The San Francisco Creamery, located at 1370 Locust St. in Walnut Creek, was closed this week after inspectors from the Contra Costa County Department of Environmental Health say they found the following:
- 7+ live cockroaches on the gasket to the 1 door refrigerator at the cook line. Gasket also contained cockroach fecal matter.
- 1 live cockroach on top of the soybean oil stored next to the food preparation sink.
- 1 live cockroach between the wall and shelf above the draining board of the ware washing sink. Cockroach fecal matter on the wall in the same area as the live cockroach.
- 1 live cockroach inside the cockroach egg case. Cockroach egg case is on the handle of the hotel pan on the storage rack in the back kitchen.
- 3 dead cockroaches on the gasket to the walk-in freezer. Cockroach fecal matter also present on the gasket.
- 1 dead cockroach on the floor next to water heater.
- 1 dead cockroach on top of the soap dispenser above the mop sink.
- 2 dead cockroaches on the monitoring trap inside the cabinet. Cabinet where soda machine is stored.
- 1 dead cockroach next to the freezer where the ice cream cake is stored.
The health department inspected the restaurant after a complaint came in from a customer saying they were served a raw hamburger, and not rare. They claim a cockroach jumped out of the bill folder and ran across the table. They told the health department an employee scooped it up and dropped the live cockroach in the garbage can where ice cream is prepared and the employee went back to making ice cream.
The health department spoke with person in charge about the complaint. He stated they have not received any complaints about raw burgers but did have a customer let them know about the cockroaches in the restaurant about a month ago.
Pest control last serviced food facility on Feb.21, 2019.
To read the full inspection report for the San Francisco Creamery, click HERE.
Please click on the ‘Dirty Dining‘ link to view all the most recent restaurant closures in Contra Costa County.
48 comments
Perfect another place I won’t go
Slim pickings over the last couple years
I appreciate the posts
The information is gold
Yeah sure things happen but shut down I will not go
So many locations and vast array of restaurants failing standards
A few previous favorites no longer getting my money
Wish there was a system in place to regulate politicians
Is that would be a favorite feat of satisfaction
This particular person asked for a rare burger. It wasn’t raw, it was rare. ≈not raw.
Cockroaches never hurt anyone, guess most people haven’t lived out in the country or been camping.
I actually think it’s entertaining watching someone having a meltdown over seeing cockroaches..
Nice to hear from the owner! Love the snickerdoodle flavor!
“This particular person asked for a rare burger. It wasn’t raw, it was rare. ≈not raw.”
And you know this how??
Cockroaches never hurt anyone?!? Those critters crawl through s*** and dead animals and contaminate food. Why would you post something that stupid?
Having spent many years in the restaurant biz when I was a young man I learned a couple things on this subject.
Asking for a “rare” hamburger is like ordering “rare” chicken.
Just don’t do it, and if you are the cook you should already know better.
Cockroaches arrive with the produce deliveries and also with some of the other deliveries, but mostly with produce.
Restaurants get a fresh supply of roaches at least once or twice a week and the best they can do is to keep the place spotlessly clean & contract with a pest control service to manage the problem.
Bedazzled,
If you’re the owner or employee you should really consider taking a food safety course and educating yourself. Your comments are embarrassing for people that work in the food service industry and maintain a clean kitchen. If you’re comparing your restaurant to a campsite or third world country and don’t think having bugs in your establishment maybe you should reconsider your career/business choice. I hope they close that place down for good.
To say cockroaches arrive mostly with produce deliveries is just plain wrong.Employees and customers bring in roaches as well as deliveries.But mostly,roaches show up because a restaurant is filthy.Based upon the inspection report management and employees are well aware this restaurant is infested with roaches.
It has been awhile since i have been to the Creamery but after reading this,i am never going there again.This restaurant is dirty and disgusting.
@Peter:
“Employees and customers bring in roaches as well as deliveries.”
LOL. So you mean there might be a cockroach I am carrying unknowingly in my pocket?
Peter… how many years of restaurant experience do you have?
I only ask because you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Once the roaches get in they do reproduce you know…even in the cleanest places.
Alot of restaurants are dirty too, but I’ll bet you I could go into any restaurant you choose and find 3 violations in 5 minutes. Guaranteed.
Anybody who works in a restaurant can try it.
Check these out…. look:
Under the cold plate at the bottom of the ice bins (mold) and look out for glass..
