ROMADOS OWNER IRATE
Plateau resto shut 1 month
Manny Machado, owner of the popular Portuguese BBQ chicken restaurant Rôtisserie Romados, said he might have to declare bankruptcy if he can’t overturn a Quebec government decision to close down the Rachel St. eatery for 30 days.
“I’m in shock,” said Machado, sitting in his empty restaurant, which has been closed for business since last Thursday.
The inspectors arrived Thursday at lunchtime and told the customers to leave. Inspectors then stayed until staff closed down the restaurant.
“I feel that I’ve been betrayed,” Machado said. “I don’t know what more a person can possibly do. I literally feel targeted by officials. To try to shut me down. … I mean what’s a person to think? I’m angry. I’m confused. I’m disappointed. I’m disgusted. There’s nothing I can do. I feel very vulnerable. I love this city. I love this neighbourhood. I’m invested in this neighbourhood.”
He has a big project not far away, at St-Hubert St. and Rachel, a 16,000-square-foot building he has bought that will house a bakery, a retail outlet and apartments. But he says the project might fall apart if he continues to lose the revenue from Romados. He estimates he lost $50,000 to $60,000 over the weekend and is losing about $10,000 of business a day.
The City of Montreal’s Food Inspection department has had issues with the restaurant for a year and fined it three times last summer for infractions related to cleanliness and the temperature of its fridges. Machado says he resolved all of these issues, but the closure notice from Le Ministre de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation details several infractions of the restaurant code.
The notice underlines the problem with one of the restaurant’s fridges, which was warmer than 4 C, which is the required temperature.
It also says the inspectors found evidence of rodent excrement. Lastly, the legal notice says that “the place, the equipment and the materials used to prepare food” were not sanitary enough.
The decision to force Romados to close for 30 days was made after an inspection May 15 discovered several things that were not up to code. In that visit, inspectors found that a fridge containing sausages, pastries and cheesecakes was not maintained at the proper temperature.
Machado said he bought a new fridge to replace the fridge in question and that the fridge was delivered on May 15 when the inspectors were there and that he pointed this out to them. The May 15 report also said one of the staff working with food was not washing his hands in the manner required.
The inspectors also said there were issues with the way that the grill was washed. Lastly they noted the presence of rodent excrement.
Machado and his legal team are set to contest the closure at a meeting of the Tribunal administratif du Québec on Friday.