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Olive Express Closes


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The buzz about the closure of Olive Express

Posted by Chris Knape {sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}} The Grand Rapids Press October 17, 2007 17:31PM

Categories: Restaurants

Seldom have I seen so many people concerned over the closure of a downtown restaurant.

...

If it is gone for good, I'll miss the hommos and excellent chicken shawarma. Lord knows the quick lunch scene downtown could use a few more eclectic offerings.

While it's not fair to judge a restaurant only by the non-descript county health department inspection reports, I always find them worth a read. Here's Olive Express' report.

Congratulations Sam and Janene. Welcome, little Charlie.

hehehe... tell me that is supposed to be hummus. ^_^

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The buzz about the closure of Olive Express

Posted by Chris Knape {sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}} The Grand Rapids Press October 17, 2007 17:31PM

Categories: Restaurants

Seldom have I seen so many people concerned over the closure of a downtown restaurant.

...

If it is gone for good, I'll miss the hommos and excellent chicken shawarma. Lord knows the quick lunch scene downtown could use a few more eclectic offerings.

While it's not fair to judge a restaurant only by the non-descript county health department inspection reports, I always find them worth a read. Here's Olive Express' report.

Congratulations Sam and Janene. Welcome, little Charlie.

hehehe... tell me that is supposed to be hummus. ^_^

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True, but - and I'm not taking sides on this one - if you search around for a few of the "top notch" establishments in the area, you'll see that most - if not all - have something levelled against them. I imagine it's very hard to have an entirely clean sheet.
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"Top notch" restaurant isn't necessarily a clean restaurant. Go to BK on Pearl and you have just 2 violations since 2004. Its not simply quantity of violations, but types of violations. Some of them are understandable, but a few of them get me a little worried. The storage temperature violations are pretty common, but can be deadly or at the very least make your week the worst in years. It's not hard to keep your record clean, simply having the restaurant procedures streamlined and an attentive crew. That is to say having educated workers, a devoted Porter and a detail oriented manager. Some of the things are really common sense like not having window cleaner on a counter that is used to serve food.

I think Veloise was making the argument that it wasn't health violations that caused this sudden close.

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Actually, I can understand all listed except for the temperature issues. There are a LOT of little things the health department will look for, and it is easy, and likely, for things to be overlooked. Hazardous material on food counter, probably just a bottle of cleaner on the far end of a food table which may not even be used for food on that end. Debris in a prep cooler could likely be just a few scattered crumbs down inside the cooler where food never touches.

With Health Violations, you simply cannot go by what you see in words. It could be a big deal, it could be very minor. Unsanitary food surface could be as minor as a dent or scratch in a table. Judgement should be best reserved for one's eye. The only thing mentioned which I can see definite concern over is the temperatures, and only for one reason: It was a problem with nearly every visit and never seemed to be corrected.

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There are quite a few restaurants with more then 12 violations. Should they all be shutdown as well?

LOUIS BENTON STEAKHOUSE - 20 violations

CHARLEY'S CRAB - 27 violations

And there are many, many more, just look around the county site.

Oh, yeah, you would think a hospital would be safe.

SPECTRUM HEALTH DOWNTOWN MAIN KITCHEN

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Why are more people not upset about this, especially people who ate there? Twelve violations? Really, twelve? That is pathetic. Rizzo, you are right, in that every place is going to have one or two once in a while. This was a systematic failure on their part to follow any public health safety guidelines. Anyone who has ever worked a day in a restaurant knows that this was either one of two things: 1)the employees are lazy, 2)Sam Cummings should not be running restaurants. I am betting on #2. Suburban office building developers have no business running restaurants and it only makes a mockery of competent restauranteurs.

Twelve! Ha! Is it really that hard to do something as simple as wiping out "debris" from the prep cooler for god's sake? Disgusting. :sick:

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Hold up there Libertarian. A few corrections:

1) Sam Cummings, the downtown developer, does not own the restaurant Olive Express. It's another guy named Sam. Mr. Cummings own the BUILDING that houses Olive Express, Four Friends, Atwell Hicks, etc.. He is mentioned in the blog because he is the landlord.

