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Did St. Pete Restaurant Serve Rats?

A St. Pete TV station reports on an anonymous complaint to the state alleging that a 34th Street restaurant was catching and cooking rats to serve to customers.

 

WTSP-Ch. 10 is reporting that a complaint filed with state code enforcement officials alleges that a local Vietnamese restaurant cooked and served rats.

Thuy Cafe on 34th Street is at the center of a complaint that WTSP reports was filed anonymously with the state in May. The complaint alleges that restaurant workers caught rats running across the restaurant roof and in the dumpsters to cook in a tin shack behind the facility.

The TV station sent a reporter to the restaurant and tried to question an employee, who declined requests for an interview. After the station's report aired a week ago, the restaurant owner contacted the TV station, which had a tour of the kitchen to see that everything was in order. (See video.)

The TV station filmed a tin shack behind the restaurant during its initial visit, but found no evidence of rodents.

According to WTSP, a June 4 health inspection by the state cited the restaurant for 18 critical violations, including:

1.) temperature violations;

2.) food and equipment stored on the floor;

3.) food stored in Home Depot paint buckets;

4.) rodent droppings around the water heater and on top of the freezer.

A followup insection last month cited the restaurant for only three critical violations.

Related Topics: Rats, St. Pete Restaurants, and restaurant inspection

Craig Williams

12:05 pm on Sunday, August 5, 2012

Hey there are plenty of rats along the waterfront. They are really big too! They pretty much eat the same cuisine as hogs. Probably tastes just like bacon! :-)

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Judy Landon

1:45 pm on Sunday, August 5, 2012

Normally I would be leery of a complaint like that. I mean, cooking rats is over the top. But if that's what it took to get a sub-par restaurant to clean up its act, so be it. I still would not trust the place unless they knew an inspector was coming, soon.

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Red

1:00 pm on Thursday, August 9, 2012

Anyone have a urge to jump on a exercise machine? Bacon(?), I don't believe it - -- chicken maybe. Cheese anyone?

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