CU-CitizenAccess.org (https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/tag/restaurant/)
Restaurant complaints filed in Champaign County over the past six months have ranged from a restaurant running out of napkins to a cockroach crawling out of a customer’s food.
Restaurant goers in Champaign County can call the Champaign Urbana Public Health District at (217) 373-7900 to file a complaint against the business if it’s located in the twin cities, or (217) 363-3269 if it’s in the county.
Anyone entering the Culver’s on Neil Street in Champaign will immediately see a placard showing the results of the restaurant’s most recent food inspection.
Drive one mile south to the Burger King in Savoy, and there is no placard displayed.
Heading out to eat and undecided about where to go? CU-CitizenAccess.org’s new app could provide you with information to help you make that choice.
In September 2014, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District – after years of planning – created a website where citizens could look up restaurant inspection reports in Champaign County.
Reports for more than 1,000 restaurants are available on the site, which is constantly updated and go back to 2008.
Nine restaurants and eateries have failed health inspections since November, including five that were temporarily shut down.
At some of the restaurants public health inspectors found dozens of critical violations that included raw sewage on the floor, potentially hazardous food production and dishwasher malfunctions.
After spending four years discussing how to best publicize restaurant inspections, county public health officials are now offering Champaign diners a small appetizer of them. The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District is posting on its web site the names of the restaurants that have been inspected and whether they need to be re-inspected, but they aren’t saying whether the restaurants have failed inspections and they aren’t posting their inspection scores. And the district does not say clearly whether a restaurant has been closed. Over the past two months, 14 restaurants have failed in the county. Between September 2011 and June 2011, inspectors have failed at least 55 restaurants and shut down at least 10, according to an analysis of restaurant health inspection records.
Geovanti’s Bar & Grill on Green Street failed its restaurant inspections five times from September 2008 through February of this year.
But no one who eats there would ever know, unless they took the initiative to request copies of the popular Campustown restaurant’s inspection reports from the local health department.