Inside the nozzles in the soda guns or dispensers (black mold).
In the Liquor bottles in the back bar (fruit flies).
In the corners of walk in refrigerators (slime).
In the back of the walk in on that lower shelf in the plastic container with no top on it & no label… the one way in the back…( gross!).
On the bread rack.. all the way back, check the dates for rotation & that loaf of fuzzy blue bread.
In the floor sinks.. some are spotless.. others are full of mystery muck & dead mice that fell in.
Under the griddle (rancid grease).
I could go on but this stuff is really gross, it’s making me queasy…
and I’m a Proctologist!
Maybe these violations should be required to be posted on their front door for the next 30 days so everyone can see what type of business this is…
IMHO – I would bet that if this was required businesses might clean up their act given what will happen to their business.
The violations are posted on the health department placard that has to be displayed for customers
Good! They have no concern for food safety at all. I went there for ice cream one day and I saw someone take a bite of ice cream and told the server that wasn’t the one she asked for so he put the ice cream back in the tub after she ate some of it. She even told him I took a bite and he was like whatever. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I emailed them about it and never got a response, I even called and they really didn’t seem to care.
I call BS on your comment. You work for CNN?
Beadazzled, you are doing the business no favors with your responses and statements. The last thing I would want to do it go to a place that does not understand that being shut down by the health department is a big deal. As a society we have standards and you seem to not care about that. I think if you are not the owner, or a loved one of the owner, it would be best to stop this line of defensive come backs; it truly is making you and SFC look bad.
Wouldn’t surprise me in the least if @Tiff’s expeirience is factual. I had 2 similar experiences years ago, and never went back to the businesses. One at Cold Stone Creamery in PH. Was waiting in line, and saw a young female worker mixing an ice cream order taste the ice cream with her mixing spoon, then put the spoon right back into the ice cream and continued mixing. Another at Noah’s Bagels in Countrywood Shopping Center. Was picking up a bagel order for a business meeting, and saw a worker filling a bag with bagels drop a bagel on the floor. She picked it up and placed it into the bag, and continued to fill the bag. Both incidents were completely unacceptable and plain gross.
5 second rule Mary…just kidding. That is gross.
I believe every establishment serving food will have roaches. They are delivered in the packaging from wholesalers who receive it from manufactures. With vigorous practices roaches can be controlled but never eliminated.
I’ve avoided this place for years because it’s always filthy (like in tables and floor are sticky and visibly dirty), and the kids working there obviously don’t know a thing about food safety.
Interesting the number of posts trying to justify this disgusting and unsanitary problem. If it is a known problem that roaches come with produce why the hell isn’t someone throughly going through the deliveries when they arrive?? Basically the cause of this is Management Laziness! I don’t want lazy people touching my food, so I’ll never eat there again. THANK YOU health department for exposing these complacent businesses. There’s no excuse for this bs.
Likely the whole block is infected. They may have even figured out how to cross in the crosswalk with the light.
I have been there many times. The owners are such wonderful people. My husband even tried their Kitchen Sink Challenge. He failed! lol I’m sure they will do everything to try and rectify this. Unfortunately this happens everywhere were this is food. Whether it’s roaches or rats. My neighborhood has been dealing with roof rats for over 3 years. My next door neighbor has a lot of fruit trees. So every year we have a lot of rats that come out at night and run along the fence and eat all the fruit. Then we need to call out the exterminator to help us out with the problem.
This doesn’t happen everywhere there is food, many restaurants have never once been cited for roaches or rats.
Your husband tried the Kitchen Sink and failed, but I defeated it with ease in under 15 minutes.
Cockroaches are disgusting and unhealthful, despite what some people have posted here. I will never patronize that place. I don’t care how nice the owners are.
Was that an almond in my ice cream?
I just feel bad that a place desperately trying to hang on and pay downtown WC rent couldn’t bother to keep things clean and risk folding like so many cafes and restaurants around it
“Mom, why are the sprinkles on my ice cream moving?” YUCK! Think I’ll stick to store bought.
And another one bites the dust – full of bugs.
Roaches are not your friends and you don’t want to live with them in your kitchen. A while back, while sitting in computer class, I witnessed a roach climb out of a classmates handbag. And they crawl really fast. The roach disappeared under the desks. I always wondered if there was a roach infestation caused by that one roach.