2) They didn't have 12 violations. Look at the dates on the left side. They had 3 violations in their latest health inspection visit in May 07. 3 in 11/06, 2 in 5/06, 3 in 11/05, and 1 in 5/05. It's been a long time since I worked in restaurants, but I seem to remember that we thought it was pretty good if we only got 2 or 3 violations at our 6 month reviews. From what I remember, and this was in another County, but generally if you had 2 - 4, you had to have them corrected by the next visit 6 months later. If you had more than that, you were on "probation" and they would come back in a week or so and make sure the place was back up to snuff. If it was, then you'd go back to your 6 month regular visits again. If it wasn't, they'd keep you on probation for another review in a week or so. It had to be pretty major repeat violations to get shut down.

3) No restaurant that I know of has ever closed voluntarily because of health code violations. They were forced to close, usually because of a rash food poisoning episode. However, if they are running out of freezer or cooler space, that might affect product temps so they might close down to remodel.

This is such a silly fishing expedition. If the county had any inkling of shutting them down for health reasons, it would very much be public knowledge.

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Hold up there Libertarian. A few corrections:

1) Sam Cummings, the downtown developer, does not own the restaurant Olive Express. It's another guy named Sam. Mr. Cummings own the BUILDING that houses Olive Express, Four Friends, Atwell Hicks, etc.. He is mentioned in the blog because he is the landlord.

2) They didn't have 12 violations. Look at the dates on the left side. They had 3 violations in their latest health inspection visit in May 07. 3 in 11/06, 2 in 5/06, 3 in 11/05, and 1 in 5/05. It's been a long time since I worked in restaurants, but I seem to remember that we thought it was pretty good if we only got 2 or 3 violations at our 6 month reviews. From what I remember, and this was in another County, but generally if you had 2 - 4, you had to have them corrected by the next visit 6 months later. If you had more than that, you were on "probation" and they would come back in a week or so and make sure the place was back up to snuff. If it was, then you'd go back to your 6 month regular visits again. If it wasn't, they'd keep you on probation for another review in a week or so. It had to be pretty major repeat violations to get shut down.

3) No restaurant that I know of has ever closed voluntarily because of health code violations. They were forced to close, usually because of a rash food poisoning episode. However, if they are running out of freezer or cooler space, that might affect product temps so they might close down to remodel.

This is such a silly fishing expedition. If the county had any inkling of shutting them down for health reasons, it would very much be public knowledge.

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Major blunder on my part. Apologies to Mr. Cummings. Thanks for catching it Dad! I still stick to my opinion of "systematic failure" to follow public health safetly guidelines. EVERY inspection they had critical violations. I still think it would be naive to think that these inspections had nothing to do with them shutting down. It seems like it was fix the recurring problems(and yes if you look at the report there were recurring problems) or face the prospect of getting shut down. Sounds like the proprietor took his profits off the table to live to fight another day without tarnishing his name. By the way, anybody gotten a statement from this guy?
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Hello everyone, I would like to inform you that Olive Express is possibly relocating to 444 Bridge st. (between Monte's & O'Tooles) pending a lease agreement I hope to settle soon. The new name of the company will be "The Flying Olive", Sam Rashed will be preparing the meals and I will be managing the restaurant. Sam would like everyone to know that he thanks you for the support and hopes to see you all soon. We hope to be open the second week of January and we will be adding delivery to the downtown area.I will keep you posted on the statis of the project thank you,

Joseph Rivera

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Hello everyone, I would like to inform you that Olive Express is possibly relocating to 444 Bridge st. (between Monte's & O'Tooles) pending a lease agreement I hope to settle soon. The new name of the company will be "The Flying Olive", Sam Rashed will be preparing the meals and I will be managing the restaurant. Sam would like everyone to know that he thanks you for the support and hopes to see you all soon. We hope to be open the second week of January and we will be adding delivery to the downtown area. ...
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Hello everyone, I would like to inform you that Olive Express is possibly relocating to 444 Bridge st. (between Monte's & O'Tooles) pending a lease agreement I hope to settle soon. The new name of the company will be "The Flying Olive", Sam Rashed will be preparing the meals and I will be managing the restaurant. Sam would like everyone to know that he thanks you for the support and hopes to see you all soon. We hope to be open the second week of January and we will be adding delivery to the downtown area.I will keep you posted on the statis of the project thank you,

Joseph Rivera

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