In Red Hen fuss, Trump eateries have own woes
As the Red Hen restaurant that booted Sarah Huckabee Sanders and received a lashing about cleanliness from President Donald Trump reopened Thursday, a USA TODAY review shows restaurants in Trump family business properties have a similarly mixed history of health inspection violations.
The review was conducted after Red Hen co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson asked Sanders, the White House press secretary, to leave the Lexington, Virginia, restaurant June 22 because of Sanders’ job in the Trump administration.
Three days later, the nation’s commander-in-chief mounted a Twitter attack on the farm-to-table restaurant.
Panning what he characterized as the Red Hen’s “filthy canopies, doors and windows,” plus an urgent need for a “paint job,” Trump tweeted a heretofore undeclared rule, one possibly learned heading a business with fine-dining establishments at clubs and golf courses.
The Trump Rule is: “If a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it’s dirty on the inside.”
The tweet prompted a question: Have restaurant inspections found the Red Hen to be unsanitary, and how have eateries in properties of the Trump Organization fared in similar inspections?
Here’s a partial comparison, drawn from a review of inspection records that provide an overview of kitchen cleanliness at the eateries. Inspections capture snapshots that may not be representative of a restaurant’s performance over time, regulators say.
Red Hen
The most recent inspection, conducted in February 2018, produced no violations. But an April 2014 inspection resulted in one violation for raw beef stored above cooked, ready-to-eat food.
A second violation cited a container of grits stored without being properly dated. A January 2017 inspection cited Red Hen for having pickles or jams in a sealed container that did not come from an approved processing facility.
Trump Tower
Trump Grill and Trump Cafe are listed as a single establishment with a grade of A. But an inspection in November 2017 cited a critical violation for “filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated flies in facility’s food and/or nonfood areas,” along with an infraction for “conditions conducive to attracting vermin.” A follow-up inspection, in December 2017, cited nine violation points.
Kevin McCoy and Zlati Meyer
Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver
A March 2018 inspection by Vancouver Coastal Health found “signs of rodent activity” in the prep kitchen of the property.
Trump National Golf Club Bedminster
A September 2016 inspection gave the club a rating of satisfactory, according to a Somerset County Department of Health report posted by NJ.com. But the report listed a violation for “cutting utensils and utensil holder with ... food buildup.”
Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach
A Florida inspection in February hit the property for having cases of raw beef stored over commercially produced salad dressings. The violation was corrected during the inspection.
The Mar-a-Lago Club
A January 2017 inspection cited three violations, including raw or undercooked fish that had “not undergone proper parasite destruction.”