Thanks once again for posting this valuable information.
FYI, cold stone creamery in PH has been closed at least twice due to cockroach infestation. Claycord.com has the info.
Growng up in Concord and Clayton, I had never seen or heard of cockroaches until my upstairs neighbors at an apartment I rented in Oakland years later moved out and their unit was vacant for a few weeks. Suddenly, their cockroaches moved in with me. The landlord finally fumigated and solved the problem, but I really don’t think this is anything but a completely recent development in the Central Contra Costa area.
The roof rats, on the other hand, were here when my parents purchased the house in 1958 because the property was a Walnut orchard prior to development. Roof rats are slightly better looking than the urbanized Norwegian rats, the kind that invade sewers escaping from ships on mooring lines. Roof rsts are countryfied rodents and sort of look like overgrown mice. They clean up the fallen fruit much as the skunks and racoons do.. Anyway, they have been in the area since the 50s and seem to do well in spite of human enroachment. The quail, not so much.
Roof rats are downright pretty with their sleek shiny brown coats, compared to the Norways. I’ve seen Norway rats get as big as dogs. I think they must be the homeliest of all the mammals. I hope they don’t become endemic out this way. I hear they’re in Pleasant Hill though, so they’re probably coming down the pike.
Yes, roof rats are actually good-looking for a rat.
I grew up in a Brooklyn apartment building. There were roaches. Didn’t matter how clean you were they got in. The main reason was your neighbor was either a complete slob or they wouldn’t open their door to let it be fumigated. So they would then leave your house and run to the neighbors. They never would get eradicated. They are disgusting vile creatures. They gross me out like nothing else. I rarely go out to eat as this seems this is happening too much for my liking. @ Giddyup You made me Lol about them crossing at the street lights.
That is too bad they have those roaches everywhere! I ask this question: If they were visible why in the world would one allow those filthy insects in their place of business? Especially since these inspections are a constant state of check and publish?
Roach flavored ice cream anyone??
Not defending the establishment at all, but there are a lot of misconceptions about the acquiring and removal of roaches.
I moved to a big city several years ago and had the unfortunate pleasure of having my apartment infested with roaches. What was to friends and family a clean and friendly apartment had roaches eating glue from boxes and envelopes, living in my television, and even eating each other.
I was lucky to move back in with a friend back in Claycord after escaping a pretty bad situation. We did move my belongings into the home until we fumigated the moving van and left the items outside for weeks. Everything that was brought in was hosed down or washed immediately.
5 years later my poor “clean freak” friend’s otherwise immaculately clean kitchen is still crawling with roaches and now I am working with them to pay for fumigating the entire house.
They don’t just follow filth. They will eat glue, they will live off of water and eating each other. They find a way.
Well…. on the bright side, rats & mice love to eat cockroaches.
The eatery was initially closed on Feb 25. It was reinspected the following day, Feb 26th, and once again ordered shut down due to vermin infestation. The 2/26 followup inspection report is not yet available on the county health dept. website.
Gross but you have to wonder if this place shares a common wall or border with another facility like Cinco De Mayo next door. I wonder why the health inspector didn’t pay a visit to them since it was in the best interest of the entire neighborhood. Reading some of the yelp reviews for Cinco tells me it’s could be on Gordon Ramsey’s show, Kitchen Nightmares.
The report states they had a visit from an Exterminator a couple of days before the inspection.
Hopefully, the owners of both places will do something about this.
I like how its on 1370 locust st,very ironic as locusts themselves are insects.
But that Locust street is named after the tree.
I was recently in the patio area of a Downtown Walnut Creek restaurant and saw mice running around. There was an outside faucet that was dripping water and behind it were dumpsters. Great living for them.
Joe’s Apartment
Some people swear by roaches and they are now legal. They are best when hand-rolled. Light up and enjoy. As roaches common at ice cream places you can enjoy a double or triple doobie with that double or triple scoop.
I cannot comprehend opening up a restaurant bill and seeing a cockroach jump out of it and run across the table. The place has to be badly infested for that to happen.
They are difficult to eradicate, but that’s no excuse for visible roaches all over the place. If the inspector saw a dozen or so, there’s probably another hundred or two hiding all over the place. Sounds like the management doesn’t really care anymore. Getting shut down ought to get their attention. I won’t be eating there, that’s for sure.
A hundred or two?? Make that a thousand or two.
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