of my employees it could’ve been with other intentions and we really hope that was not the case! Now for the final answer on one of the employees using the gloves while being on her cellphone was only to notify the owner that they had been shut down! She even mentioned to Terri she was closed and had no more remaining customers after Terri entered the building it was almost impossible for 2 employees to run The restaurant with Customers inside the building while inspection was being addressed so we closed immediately not because they had shut us down but for the remaining of the inspection! So on the report it says that the employee was using the same gloves to practice on food that is a completely incorrect statement no one was even in the building all the customers have left after that phone call! I will make sure this post gets viral and we are planning on taking this further! At least my employees were wearing gloves Not many restaurants use glove now these days! There is a lot of incorrect statements on the inspection Report a bag of onions being under a soap dispenser that was not also correct it was an item that was brought wrong to us and it’s been sitting there a bag of dried red peppers that we don’t use! They were supposed to bring Chile guajillo instead it was Japanese hot peppers To finalize my statement we have called the bug control to get rid of these water bugs Because we are 100% responsible and we take actions immediately this is our first low score we’ve had if you look into our inspections before and we never had a bug problem there has been a leak and we are working on fixing the issue! We are not the only local restaurant that has had water bug issues we feel like this has taken a toll on our business and our family and staff the rumors on Abilene dining reviews through people tagging us on social media has haunt us not only our family but our business If I could please ask are loyal customers who have supported us since day (1) help us share this post and keep us in your prayers The owners Are very humble people But are very saddened for the moment to hear about there restaurant being target customers have even bullied them through tags and post but we also pray for those people that are clueless and I have any idea what it takes to have a business Casamigos will continue to support other small restaurant business owners because we love giving back to others and if any business owners have gone through what we have it’s time to speak up! We will keep everyone updated as soon as we make our final Decision and how We will take this further we love and appreciate you so much we hope you understand and we are working very hard and remodeling some leaks and broken pipes so we can stop these issues! Thank you Abilene!

Click here to read more health inspection reports from previous visits to Casamigos, as well as other food establishments around ABilene.